Digitas Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Digitas

Pros – On the plus side, Digitas has some very intelligent people who are very good at what they do. So there's excellent opportunities to learn.

Cons – On the downside, I feel like the company has lost much of its flexibility since the Publicis acquisition. Inertia and bureaucracy has become a huge issue and source of discontent.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't rely on the "network" so much. The value is overstated, and in actuality the way the financial system is set up, "partners" act more more like sniping competitors.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Digitas

Pros – Good place to freelance, as the rate is decent and they are pretty flexible about coming and going if you have other projects.
Work and assignments are reasonable and can make good portfolio pieces.

Cons – Seemed very account management heavy with a lot of disconnects between the creative and delivery teams.
Some of the delivery team can be a little self-absorbed and condescending, especially to freelance staff.

Advice to Senior Management – I'd take a look at the delivery structure and balance out the creative vs account management staff. Some teams can get a lot more done with a lot less management structure.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Digitas

Pros – great exposure to global, blue chip, fortune 500 and 100 brands
can gain thorough and vast experience in the interactive realm
relatively cool atmosphere to work in

Cons – drastic loss in the creative spirit that once existed here
red tape and bureaucracy has signigicantly increased over the years
lots of ego, and expectations of group think
a great place for ass kissers and save asses
'creative process' has dropped the 'creative' and embraced the 'process'
work-life imbalance, expectation of 50+ hours minimum

Advice to Senior Management – lose the ego, lose the group think, encourage talent, encourage potential, shed the formalities

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Digitas

Pros – Great name, good reputation - experience at Digitas will definitely add to a resume if you are looking to stay in the industry.

Cons – In the company's changes in the past couple years, there seems to be a lot more red tape in getting recognized for good work and career advancement. It used to be that a person could tailor their time here to align with their career objectives, but now it's more of a day to day rut.

Advice to Senior Management – Employees need more freedom to explore their career and interests - there is a definite noticeable difference in the level of creativity and "cutting edge" ideas that are being churned out. Focus of the company is tending to shift towards "getting the job done" rather than producing cutting edge work...while getting the job done.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Digitas

Pros – Good Salary
People are friendly
Good name to have on resume

Cons – Totally top heavy - too much senior managment.
Hindered by process.

Advice to Senior Management – Streamline process and reduce the amount of hierarchy

Former Employee – worked at Digitas

Pros – Built a standing reputation. Digitas = great name to have on resume roster. The working process within agency walls is insightful and adds to experience from other agency/companies. Solid & smart alumni network! (which never stops growing.) Great 'new' HQ office in Boston.

Cons – longer than average agency hours. too much policy, process, talk versus sometimes just getting teams/groups to focus on task at hand vs chain of command. existing employees here like to pull rank and/or mention tenure at company no matter if junior or senior to new hire. this creates a bit of an unspoken division between the ole lifers and new hires. agency has been actively recruiting across departments for years to help support 'change' however seems to be only a matter of time before good people leave and everyone at digitas knows this. (turn-around is too frequent) agency does good work (god bless many creatives) but there's too much red tape & process for an agency. very corporate like atmosphere. really important to keep project teams motivated and focused on client work (why we are here and what we need to achieve) versus distracted from what's happening within their teams or across agency teams. internal politics often get in the way and work could be less dramatic/difficult/such an ordeal.... really need to loosen up. its not the only place in the world to do this sort of work well. must keep an attitude: Let's team up and just get it done. Feel good about work and work together. this is a culture that you must create within your team because it doesn't exist as part of the culture. focus on earning peoples trust but don't expect there's in return.

Advice to Senior Management – executive management is strong! but the senior management team could better enable teams to let their guard down and focus on more teamwork/trust... and good work will happen for clients. the tenured employees own the culture so i understand its hard to change. at the end of the day its about good work for our clients and ourselves and working in a healthy, productive environment. when good smart people decide to stay the culture will slowly start to improve for the better, inherently. (no more meetings about having less meetings. yes this happened and of course i thought it was a joke but it was not. meeting happened with a ppt no less)

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Digitas

Pros – Great work for designers, Big clients, Freedom
The focus is shifting towards a designer with great academics plus enuff experience rather than no academics and just experience (web-design on sideline attitude to a design centric mindset).

Cons – Compensation is below par..not good for competitive graduates

Advice to Senior Management – rethink compensation...otherwise it might not hold on to the best of the talent that is attracted because of quality of work.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Digitas

Pros – The location, people, and energy are all positives. Very smart and creative people

Cons – Poor work-life balance, extremely political, long hours

Advice to Senior Management – People's work should speak for itself. Priority should not be given to those who make it a point to " be their own cheerleader" at all times

Current Employee – been working at Digitas

Pros – There are a ton of brilliant people at Digitas - and as an intellectual snob, I find that incredibly important and stimulating.

We have some amazing accounts and people with even more amazing ideas for how to market them.

For an agency, the hours are relatively reasonable.

Cons – People don't always use their intelligence to further the work. Marketing people in particular can get lazy about pushing the clients to accept things outside their comfort level. Considering that we have an incredible strategy and analytics department that can (and does) show proven results for more envelope-pushing creative work, you'd think the marketing people would be willing to fight for great creative.

Although teams generally get along well and like each other personally, there's absolutely a combative relationship between marketing and creative, and creative almost always loses - mainly because we don't own the relationship with the clients and don't get many opportunities to plead our cases to them.

Promotions are done in an obscenely bureaucratic manner, which rarely rewards the people most deserving. People get stuck in a position and a payscale that hardly befits their skills, experience, and talent and can languish there for years.

Digitas calls itself an agency, but it feels like an accounting firm when you walk around the office. There's nothing creative about our space, and there's no frenetic energy of great ideas being tossed around.

With all the brilliant people working here, you'd think we'd be winning more awards and creating better work. The only reasons we aren't doing those things are that our clients are afraid and our marketing teams don't fight for the break-through ideas creatives come up with.

Advice to Senior Management – Recognize that the creative output is your product. It's what our consumers see, what convinces them (or doesn't) to buy our clients' products. Currently, we're not a creative agency, and we're wasting the amazing talents of everyone in our creative department. The longer we wait to allow brilliant, scary ideas to flourish, the more likely it is that the skills of the creative department will diminish from disuse, and attrition will continue.

Current Employee – been working at Digitas

Pros – The Detroit office used to be the most talented agency in the area. There are still a number of talented, high-caliber individuals in this office. The demands of supporting GM brings a very challenging environment.

Cons – Lack of professionalism is being perpetuated by middle management. In a very competitive environment, there is a continuing downward slide in integrity and trustworthiness. Also, in an effort to keep up with client demands for staffing, Digitas has diluted the talent pool over the last couple of years.

Advice to Senior Management – Focus more on efforts to keep senior-level talent other than scare tactics. Integrity still counts, even in tough times. Putting client needs above protecting agency reputation (done so through questionable means) goes a long way in building and maintaining trust.