With the abundant doom-and-gloom forecast for the advertising business, perhaps “they” look only at the big shops. What about the small and medium shops? Marc Brownstein describes how big-time marketeers reconsidering their spend are moving dollars to smaller shops.
Hire the best talent. … Bring in the best talent out there, and make sure they are a cultural fit. You don’t want them bringing any bad habits from the big shops with them.
Why? Why are big advertisers looking for smaller, independent shops to partner? Why is Frito-Lay heading off from parent company PepsiCo’s holding company Omnicom for indepedent Strawberry Frog? According to Mr. Brownstein, smaller shops “are more nimble,” and “can attract better talent these days” since they “don’t have cultures that are tied to Wall Street’s quarterly demands.”
We agree. That’s People Power. Office space, computers, desks, dogs, video game consoles, coffee, beer … they’re all for not if you don’t have the right people in place. Smaller agencies need recruiting strategy more than any to attract folks away from the big shops’ gravitational pull. They need to define differentiators that will constitute their positioning that matters to the people they want to attract. Do you have what good people want? Are you a desirable employer agency? Consider these top considerations of candidates:
- Kind of work
- Quality of life
- Leadership
What is your agency’s profile? How well articulated is your profile? How is your profile reaching prospective candidates? How well are new hires’ expectations satisfied six months after they start? A year later?
From Forbes.com. This says it all, and not just for MS: