Digitas Reviews in Philadelphia, PA Area

Pros

The benefits of having a French parent company are unbeatable.

Cons

The political atmosphere is just exhausting—almost unmanageable.

Pros

- flexible hours
- good benefits
- free soda & coffee

Cons

- sweatshop mentality = quality of work suffers
- lack of direct management; can go a week without speaking with my boss

Advice to Senior Management

- re-evaluate the GDP plan as a means to gaining a promotion

Pros

A large company, looks good on the resume.

Cons

If you are not marketing or at a Director or VP level you have to fight very hard to get a laptop.
I was dissapointed with the pay, I was making the same at a much smaller agency and had less responsibility.

Advice to Senior Management

We are a digital agency, not having laptops for a majority of your workers is ridiclous. Having a laptop would lead to me being much more efficient.

Pros

Nice Center City location; free workout/gym membership; a lot of attractive people working alongside you; community service day supported by management

Cons

Bad behavior not only tolerated, but upheld (seems to be a surefire way to get promoted); cubes (or worse) for just about everyone; no career path; compensation not competitive in the market; executive/senior management completely inaccessible (never met the EVP in charge of my area in nearly 2 years); without a question, the most layers of any company I've ever worked for.

Advice to Senior Management

Get out of your ivory tower and practice a little MBWA. Quit allowing the "teacher's pet" to run roughshod over decent people and departments. Recognize that DH is not "all that" and needs to offer a realistic compensation package (with raises and bonuses) in order to attract quality candidates. There is a reason there is a revolving door there.

Pros

Great flexibility, tons of opportunities for learning and networking in the advertising industry, as well as others. The people are talented, intelligent, helpful and kind. Beer Friday - senior management attend and they're very accessible. Great opportunities for travel, depending on your position. Large network because of being part of the Publicis family, and a very respected name in the industry.

Cons

It can be very clique-y. It's definitely tough to get to know people, and I'm a very outgoing person. It's hard to get to know people who aren't on your team or within your capability. However, once you're in, you're in - and that's great. It just takes some time.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure that entry-level and middle-management feel encouraged to work hard and continue to succeed. Continue to

Pros

Smart people, engaging projects, part of a big network. Good benefits and great work environment. Bottomline: Truly an agency for the digital age

Cons

Pay scale compared to industry is an area of concern.
Possibility of growth depends upon location, network within company. A standardized approach would be nicer...which is in place but like any agency difficult to execute

Advice to Senior Management

More fluid career change possibilities between offices, and Publicis Groupe companies globally would be a great benefit. Good thing is management has already identified this as an initiative for 2010.

A way to identify mid-manager with leadership talent and a process to groom them for bigger responsibilities needs to be established.

Pros

What do I like.... I've learned a TON about analytic and having Analytics on my resume has already gotten me several phone interviews.

Digitas is also a HUGE internationally known agency under the Publicis group. This alone will stand out on your resume and help you in the door at other companies.

Cons

Most everything else.

I interviewed for a position in Strategy and Analysis, and was lead to believe that I would actually be working on digital strategy for our clients. I was told that I would be part of a cross-functional team made up of media, marketing, creative, user experience and analysts. I was told that the analyst was looked at as an expert and that I would be expected to propose strategy based on what I was seeing in the site and marketing analytics. Read the job description.

When I started I found that this was NOT the case at all. I pull reports all day long. That's it. It's very rare that I'm part of this 'cross-functional' team I was told so much about, and S&A is certaintly not looked at as an expert. We're asked for numbers and results without understanding the goals or objectives of the campaign and/or site project, and in fact it's rare that our clients and internal teams actually have any goals or objectives. The limited exposure I've had to the marketing team (who is supposed to own and manage the client relationship) has been piss-poor. They seem to be simply order-takers who get requirements from clients and pass them along. They don't ask the hard questions or make sure deliverables that come from my team actually match up with what the client has asked for, making me look like an ass when I spend 40 + hours and deliver a report that wasn't what they asked for at all.

On top of that, Digitas is very siloed and political. Departments don't share information, and groups within department don't either. Middle management varies WIDELY from each other. Within the same dept, directors have very different skill sets and experiences. Now, I see the value in a variety of people and background, but everyone who has a 'director' title should be of director caliber, and that is what I take issue with. Upper management might as well not exist. I have no idea what they do. What they don't do is manage their directors, which is a huge part of the problem.

There's also no communication. Most people are dedicated to one or two clients, so I don't understand why there aren't regular client team meetings so everyone knows what's going on. Instead, we all have no idea what other people on the same client is doing. I ran in to a girl on my client team in the elevator the other day, and she happened to mention something about our client that s&a absolutely should have been involved with, but was left completely out. I wish I could say that's unusual, but it's not.

Advice to Senior Management

Dramatically improve communication among employees, teams and departments.
Provide more structure and guidance from upper management to middle management.
Push clients to develop clear goals and objectives.

Pros

Energetic atmosphere, plenty of bright people, pipeline of exciting opportunities to work on. Good industry reputation in specialized healthcare field with true competitive separation. Great opportunity to learn a lot in a specific industry. Good place to start a career, or to gain a lot of experience in a lower level management role. Respectable notch on any resume.

Cons

Weak senior leadership across all departments. Lots of figureheads that have stopped adding value in their current role, and created a stagnant environment. Political games are prevalent among mid-senior level management, and employees advancement is often based on factors other than talent or contribution to bottom line (i.e. personal relationships). Poor management training by example.

Advice to Senior Management

Find a way for talent to be rewarded without "large company" constraints setting unnecessary setbacks and timelines for employee growth. Get organized and catch up to our own growth before chasing the next big thing, otherwise we'll find ourselves right back where we started, unable to sustain as a large agency. Audit performance and contribution and clean house!!!

Pros

- Free beverages (soda, juice, etc.)
- Good salary (in relation to location and industry)
- Big name agency and clients

Cons

- Fickle! Fickle! Fickle! No loyalty. Have seen employees discharged for petty offenses or because they were "disliked" by management.
- Expected to work long hours and weekends
- A "Yes" agency. Constantly saw upper level management agree to every client request even if totally against strategy.
- Employees not promoted or given raises

Advice to Senior Management

- Hire smarter. Because of growth, employees are simply hired as bodies to bill hours. No real thought goes into hires other than "we need to spend this budget, so we need to hire".

Pros

The people working in Philadelphia were wonderful, happy, pleasant and hard working. Digitas Health was committed to creating strong professional and personal relationships among its employees which meant a lot of parties and fun! That atmosphere made the occasional late nights easier to take.

Cons

Many top level management employees were figure heads from previous buy out companies not within the web industry and therefore lacked the technical understanding necessary to manage and produce innovative work.

Advice to Senior Management

Digitas should not tolerate upper management's insecurities born from technical ignorance overshadow the voices of those they manage. The people in the trenches who have the knowledge to elevate Digitas should have a voice in future and current account management decisions or risk the consequence of losing those unheard employees moving on to competing agencies.