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Special
Media Issue
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Face
it: no one's willing to work for ad agencies anymore
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Biju
Joseph Dominic
Senior Brand Services Director, Lowe Lintas & Partners,
Mumbai.. |
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No
industry can survive if its raw material is in short supply.
The raw material of any knowledge-based industry is the
people working in that organisation. While the late entrants
to the knowledge industry like financial services and
software industries have been able to attract very good
talent, why is it that the advertising industry, one of
the veterans of the knowledge industry, has of late been
finding it difficult to attract good talent?Give 15 per
cent commission the boot There is no incentive for advertising
agencies to employ very good talent. The 15 per cent commission
system — the reward system that is adopted by the advertising
industry around the world — is the culprit for this situation. |
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The 15 per
cent commission system is a reward system that is based
on the quantity of the work done and not the quality.
In this system, there is no incentive to produce superlative
creative that works and needs lesser media exposure
— and thus no incentive for the agencies to employ superlative
employees who will produce superlative work. No advertising
agency with the right business sense would consistently
produce commercials like the ‘1984’ commercial of Apple
computers, which needed to aired onlyonce. So going
by business sense alone, it is advantageous for the
advertising agency to employ talent that is just good
enough to produce acceptable levels of output. Little
wonder, therefore, that there is no incentive for advertising
agencies to enter the salary race in the job market
to attract good talent.
In certain developing countries like the US, a trend
is already in place where the 15 per cent commission
is giving way to other reward systems — reward systems
that take into consideration the quality of the work
done by the advertising agency. With these new systems
gaining more prevalence, it will become mandatory for
advertising agencies to attract very good talent even
at a high cost.
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Build
‘knowledge laboratories’
In the past,
one could walk into an advertising agency to become an
expert in communication. But today advertising agencies
are no more universities to learn the latest developments
in the field of communication. The stagnating knowledge
base of the industry is responsible for this situation.There
have been very few paradigm shifts in the knowledge base
of the advertising industry. |
The last big
paradigm shift in advertising happened in the ’70s with
the introduction of ‘psychographics’ and before that the
concept of ‘USP’ in the ’50s. The advertising industry
is probably one of the very few industries where, with
a 30-year-old knowledge base, you can still be considered
an expert. (Contrast this with an industry like software,
where even a two-year-old knowledge base is considered
outdated.) Due to this static nature of the knowledge
base, the advertising industry has lost its importance
to more specialist services like management consultancies,
design houses or media outfits. This, in turn, has led
to good talent going in search of these specialist outfits
where the excitement of learning new things and making
innovative contributions to the client’s business is very
high.
If advertising
agencies have to establish themselves as universities
of learning on communication, they should develop ‘knowledge
laboratories’, the equivalent of an R&D department, where
research and discussion on, and practice of, all aspects
of communication take place. The ‘knowledge laboratories’
could focus, for instance, on how blind persons interpret
the audio stimulus, so as to create better radio commercials,
or on the communication strategy of traditional Indian
art forms and their impact on commercial communication.
There have been tremendous developments in the field of
neurology, more so in the field of neuro-linguistic programming,
which has a lot of implications on developing better advertisements.
This constant
infusion of new knowledge will help advertising professionals
to create an inequality of knowledge between them and
the other professionals around them. This knowledge inequality
will help to change the existing attitude that advertising
is a job that anybody and everybody can do and one that
doesn’t need much expertise. Advertising will be seen
as a specialist science. This, in turn, will dramatically
improve the status of an advertising career in the job
market. |
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Let
fresh talent bloom
One of
the biggest complaints that fresh talents have about the
advertising industry is the job content at the entry level.
Today, the job profile of a newcomer for the first two
to three years of his job is to take care of the operations
of the brand. While it is extremely important to give
training to all trainees on the operational aspects of
creating an advertisement, to make the trainee do this
job for another two to three years is a huge waste of
her talents. |
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If
advertising agencies have to establish themselves as
universities of learning on communication, they should
develop ‘knowledge laboratories’, the equivalent of
an R&D department, where research and discussion on,
and practice of, all aspects of communication take place.
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More
so when her batchmates at the institute are doing far
more meaty jobs like leading a sales team or being part
— even if it is junior — of a team working on the merger
plans of a big corporation.
There is a need to create a new layer consisting of employees
with lesser educational qualifications to take care of
only the operations of the brand so that the more qualified
new recruits learn the operations during their training
period, and after the training period supervise these
operations along with being involved in brand management
jobs. This system will alleviate the problems of the existing
system where young, intelligent kids from good management
institutes have to act as glorified courier boys, and
never get to use their brain power until they reach the
middle management of an agency.
Give more teeth to seniors
The middle management
team too has its problems. Today, the job profile of a
middle management person does not change until he becomes
really senior enough to look after a branch office. So,
while job designation changes and one moves from middle
to senior management, the job content remains the same.
This is not a healthy trend at all. One way to improve
the job content of the senior level is to make each of
the brands seniors handle an independent profit center.
So if the advertising budget of a brand is Rs. 2 crore,
the account director on the brand assumes the responsibility
of the CEO of a company with sales of Rs. 2 crore. He
is given the responsibility to manage the expenses, collections
and cash flow and is ultimately held responsible for the
profits on the account.
Treat employees with care
The advertising
industry, with its long working hours, numerous teams,
processes and tight deadlines, has undoubtedly one of
the most stressful atmospheres among all industries. There
is no doubt that these high levels of stress can adversely
affect any employee, more so his personal life. Due to
either, the employees will leave this stress- filled atmosphere
after a few years for better pastures — or those staying
back will be so drained that their productivity will decline
at an alarming rate. So it is imperative that the advertising
industry develops good enough HRD policies to make the
life of the employee more comfortable not only in the
office but also at home. But sadly, the HRD practices
in most advertising agencies are primitive in comparison
to HRD practices in other service industries like software
and financial services.
All the leading
advertising agencies are part of a global network. This
global network can be used effectively to attract and
retain good talent. It will be a big incentive for any
employee if he gets opportunities to work on foreign assignments.
However, today foreign assignments in the advertising
industry, unlike its counterparts in the financial services
or software industries, are the exception rather than
the rule. Even the exceptions happen only at the senior
levels.
The advertising industry has been slowly but steadily
losing good talent. Adding to the problem is the fact
that the industry has not been able to replace the good
talent with equally good talent. The time has come for
the advertising industry to realise that it has no alternative
but to take immediate steps to make the industry attractive
to good talent. Else, there will be notices outside advertising
agencies proclaiming ‘Trespassers will be hired’. .
(The views
expressed here are the writer’s) |
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