BFG Reviews

Current Employee – been working at BFG full-time for more than a year

Pros – Work on national brands while living the island life. People actually leave the office at 6pm. I try not to crank my car or wear shoes on the weekends, and it hasn't been hard. It's pretty amazing.

Cons – Not being in NYC means you do travel a bit more, but if you dig 'work-paid vacation' to see clients and whatnot as I do, you'll love it.

– I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at BFG full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Awesome people, culture, clients, creativitiy

Cons – Company policies, salaries, lack of employee respect

Advice to Senior Management – the owners should consider just how hard everyone works for their organization and share some of the same respect/dedication that is given to them.

Awesome company but share some of the love....

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at BFG part-time for more than a year

Pros – 1) TRULY social work (not in the sense of tech ‘social’ which refers to the networks which connect us intellectually but, drive us further away from real life interactions).

- Part-time work that can be fun. Field Agents are paid to frequent bars and talk to people (about a targeted subject); which, makes it great for anyone who enjoys interacting with scores of humans every shift.

- Forced socialization can be a good thing. I often have hermetic tendencies. Being scheduled for a shift where your primary purpose is to have positive interactions with other human beings can be just the thing to break you out of a self-imposed funk.

2) The company works hard to promote a 'hip' work environment.

-This includes having a 'lounge,' video games and large 'love sacks' in the office.

3) Flexible work schedule.

- At the time I started working for BFG, I was able to have a full-time day job as well. Toward the end of my tenure there, the flexibility decreased slightly but, was still much more flexible than almost any other part-time position.

4) Decent starting pay.

5) Mostly fun and young coworkers.

6) Dealing with drunk people.

- You hear some pretty incredible stories; some, you wish you could un-hear and some you want to write down, they are so clever.

- Socializing with drunk people, when you are not, can be more entertaining than you might imagine. This job gives you the pretense for doing so.

- Intoxicated individuals tend to have an inherent jealousy of what you are doing; which can inspire a temporary sense of pride or happiness with the occupation.

Cons – 1) Merging of the Hispanic and per-existing program.

After the Hispanic program and the per-existing program were merged together, substantial tensions between the groups existed. The workplace became markedly less enjoyable. There were a large number of contributing factors. As the program manager for the Hispanic side of the office took over, there seemed to be a blatant favoritism that existed in the office. Frequently, the other Field Agents (previously Hispanic-program) and Market/Program Mangers would speak in Spanish to avoid being understood by the primarily mono-lingual English speaking (previously separate) group of Field Agents. There was a much more regimented, suspicious and markedly less ‘fun’ work environment, after the change. Most of the perks of working for the company had been severely restricted or abolished after the two programs merged; for that reason, I left a few months after they did.

2) Flexibility decreased over time.

-Mid-week, previously optional, meetings became mandatory (which makes it difficult for people with a second day job).

3) Really part time.

- Not enough hours to justify having ONLY that job.

2) Dealing with drunk people.

- All of the same sort of drawbacks, concerning clientele, as you might expect of a bartending job (occasional sexual harassment, belligerence, etc.).

- Promoting items seen in a negative light; which, often results in agitated consumer engagements in an atmosphere where alcohol use is the primary objective. In other words, sometimes you have to deal with angry drunk people.

Advice to Senior Management – Put a greater emphasis on the positive aspects of the job and the Field Agents will work harder to meet the goals. People work for the company because it is unorthodox and can be 'fun.' Human resource visits/audits to ensure the Field Agents are seeing eye to eye with management might be beneficial. I'm sure that the Field Agents would value their jobs and attempt to meet the required numbers with more of a personal conviction if there is not any animosity between the Managers and FAs. The more friendly/casual the environment, the better the moral, the better the results.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at BFG full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Flexible with personal time, fun culture. The people at BFG act like a family due to being in SC and many living in GA. The company is also well organized and when i was there was a lot of fun managing some very large scale events with big name cleints

Cons – The only con is that it is agency life so you have to work long hours somtimes, but that happens everywhere

Former Employee – worked at BFG part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Fun co-workers, high pay... that's about all I got as far as positives go.

Cons – No room for advancement, abusive work environment, no recognition of positive work, started with full time hours, until hours were systematically cut and limited until I was lucky to get 10-12 hours per week. Office would be shut down for weeks or month at a time with little or no warning -- you can NOT count on a reliable paycheck, and "job security" is an entirely foreign concept to them. Even if you actually perform your duties, you will be treated the same way as those who blatantly and completely ignore their duties, which happens with 95% of employees (getting drunk on the job is standard for most employees! Why was this not addressed more?) Spent three years going above-and-beyond the call of duty, was denied a promotion to the next level of position based on "lack of management experience", despite the exiting manager not even having a high school diploma. Furthermore, was ignored by superiors when inquiring how one could obtain management experience while staying with the company.

Advice to Senior Management – Treat your employees with respect rather than as a disposable commodity.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at BFG

Pros – Looks good on the resume and the extensive work is great experience for future opportunities

Cons – Little to no recognition. Urban awareness is very low. They give higher relevance to the non - urban brands.

Advice to Senior Management – Actively observe and listen to management employees. There is a rift in the make up there. Staff is pillageg of their brand associations, contacts, market knowledge and discriminated against.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at BFG

Pros – The corporate rules put in place by BFG and RJ Reynolds are solid.
Fun place to work (as manager) with lots of perks.
They provide your cell phone, parking pass (if necessary) and any other thing you need to do business. They fly you down to Tampa (or other cities) for training, feed you well, take you out to party, and have regular incentives (cash and gifts) that are very generous. HQ Management is very competent.

Cons – At the local market level (there is or was an office in every major city) most managers who have been there a long time are miserable. they all sell cartons of cigarettes. They all take kick backs from venues for giving out event contracts. They all let their field agents do whatever they want, especially the ones who cover their a$$es. They give these field agents hours that they didnt work for shutting down events for them (so they can go drink or do whatever). Happened EVERYWHERE. Its a joke amongst managers. I, as a manager who wasnt comfortable with any of that, and was verbal about it, was harassed and bullied.... REGULARLY. And certain members of HQ will take the backs of certain managers because theyre either friends with them, or dont want to get in trouble for having allowed these things to go on for so long.

Advice to Senior Management – Audit your offices more often. Do better background checks on managers. Dont hire people just because theyre "rockstars". Have a neutral party available for HR complaints.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at BFG

Pros – the amount of passion and commitment that you're required to have is actually met by upper management. Meaning, the only consolation to having your life taken over is that your bosses are all pwned as well.

Cons – oh wait, the pro was a con too? yep.

Advice to Senior Management – Get control of what your goals are, and learn to run a company like a company and not a mafia. That means not making personal threats, ms. head of the marketing branch....

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at BFG

Pros – Night time work available; nightlife work available, if you like hanging out in bars/clubs; geared towards 20-30 somethings; starting salary double minimum wage.

Cons – Wall between headquarters and ground level employees; no support from HQ of their lower level management; constant change of program policies - some of which border on insanity - and no consistency; ridiculous rules for receiving promotions and pay increases that are based on group performance rather than individual performance; though they work with a multitude of clients in various industries, they will not allow employees to move from one project to another if the employee gets burned out (you're stuck on the project they hire you on); unrealistic program goals which are designed to satisfy client but have no basis in a real world understanding of the environments in which the goals are to be met; lastly, tolerance of nasty, unprofessional behavior by some in HQ towards lower level employees, but harsh response to lower levels who dare to object to or respond to nasty behavior in kind.

Advice to Senior Management – Open channels of direct communication to HQ by lower level employees so it is a reality not just the fluff described in your employee manual; learn the full capabilities of your employee base and offer them the opportunity to expand their talents/skills and utilize them in various positions/projects - especially if they complain of "burn-out". This will lessen turn-over rate, and increase employee confidence in and loyalty to BFG. Support lower level management by designing realistic program goals, and by listening to lower level mgmt communication of real world execution feedback.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at BFG part-time for more than a year

Pros – Fun working environment. Fun activities for field agents. Great pay. Good opportunities to travel when offered.

Cons – Sometimes treated like a child, we are grown adults, yet we are not treated like so. No room for advancement, once a field agent or brand ambassador, that's it.. No benefits since we are part-time and have to stay so.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend