imc2 Reviews in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Area

Pros

Fun environment, full of energy and diversity. Promotes innovation and creativity; but limited to a narrow slice of the marketing world. Still, a solid experience.

Cons

Management hires when they need folks and fires (I mean laysoff) folks when they lose business. One year, they had well over 5 layoffs!!

Advice to Senior Management

20% of your staff is carrying the rest. Figure out what you really want and improve your reputation to attract good talent. Talent that you commit to keeping for 2+ years.

Pros

For the most part, everyone was friendly and it was an exciting and fun environment that seemed like it was going places...in the beginning...

Cons

There was very little to no management or direction. As an entry-level advertising professional, there was no mentorship and the person I directly reported to seemed like she was not even happy to be working there...which you can only imagine made the experience that much more intolerable. There was a very positive and energetic front, but employees could be found gossiping and bashing the company around every corner.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees, period.

Pros

Let me start by saying that I did not leave imc2 on my own accord. If it were up to me, I'd still be there. And I'd still be there because I loved working for Doug and Mark.

imc2 is a place that fosters an open dialogue between leadership and others. There is no feeling of grandeur from those in higher positions and instead they encourage everyone to share their thoughts and insights.

Sure, imc2 has a few incompetent people, and sure they deserve to get beat up for laying people off right before the holidays a couple of years back; but they are still led by people with great ability and good intent.

In my experience, those people who were let go were often times those people who were not cutting it. Some of those I worked with that were laid off or fired were either incapable, lazy or had bad attitudes. I can count only a few people who were none of those that were let go.

So imc2 is not perfect, but being gone from there has made me appreciate it even more. Sure they can improve, but believe me that they are trying. Doug will not sit back and allow the company to grow stale. He has some great people who do great work and he will continue to empower those people to help in the company success.

Cons

At the time when imc2 grew very rapidly and added a lot of people, they hired very carelessly. I would hope that if there is ever a need to grow so quickly again that they will be more judicious in who they hire. I'm sure the lesson was learned when most of those new hires were let subsequently let go.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep forging ahead. There are certainly some of those that are bitter. And there are certainly some of those that truly had a bad experience. Learn from those, but know that there are many good things about how the company is run and the work that is being done.

Pros

Emloyees are encouraged to learn and create new, innovative solutions. It's a fun place to work that promotes a feeling of family within the group. I like the way the company is differentiating itself in the marketplace, even if the idea is a little overly touchy feely.

Cons

It can be very hard to find the resources you need for a project. Too many people are involved in the review process, so it takes far too long to get anything done. Despite pretty consistent complaints from employees, very few changes have been made to address the concerns.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management needs to listen to employees. Hire people that you trust and empower them to make the decisions required by their role.

Pros

The employees - at least, the small section which actually produces work, are a group of highly-skilled, talented people.

Cons

By far the worst management at any agency I've been employed by. They refuse to address issues that have been going on since at least the beginning of my employment at the company in 2007. Their habit of promoting from within means that the company attracts people looking for a higher salary and position than they're qualified to receive and would never be considered for elsewhere, and the idea of "earning" a promotion typically means throwing those capable of quality work under the bus. These comments apply to both the Dallas and New York offices.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees. Appreciate those who have faith in the ability of their co-workers. Tell both upper and middle management to move out of the way so work can be accomplished more efficiently and without so many unnecessary - and, typically, undeserved - egos getting in the way.

Pros

Smart, creative people who care about what they do.

Cons

Lack of discipline. No understanding of basic project management principles.

Advice to Senior Management

Get a better understanding of what goes on with your project teams. Big corporate clients expect better than this.

Pros

Cool environment. Good hardworking people.

Cons

It's a battle to get the resources needed.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the indians more.

Pros

They have great offices and a relaxed atmosphere. The people are nice on a personal level. They are strongest in strategy.

Cons

Management has never worked at an agency so they lack the practical experience and are unwilling to learn. There is an arrogance to them. Poor leadership is the major issue along with regular lay-offs.

Advice to Senior Management

Take to heart many of the things you have been told in meetings, this could be a great place if you would let people help. You have been told what is wrong with the agency and you still don't understand that your product is creative, not strategy.

Pros

Has all of the bells and whistles of an agency or in this case, an office full of people trying to walk, talk, and act like and agency. You get to ride scooters to meetings, bring your dog to work, flexible out of office policy, pool table, Xbox 360. There is (well was) a nice roster of big brands that had the potential for really ground breaking work in the digital space.If you happen to know the right people and can get into the IMC2 version of "The Skulls" you are almost guaranteed a really inflated salary and bonuses to boot. Again, all of the trimmings you would find at most other agencies... but that's where the similarities stop.

Cons

95% of the leadership has ever set foot inside a real agency and that's at the core crux of the other issues.

Their "Business Dev" department/team while full of energy and enthusiasm are good at winning projects and accounts where no real creative thinking is required of them. Rather than sell potential clients on big ideas and big thinking that spans across all channels, they come back with pieces of business that only reinforce that they are more of a web dev chop shop that spits out the occasional mobile application with no real innovative features, or a new website redesign with a new database they integrated. They win business by promising the world then loose it 6 months to a year later by severely under-delivering.

The account service/client service/project management dept has way too much power and control. Granted in some instances this wouldn't be such a bad thing at times IF these people truly had a grasp of the industry. At the upper levels, the client and account service people are paid high salaries to keep the smoke and mirrors going that the business dev department started to win the business in the first place. This is done by making sure this part of the company is very "anglo" and looks like people that clients would want to play a round of golf with (or date if it's a female). On the lower level, project managers are merely people hired off the street that are good at taking client orders and delegating them out to web dev and crackpot creatives to fill. Picture a Taco Bell drive-thru but with an IMC2 sign out front.

Creatively if you just want to design websites and banner ads then this is the place for you. If you want to sit in a meeting that half the participants are account people and they give you creative direction then this is the place for you. If you want to sometimes take creative direction from other creatives over you that are only in that position because they have been there long enough to warrant a promotion by default then this is the place for you. A good number of creatives here are overpaid given the overall level of talent in the office. What I mean is the pay matches the title, but the title doesn't really match the person with the title. The walls are lined up with local Addy awards and other insignificant trinkets that would be irrelevant to any digital creative wanting to push the boundaries. If you think a local Addy award means you did some awesome work, then this is the place for you.

Advice to Senior Management

It's hard to offer advice to leadership when the leadership itself is at the core of the problem. The big dog running the entire "agency" should take a step back and truly bring in people that are experts in their fields. When I say this I don't mean person X with a Harvard degree with a background in some obscure techno analytical field that sounds really important on paper when talking to a client. At one time the place had some 15 VP's... some fortune 500 companies dont even have 15 VP's...Get back to basics. For the money they are paying some of these people in management you could get people that are twice as good that could steer the company down the right path in the areas of Client Service, Creative, and Technology but doing so would mean Doug would have to hire people who actually know more than him in certain areas and I don't think he's ready for that.

Bring in a top notch industry recognized Client Service and Creative person. Let them take a long hard look at all of the account people and creatives and let them remove whoever they feel needs to be let go. For those cases where the extreme isn't warranted, demote them down from the inflated position they have been allowed to do sub-par work in. Pretty much just sit back and let the real experts fix your company and understand it's ok to be humbled.

Pros

Fun environment, smart, talented people, opportunities to innovate

Cons

SLT not interested in doing things differently

Advice to Senior Management

Take time to understand the challenges of the people you manage, rather than just kissing up to the people you report to