R/GA Reviews

Pros

Fast pace; interesting clients; mostly smart co-workers; entrepreneurial atmosphere; great coffee bar; humor appreciated; great team work; good place to learn a lot fast

Cons

Long hours; often a lack of clear direction from the top; inadequate number of staff often assigned to gargantuan tasks

Advice to Senior Management

Find people for the top spots that actually have experience running a company of this size. Actually walk the office and come see us sometimes; try to know your employees.

Pros

Opportunities for career advancement & growth.
Learn about digital advertising at its best.
People are pretty knowledgeable in their respective disciplines.

Cons

Digital advertising isn't always cool. Lots of banner ads and email templates.
Every team is completely different. So moving from one to another is sometimes a culture shock.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep it up.

Pros

A good place to do groundbreaking digital work with a lot of reach

Cons

Feels like a sweatshop sometimes

Advice to Senior Management

Take better care of employees, retain key talent. Also, focus on either preserving the old culture or creating a new one - the limbo created by the unprecedented growth is numbing.

Pros

R/GA provides a chance to work with super talented people and world class clients. They are innovative and emphasize quality of work

Cons

the hours can be long, and many of the clients are frustrating. since r/ga is a great reputation, clients can expect a lot.

Advice to Senior Management

provide more feedback to employees. manage expectations of clients better and push back when necessary. monitor morale. and fix phones.

Pros

Smart people. Great work environment. Innovative work.

Cons

Highly politicized environment, very hard working.

Advice to Senior Management

none.

Pros

Exceptionally bright coworkers, great clients

Cons

It's a large agency, not extremely collaborative

Pros

work with really talented folks

Cons

only get to work on one account at a time

Advice to Senior Management

wish i had more mentoring

Pros

Lets start with the reasons stated above: it has a fabulous pool of talent: you find people who are just great at thinking, conceiving, and making: simultaneously. And people are very good at understanding what the other person brings to the table. Unlike other agencies where the loudest person gets ahead, R/GA is setup in such a way that the wisest and the most talented have the ability to steer the conversation. To the major extent, I would say that this level of openness and collaboration is inspired by the people at the helm: BG, N-Law, and the leads of the range of disciplines.

We have some of the best clients the industry has to offer!

The work is consistently good.

It keeps attracting great talent.

There is a warmth to the agency that you dont find at other places.

People are happy, and that says a lot.

Every project is approached like a "start-up".

Cons

Time is a really really precious commodity at R/GA.
Because of the sudden and unexpected growth, the agency culture is taking a bit of a beating.

Advice to Senior Management

Give people the freedom to create outside the boundaries of business.

Pros

Great reputation when you go to other places
Some very cool brands have been there
coffee bar
pockets of very talented people

Cons

if you don't kiss the right asses you won't get promoted
poor management structure - its easy to get lost
questionable rise to power of some people

Advice to Senior Management

People need small management groups to have someone responsible for their career development and to be their champion in a large and unruly company atmosphere.

Pros

- really good at rewarding hard/persistent workers
- good mentoring system
- the people are really smart, talented, awesome, and well-rounded

Cons

- communication isn't always great
- there's a split between system/platform design and the advertising people
- there's a lot of talk but not always a lot of action
- not creatively driven - very production-led

Advice to Senior Management

celebrate creative. be less "responsible" and cautious about interesting concepts. less talk, more doing. address agency issues head-on and discuss them internally with everyone before they become bigger problems.