Animalz Content Marketing Manager Reviews

Cons

Everyone works remotely so of course, you rarely if ever meet anyone in-person. They do what they can with Slack "Watercooler" meetings, but you can't replace the real in-person meetings. Nothing you can do about this really. Just stay as visible as you can.

Cons

Sadly, that creativity will remain stifled and discouraged by Walter & Team (the Sacra/Animalz leaders) who berate and confuse your creative team. They'll also shuffle your creatives around so you need to retrain and reiterate, wasting everyone's time. Animalz wasn't always like this. In fact, for years, leadership vetted, hired, and carefully developed the very best marketing brains in the world. We confidently charged a premium for undeniable quality products that overachieved on strategic, documented goals. Hopeful clients hung out on a waitlist together, eyeing the day we'd do our thing for them. Today, marketing gurus talk about applying and being turned DOWN for a job at Animalz, because a new quality standard had been set. Today, though, you can expect the opposite: confusion, fear, and flimsy, see-through claims that can't be fulfilled. The Sacra/Animalz group is in a scramble to salvage its reputation after firing its best asset and moving to a freelance model where they offer contributors less than half the compensation they once earned as dedicated resources. Now they're turning to generalist "writers" (yikes) and assigning them YOUR work without a thought to that quality you're paying for.

Cons

It's an agency and it's client services. That makes it hard work and sometimes emotionally draining.

Cons

Literally everything else was abysmal. This agency is so mismanaged it won’t exist in 2024. Let me sum up their ineptitude with a simple example: When they unceremoniously moved the majority of their writers to freelance status and laid off 6 people, they broke their internal tools. How? One of the terminated employees was an admin. They’re now running this agency with a series of spreadsheets, which they are keeping track of with… another spreadsheet. And that’s just the latest hilarious example of their poor planning and inability to accomplish even the most simple business functions.

Cons

Lots of work Lots of work

Cons

* Leadership. Every single issue with this company comes back to the people at the top. They have no idea what they're doing and resent anyone who does. This group couldn't string a sentence together or put a plan in place if their lives depended on it. They reorganize the company every few months without ever thinking it through. The employees they choose to promote are often so far out of their depth, they rely on direct reports to teach them the basics of their jobs. When employees try to develop efficient processes, certain people at the top refuse to implement them in favor of some new half-baked idea leadership just came up with the day before. Meanwhile, the CEO is known for yelling at employees and saying, "THE BUSINESS IS NOT TANKING" despite the fact that the business is clearly doing precisely that under her expert guidance. This week she laid off 35 employees—19 of them were laid off on a group call that was so cold, you'd think it was a sketch about heartless CEOs. In the call, she refused to use the word "lay off" even though that's exactly what it was. She didn't even admit she was canceling everyone's health insurance within 48 hours until someone asked outright. Then she ended the call abruptly and I heard she immediately jetted off to Paris for a nice vacation. The 13 or so employees left now have to scramble to run this shitshow of a company while 35 people are suddenly without any income to feed their kids or health care to keep them alive. The combination of ineptitude and cruelty that seems to drive leadership is honestly baffling. Netflix should do a documentary on this madness.

Cons

Should've seen the red flags when it was announced at an all-hands meeting more than once to "ignore the 1 or 2 bad Glassdoor reviews" that were specific to a "disgruntled employee." When I read these "bad" reviews, something resonated with me, but I brushed it aside. Now, I know. Now, all of us who were laid off May 30 (the bulk of the company) know. Important to note that we were all laid off with no notice over a GROUP Zoom call, healthcare coverage was immediately stripped away, we were offered no severance, and were unceremoniously kicked out of our company Slack, email, etc. mid-call. Not to mention leadership expressed zero emotion during the call. The three people running the show currently are not only incompetent and lacking a base level of industry knowledge, but they also seem to oppose every initiative that would make the lives of writers and editors easier WHILE benefitting customers more. Truly bizarre, but hey, do you! The company underwent a major reorganization in early 2023 that we have compared to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. None of the root issues were addressed despite them collecting feedback directly from those of us in the trenches. Some things were just shifted around and didn't really make anything better, easier, etc. But, most of us trudged along because we love what we do and we care about quality. That's not a sentiment shared with leadership, however. It's all about quantity over quality, hence most of the editing staff and the entire quality department got the axe a while ago. They make you meet a certain workload every month for articles that are lengthy and require a lot of research, and on top of that, you have to do ideation and reporting, but those and similar actions aren't always part of the credit system, so you're just supposed to have unlimited time. Oh, and then there's the condescending GASLIGHTING. Several of us were put on performance improvement plans after having one "bad" month (often due to client delays and lack of available articles, but of course, the blame was entirely on the writers). We had the threat of losing our careers dangled over us with no grace or understanding. But when there was a good month? Oh, that was a fluke.

Cons

Where to even start? The company felt like a thinly disguised content farm masquerading as a top-tier global agency. On a day-to-day basis, writers were so overworked that "burn out" doesn't even begin to cover it. We were all given ridiculously ambitious workloads that included articles, content ideation, reporting, and managing customer comms. The company used to have an entire department dedicated to quality, but that was axed and writers were left to their own devices. As others have mentioned, Grammarly and AI are no substitutes for actual editing and copyediting support. There was no people-first approach to anything, despite what their old marketing would suggest. Those in charge had no background or experience to actually lead — and as things started to go south, that became very apparent. Anyone who dared to bring up valid problems with the company were systematically pushed out. I was there multiple years and watched talented, incredible people get squashed and forced out by higher ups with massive egos and insecurities. Then, on May 30, most of the staff was laid off. The coldness of it all was truly disgusting. No severance, no health insurance extension, no support whatsoever (again, despite the outward-facing messaging they've crafted). In the middle of the call, everyone was kicked off Slack and email.

Cons

Now, for the cons. Strap in, kids. It's gonna be a bumpy ride. Believe it or not, I used to have a very positive review of this place on here. But I deleted it. Animalz used to be a great place to work. Until the current leadership mismanaged everything so badly that even a dumpster fire wouldn't want to go near this place. We used to provide clients with work that passed through an editor and a copyeditor. Content is (or should be) a team sport. But after they unceremoniously laid off some beloved editors and an amazing copyeditor, that system changed. Some content managers were told that instead of getting their work copy edited by an actual PERSON, they would instead be running it through Grammarly. Call me old-school, but Grammarly is certainly no substitute for a human being. It can't tell you that an H2 should be in sentence case because that's what the client's style guide said. A copyeditor can, though. Content quality started slipping because writers were overwhelmed with the work they were doing, the ideation they were doing, and more. And Animalz runs on a credit system. Every 1,000 words = a credit. If a writer didn't reach a certain credit threshold every month, they were chastised and sometimes put on an improvement plan (even if it happened due to things out of their control like slow client approval). Those credits did NOT count toward ideation, strategy, reporting, or any of the extra work writers were doing. We were all overwhelmed and underpaid--and forget about a raise. Those were frozen due to the company's financial issues. When they finally did give us a cost-of-living adjustment, it was a mere pittance. Then there's the mental health aspect of it all. First, we were overwhelmed and burned out. Second, many of us were constantly told that we were not good writers, that our quality wasn't meeting standards---but no one would tell us WHY. We were being gaslit. Now I know for a fact that I'm a good writer, but this treatment gave me hardcore imposter syndrome. But despite all of this, we were all still working as hard as we could to produce pieces for our clients because we take pride in what we do! Fast forward to May 30, 2023. Animalz leadership calls people into a Zoom meeting to tell them that after May 31, they will no longer be full-time writers, they will lose all benefits, but that they'll extend an oh-so gracious offer to us to freelance for them. (Insert me rolling my eyes here.) We got no severance pay. No warning. It was an absolutely horrible way to treat people who worked incredibly hard to try and keep Animalz afloat during a time when tech companies (their clients) were struggling and cutting marketing budgets. They also laid off several others, including many international employees and customer service staff. When I first started, Animalz had over 100 employees. I think there are like 13 or so left now. My advice? Stay away. It's likely this place won't even be in business in a few months. And that's honestly sad to say because I used to absolutely love it there.

Cons

Pretty much everything else. Leadership loves to set people up to fail and then blame you for it. They will gaslight you from here to eternity about how it’s your fault even when it’s not. Example: because clients are so slow to approve briefs, they would run out of assignments frequently. You would still get in trouble for not hitting your productivity quota even if there were no assignments available. Leadership also had no idea how much time it truly took to write great content to their high standards and would demand we do more, faster. Then when we’d attempt to do that they’d get involved in the editing process, sometimes making us start over even on the day pieces were due — that does not help the faster part. You can have fast or good, not both! Learn how to balance quality with work pacing and deadlines! After they laid off most of the writers they assumed we’d be happy to take them up on their offer to freelance. (Ha! No. Absolutely not. 100% no.) They’re so short staffed now that quality is going to drop and customers will probably leave in droves. Why pay middle men to hire a freelancer when you can work directly with a freelancer for less? It makes zero sense. Clients came to Animalz so they could get a dedicated writer who’s familiar with their brand, their product, and their voice. Why would they stick around for unpredictable freelance results? Hopefully those left are trying to get out because I can’t imagine the company will last much longer. The company is TANKING. Oh — I never read any Glassdoor reviews while I worked there, even when they told us to ignore the Glassdoor reviews. Tried to keep my head down and be a good little worker bee all while feeling like I was the only one struggling. When I finally saw what other people said here I was shocked that it wasn’t just me. They truly excelled at gaslighting and making you feel like you were alone and couldn’t trust anyone else. It’s pretty sick, honestly.