r/advertising

The horror stories about OMG these days aren't exaggerated - they're actually worse than what people are saying. Working here feels like watching a train wreck in slow motion and the leadership has absolutely no clue what they're doing

Those of us who survived the recent cuts are drowning. Management slashed headcount without any real strategy for handling the workload, so now everyone's juggling twice as much for the same pay. There's zero direction from the top and each day brings fresh chaos

If anyone's considering a role here, please reconsider. The company is bleeding talent and it shows in every project we touch

Don't want to sound insensitive to folks who got let go - that was brutal too. But the aftermath for remaining staff has been a nightmare of impossible expectations and complete organizational dysfunction

idk if it’s just me but even when the content is decent, it doesn’t hit like it used to same effort, still posting consistently but barely any movement feels like it’s not just about content anymore, more about how people actually see things now

i even checked stuff like who people are following (used Followspy out of curiosity) and it kinda shows how attention is shifting behind the scenes still not sure what to do with that info tho anyone else feeling this lately or just me?

I am a filmmaker who makes commercials for small brands. I am a one man team, so I do everything everything from idea generation to production and post production. I’ve been at this since I graduated high school about 4 years ago, but the budgets I work with are really small and I’ve been stuck in the same place forever. I mainly work with starting streetwear brands. My question is how can I get in an agency? I read somewhere that a lot of agencies nowadays have in house production teams, and I feel like there’s some value I am able to bring because I wear multiple hats. My work isn’t anything insane but it’s decent enough I think.

not only is this job mentally and creatively draining, it’s also an elaborate social chess game filled with culture and people politics arguably more challenging than the work itself. whether it’s clients who can’t communicate, oversharing team members, personality clashes, underperforming team members, fake ass convos with clients, the never-ending pile of complex interpersonal dynamics sends my brain into a tizzy.

i know this isn‘t limited to the advertising sector, but the nature of agencies seems to really highlight these issues more so than others. some days, I’d really like to just do my work and get the fuck out but i have to give multiple rounds of feedback to my poor overworked creative teams or tell a client i agree with their dumb idea, and that’s not always fun.

anywho, happy monday friends. 🤍 hang in there

Hello! First I'm not looking for career advice or doing job search (yet), but more like an ELI5 post.

I'm a student who loves watching commercials and campaigns during free time (for example Wieden Kennedy, VIRTUE commercials) and want to know what kind of "people" or "specialties" are involved in creating these short, impactful videos.

I've googled and looked thru my school's curriculum and found the following tools/skills:
Maya, entire Adobe Creative Suite, rotoscoping, compositing, rigging, 3D modeling, Cinema 4D, Avid, Houdini, Blender, Nuke, color grading, cinematography. These are mostly VFX tools pulled from my courses.

Do advertising companies expect their employees to have these skillsets or do they hire outside freelancers and agencies?

Thank you!

I can't help but feeling the resources that used to be allocated to big, complex brand strategy are disappearing. In crappy economic times like these it all seems to be going to social and media (places with immediate ROI). Also, the dumbest, sleaziest people at every agency seem convinced AI can do the hard, rigorous brand work for them (which it can't).

Am I imagining this or am I just sensitive because I love brand strategy?

In Rory Sutherland’s 2026 predictions video. He posits the idea that Cannes Lions should be a trade show and agencies should create work first, then try flog it to brands.

As a mid-weight copywriter, my best work has been cut to ribbons by cautious PMs and clients. So this idea of creating great, big idea work first, free from restriction, and then trying to sell it to clients makes a lot of sense. My question is, could it be a viable agency model? How would it work?

Anyone here worked for them? Curious if it's worth making a move there. I've seen a lot of bad reviews on their Glassdoor, but heard decent things from peers there. Curious what the perception of the agency is in terms of a resume builder + any knowledge of the work life balance, layoffs, etc.

I'm a 3rd year Advertising student and we're currently working on a budget plan for a hypothetical ad campaign for a local business of our choice. I have no experience in making budget plans for something as big as an ad campaign and was assigned P12,000 (about 197 usd) for the budget by my prof since the business owner that I interviewed didn't bother to give me their own desired amount when I asked. The owner made it clear that if they were to pay for an ad campaign, they would like to invest more in traditional media instead of digital ads like sponsored posts and such. So I decided on working with stuff like flyers, and posters and such. After calculating everything, I still have about 5 dollars left to spend and have no idea what to do with it.

What do industry professionals usually do when a small amount of money from an ad campaign budget is still left over? May I ask for any advice on how I can defend this part in my budget to my professor? :'D Thank you..

Worked on a couple TV campaigns lately for big CPG clients and its the same script every time. Pour millions into 30 second spots during the game or whatever, pat ourselves on the back for reach and awareness metrics that sound impressive until you ask what the actual sales lift was. Spoiler: crickets or some vague promise of future halo effects.

Meanwhile these brands act like direct response on TV is witchcraft. No QR codes that anyone scans, no promo offers you can track, just vibes and feelings. I get it, top of funnel has its place, but when CTV and YouTube are right there letting you retarget the hell out of people who actually saw the ad, why are we still pretending linear TV cant do performance too?

Is it just agency inertia? Clients too scared to kill the sacred cow? Or am I missing some genius reason big brands keep TV in awareness only purgatory while us mortals fight for every conversion pixel

"I’ve spent 7 years in the SEO and OOH space, and I’m seeing a weird trend. Performance marketers are obsessed with 'Attribution,' but they’re losing the 'Trust' game.

You can spend 10 Lakhs on Meta ads, and people will scroll past you like you’re a scam. But you put 10 Lakhs into a massive Unipole or a Cinema campaign in a Tier-2 city, and suddenly you’re a 'National Brand' in the eyes of the consumer.

My take on why OOH is winning the 'Psychology' war:

Un-skippable Reality: You can’t Ad-block a 40ft Billboard on your way to work.

The 'Bigger is Better' Bias: In India, if a brand is on a hoarding, it’s perceived as 'Successful.' Digital ads feel 'Cheap' unless you’re already a giant.

Search Lift: I’ve seen Direct and Branded organic search spike by 30-40% in specific pin-codes just because of a well-placed OOH campaign.

Question for the group: Are we over-measuring Digital and under-valuing the 'Physical Trust' of OOH? Or is the 'Topper’s Face' hoarding culture actually killing the medium’s creative potential?