Digitas Reviews in Boston, MA Area

Pros

Great people, good location, decent hours

Cons

So so pay, boring work

Advice to Senior Management

Don't treat people like numbers. Take the time to notice the hard-working employees which sometimes don't have the biggest mouths.

Pros

2 kegs on tap in the office
Lots of social functions
Good work resources and opportunities to take ownership
Fun and casual environment

Cons

Politics, egos and more egos. Typical advertising agency in this respect, but the competition between departments made things difficult to get done. Overall I thought the structure and work process was extremely inefficient.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure departments know their responsibilities and roles, and make sure it is consistent across accounts.

Pros

The pay is good, the team of peers overall is talented and fun to work with.

Cons

Projects are managed poorly. Interactive projects, which they are supposed to have a reputation for producing well, are not cutting edge or pushed to the level of creativity they could be. If you are 'in' it's a great place to be, they treat freelancers like dogs even if you knock one out of the park. They will lay you off with no notice but expect you to stay around as long as they need you.

Advice to Senior Management

Be able to see and keep talent when they show up and produce. Acknowledge talent when you see it and see what you can do to keep them around. You need better designers & programmers and less VPs and Marketing people.

Pros

The culture is really fantastic. Employees are really happy there. The company is in a really great place to grow and succeed in the next 5-10 years.

Cons

Because they have built their success on smart marketing, they are not known as a creative shop. However, there is serious opportunity for them to achieve new levels of creativity and I know that they are going after it.

Advice to Senior Management

I'd say just continue to seek creative opportunities to put Digitas on the map as a force to be reckoned with.

Pros

Digitas is a great place to work when starting out your career. You work on Fortune 100 clients and work on some interesting projects. If you pay attention, you can learn some pretty interesting things about the way the advertising world works. Digitas is also notorious for hiring/producing good talent, so it's a great stepping stone in your career.

Cons

Digitas offers a lot of parties and drinking events. This works great for bringing new talent and attracting people to the company. Unfortunately, after about 6 months you'll be so busy you'll never be able to take advantage of these benefits. When they put a freeze on promotions and pay raises, you'll question if they really needs bagel fridays and kegs of free beer. The turnover rate is really high, and the average employee doesn't last more than 2 years. However, upper management doesn't really seem to care and tend to label those who leave as "people that couldn't hack it". The reality is, it's extrememly hard to stay at Digitas even if you like your job, because of the burn out factor of working in such a high-stress/high hours environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your employees better, they might be more likely to stick around.

Pros

- Well respected digital house
- Great client list
- Opportunity to ride the social media/digital wave

Cons

- Limited creative chops, generally not at the center of any viral digital creative
- One of many Publicis pawns.
- Client don't often view digital agencies as their lead agency

Advice to Senior Management

While working at Digitas I often wondered if I still wanted to work in advertising. There is a sense that the way that Digitas approaches the work is going to become the norm for the world. It may be more focused on ROI and data driven results, but a lot of the fun and passion seems to have gone out of the game. If that is the way the world is going, then more power to Digitas for figuring it out first.

Agencies shouldn't feel like hip accounting firms.

Pros

Creative, young environment. A lot of fun and room to move around within the company.

Cons

Digitas is growing quickly, it is hard to keep up with the new hires.

Advice to Senior Management

No advice. Management was excellent.

Pros

benefits, flexible time, open culture

Cons

long working hours
less management support

Advice to Senior Management

support your lower level staff

Pros

Great benefits
Smart colleagues
Nice location to work - the office is pretty sweet in Boston

Cons

Senior management not connected to the work and evaluate junior staff on reputation and not merit.
The only way to get promoted is to kiss up to key senior leaders and then tell them (nicely) to promote you
Staffing is a joke - the staffing department in Boston doesn't understand how the agency makes money and therefore has limited abilities to staff correctly
There is way too much 'process'

Advice to Senior Management

Take a look around and see who is really doing the work, not just who is kissing your @ss

Pros

Digitas is filled with sociable, smart, hard-working people, the kind of people you'll learn a lot from and want to have a drink with after work. The client list is top notch, and the importance of learning digital can't be overstated for marketers going forward.

Cons

Compared with some other agencies, Digitas tends to put in longer hours. That said, a "long" week for me was rarely more than 60 hours.

Advice to Senior Management

The toughest thing you'll face is making sure Digitas maintains its entrepreneurial and experimental soul, even as the company becomes a bigger and bigger part of Publicis overall.