Digitas Reviews

Pros

If you're young, energetic, and enjoy playing equally hard as you will work then Digitas' culture will fit you well.

Cons

no room for work-life balance, loads of internal pressures from opposing departments, project resources globally scattered causing communication angst, upper management support or direction is nonexistent.

Advice to Senior Management

pay attention to your employees, listen (truly listen), and react.

Pros

Digitas is a very Marketing savvy company. Every discussion is a deep analysis. If you are not prepared to theorize every angle, this may not be a good fit. The evaluation process is intense, which is both good and bad. They really take it to a new level. Tough graders.

Cons

After being told Digitas supports work/life balance, this has not proven to be reality. There have been lots of late nights, even weekends. It may be specific to the account, but either way, it's far from ideal.

Advice to Senior Management

The leadership team should really prep people on what they are getting themselves into. They need to be honest and straightforward on the position to help the candidate determine if it will be a good fit.

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

Good reputation for hiring makes it easy to get recruited out of there. Account people are strategic marketers and understand digital far more than at other agencies. Technology capabilities are strong.

Cons

Little or no respect for the tiny percentage of employees who have families. Long hours (12 hour days are not unusual) and very little reward for employees who produce, unless you count thirsty Thursdays. Utilization of 200% is commonplace. Pay scale is about 25% below the market. To achieve this they hire very young, average age of the entire company is 31 (as reported by HR) ; very few employees last more than two years. Turnover across the board is extremely high. Yelling and nasty e-mails are ordinary and tolerated by senior management, very little support from immature managers. Unethical and nasty behavior is rewarded and as a result high level positions are held by people have clawed their way past their colleagues. In-fighting between functional departments is epic.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management is largely invisible and the extremely striated hierarchy makes it difficult to make a material impact beyond the account level. Hiring practices are questionable and ageism is rampant. There is no opportunity or incentive to drive growth of new business (outside of a tiny new business group) and as a result there are few new clients. Absolutely no on-boarding or communication of expectations upon hire.

Pros

Creative atmosphere, fun for young people just getting out of school, as there are lots of alcohol parties, pool table, ping pong, etc

Cons

Politically-driven company; backstabbing throughout company expecially by senior management

Advice to Senior Management

Pay careful attention to what your employees do, and value the ones who do it.

Pros

Give back to employee with parties and beer, brand swagger, nice resume builder.

Cons

Work life balance is poor, promotions given just because, poor leadership.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect your employees more, it will pay off.

Pros

Really nice people at the manager and below position. Very down to earth.
HR staff are really helpful and want you to get to your perfect position.
Strategy drives most of the business in the agency, so as a member of S&A you've got a lot of power.

Cons

At AD and above, the leadership wouldn't be very clear about promotions.
You're only on one client (GM) so if you want to work on other brands there' no opportunity.

Advice to Senior Management

Be as transparent as possible.

Pros

- good work environemt
- people are nice and respectful
- generous salary
- high profile clients
- great resume builder
-flexible schedule, working from home is a frequent occurance for many team members

Cons

- choppy training which makes it difficult to learn your role quickly
- upper level management is for the most part unavailable and you have to fend for yourself
- work long hours
-can be boring, not very exciting creative work

Advice to Senior Management

Be move available and listen to the people actually doing the work; give bonuses when deserved. Acknownledget the hard work your team is doing.

Pros

There are actually some very talented people that work here, seek them out and learn from them. The benefits package is solid, and the holiday schedule is unrivaled. Free bagels on Friday's don't hurt either.

Cons

Structurally, Digitas still operates as an account-led direct marketing agency. Since the majority of what's done here now is digital, getting even the simplest things produced is an absolute nightmare. Say goodbye to creative integrity and craft - its all about getting stuff out the door as fast as possible. This is also by far the most politicized work environment I have ever spent time in.

Advice to Senior Management

Restructure the departments to reflect the way the world has changed. Tedious? Sure. But not doing so will just cost you more in burned-out talent in the long run, and things don't seem sustainable as of now.

Pros

It's a great place to start off and get your feet wet. It's fun and gives a true flavor of what it's like to work at a real agency. People are fun and there's lots of activity going on throughout

Cons

Incompetence and beureaucracy result in a lot of lost accounts and positions are eliminated as a result. Few people stay for long. Leadership exoduses are common. Possesiveness of territory by Boston office makes informataion sharing difficult

Advice to Senior Management

Get all GM business away from Boston. Their self serving approach does nothing to service the clients and is divisive for the agency.