I Have been (partly) wrong
I have written the odd post decrying the current state of advertising. I have lamented what I considered to be slumps in its quality, financial offerings and ability to satisfy to the extent it used to.
But an article in this weekend’s Guardian Magazine has made me think that I could be aiming my blame in the wrong direction.
The above article explains that the demise of our industry is just one symptom of a bunch of wider problems that are fucking over the entire middle class:
The increasingly competitive nature of middle-class life and the decrease in job security; Margaret Thatcher’s opening up of the classic middle-class professions, such as university teaching, to market forces; the slow decline of the great state and corporate bureaucracies; the downgrading of middle managers by new business ideologies. These shifts, conclude Gunn and Bell, have left “few if any areas in which middle-class people work untouched”.
Stephen Overell, associate director of the Work Foundation, says that “In the middle-class workplace, employees’ autonomy and discretion have collapsed dramatically compared with 20 years ago. Software is standardising work. There are more procedures and guidelines, more surveillance. People at the top end are doing OK, but the rest feel that their working lives are getting worse.” Middle-class employment, you could say, is becoming more like that long endured by the working class.
Does that sound familiar? Added to that is an overall job insecurity, a requirement to work harder for less money and an inability to afford things that were readily available to people in similar jobs in the 90s.
I spoke to a freelancer recently whose day rate equated to the salary he received fifteen years ago. And of course, that salary would have bought far more in 1995.
So it’s not just advertising.
And although I was right, I was wrong to suggest it was our industry that was heading down the lav all on its own.
For those of you who agree that advertising is not what it once was, the alternatives are not much better.
Where is the real fun? Not in the same place as the real money.
Is this a long-term trend that is shunting the vast majority towards harder work and less pleasure/job satisfaction? Have too many industries with excess money been found out and made to tighten their belts in order to satisfy the principles of sequential capitalism?
Then again, what right do any of us have to a fun job with tons of cash?
Buddha says that life is dukkha (suffering, change and being dependent on other things).
I guess we’ve got to suck that one up too.
We’re all fucked… die accordingly
Good morning!
Nobody likes their job really. My dad has had the same job for almost 40 years and he hates it. You just get on with it. Just saw that Channel 5 has been bought, by one man, for a hundred and something mil. I can’t even comprehend having that much money in one place at one time, let alone it being so insignificant to my overall wealth that I could buy myself a little telly channel if I fancied it. I try not to lament what I haven’t got. It only make you unhappy. Things are the way they are and you just have to make the best of it. We are all going to die anyway, it is completely pointless worrying.
Good morning all.
Death and taxes are the only things certain in life. Well, death and tax avoidance for some. Those off shore loops holes really do need to be sorted out.
I won’t be holding my breath or it really will be death.
We’ve been brought up to “get a good job.” Why do we need it. Embrace poverty and be free.
That freelance may have a day rate that equates to 1995’s salary but he pays less tax than he would have done then. So not as bad as it sounds. Cheer up!
I can confirm that those with more money than us are not any happier. they just have a different set of problems. some even have the same problems.
knowing that builds a little well of happiness where my appendix used to be.
It doesn’t help that most of our clients are now public companies.
Back when I started (with a few exceptions) even the big clients were privately owned. There was a man (or woman) at the top who could say “I like it, let’s run it”.
Now even the crap little clients are publicly owned and we have our pensions invested in some cracker making shop in Kilburn. Those share holders want no risk and who can blame them. So we have no risk but very bland marketing departments. And no one can question those decisions because most of us work for no risk, publicly owned, ad agencies.
My partner and I have done our best work when you can stand in front of the guy who has the final (and I mean final) decision and say this is what you should run and he can say “I’ve got no idea what this is about but I like it”.
i hate to be a blog bore, but seriously, these complaints are insane
the right to be creative and filthy rich is the preserve of the few – rock stars.
to be creative and well off is pretty fuckin good compared to most of the world.
we ad creatives got on a bandwagon quite late and missed the golden era. but still. it’s not exactly a hellish life.
I had to knock out a storyboard first thing this morning and was having a good old moan about it at the same time.
Then my missus said “hang about, you’re colouring in. What’s so bad about that?”
Then I stopped moaning.
The End
I did spelling this morning and that was quite fun too.
i’m laughing at this for all the wrong reasons.
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/thework/news/1017972/Pepsi-Diner-2pointZero-TBWA-Chiat-Day-LA/
what’s more interesting than the anal raping of a great classic ad is what it says about the industry.
it’s like remaking on the waterfront.
Awards shows where the booze flows like Icelandic molten rock, hours that often, we can dictate, an all expenses paid trip to Cannes once a year, watching and working with some brilliant minds, free lunches at L’Atelier De Joel Robuchon and if your stars align, you have the potential to make a million pounds a year. Yep. It’s pretty shit being in this industry.