Sliding Wages And The Reasons Behind Them
I often harp on here about the relative wages of creatives and their incessant slide towards those of a deformed rent boy or indolent corpse.
In the early 80s there was a copywriter called Geoff Seymour whose raise to £100k was so famous, that amount of money was then termed a ‘Seymour’.
Now, I might shock a few of you here, but £100k is what many senior creatives are on now. Hell, some are on less than that. Fuck, many are on much less than that.
But just to put that in perspective, in 1982 £100k could buy you a house that would be worth almost £1m today (house prices have gone up 824.24% since then).
That means, by one spurious measurement, senior creative wages have declined by 824% in real terms (obviously there are millions of other factors involved, but I think we can all agree that £100k today will not buy you as much as it did in 1982).
Now, I’m not going to go into whether creatives deserve to get paid anything like that, especially when nurses and firemen are on blah blah blah… that’s for another post. But, as a species, we are getting paid much less than we used to (imagine if senior creatives were generally on £1m today, with ECDs on closer to £4m. Fucking hell.)
The reasons for this are manifold, so I’m going to have an unfounded guess at a few:
1. Creatives were overpaid back in the day. Clients and agencies worked this out and tightened the screws accordingly. This makes some sense and no sense, both at the same time: a great idea could transform a client’s business, putting it on the map and increasing sales by millions, but what’s that worth? Good question. Leading us to…
2. Great creative work is unaccountable. If a product flies of the shelves after its launch, you could thank the ad, the distribution, the pricing structure, a heatwave, the retail positioning etc. The ad is very much detached from the actual process of money through the door, and if enough people think that then why pay more for a good one?
3. There’s less money sloshing around in general. Clients wised up to the profligacy of the industry that took place in the 60s-80s (and beyond), so they got procurement motherfuckers in and turned the tap off. I can’t really blame them for that. I mean, if I were paying for a helicopter shot that hit the cutting room floor I might be a little miffed. Also, I can’t speak for wages in other departments. Have they stayed high across the board or are planners and suits as fucked as we are?
4. Clients and people in charge of agencies generally care less about the brilliance of creative work these days. They don’t think it’s worth stumping up hundreds of thousands for 9/10 (not guaranteed) when they can 7.5/10 from the juniors down the corridor for a quarter of the price.
5. Massive oversupply. Creative jobs have always been tough to get because so many people want one, that’s why the exploitation system known as ‘placements’ still exists. And though there are fewer people the higher up the ladder you go, there are still far more than the industry needs, hence the relentless ageism and the need for an ‘out’. As anyone with even the slightest grasp of economics knows, increased supply pushes the price down, so until half the industry simultaneously agrees to go and do something else, the wages will continue to be fucked. The oversupply also extends to agencies themselves: with so many battling it out for any client worth a fiver or more, the margins get reduced and there is less money to pay staff, leading to even more 7/10 ads.
6. Holding companies. They, as with any publicly-listed company, have to meet certain targets to please shareholders (which could be you or me through our pension schemes). This means that money is the bottom line imperative and the chances of Omnicom/WPP etc spunking loads of cash to get better ads is tiny.
7. Much of what we do is cannon fodder bullshit. In order to sell work quickly and avoid losing money on an account, a client is often given eight routes and asked to pick a favourite. This means that around 85% of work done by you and your department is utterly pointless and ultimately worthless. It creates nothing but opportunities for people to have their arses licked a little more tenderly, and who would pay for such a thing (don’t answer that)?
8. This one is the real shitter: we don’t do ourselves any favours. Every time you do a chip shop ad you devalue what we do for a living. You give away your best shit for a pittance just for the chance to win a shiny bauble. This makes us, as a department, look pretty pathetic because none of that is related to the real money or business of advertising. Yes, I know that because of the way the system currently works, we are rewarded for meaningless awards over ads that might solve an actual business problem for a big client, but that has been fucking us over the years. Would you pay a footballer for their ability to do supercool keepy-uppy tricks on the training ground? Or a musician to play to his mates in his bedroom? Of course not, but that’s what our promotion system is mainly based on. Yes, you can win awards on proper accounts, but these are the same awards that are won for the bullshit ads: a Gold Lion is a Gold Lion, so the currency gets devalued and the proper ones start to become meaningless. Then, when they’re all meaningless, what are we supposed to do?
Suck up our shitty wages, that’s what.
love the new design and name. makes sense.
i’ve probably said this many, many times here before but i squarely blame the advent of the holding company. If memory serves, the late Mr. Seymour was recruited from Lowes (then privately held) to Saatchis (also private, i think). And while there was probably an element of PR stunt to his hiring, it is telling that the management of those two agencies also OWNED the agencies. they were the daddies. not pretending to be the daddies. they could actually write cheques!
i’d love to hear dave trott’s take on this.
Ditto journalism.
All that said, do you still love the ad game or what?
like the new look/feel.
But for what it matters, that title is a typographic nightmare.
Holding companies pay their top people loads.
Planners get more cash because they can get the clients in a room and talk pyramids or circles and that can go on a powerpoint doc and be emailed to their CEO in some brothel. He doesn’t have time to decipher a graph while being blown so he says yeah.
Clients like the more marketing friendly language of a planner (I’ve worked with brilliant planners but the bad ones are just terrible). So they bring in more money to the agency and are more valuable.
It doesn’t matter that a punter doesn’t get it.
I’ve just left an agency were the creatives never get to meet a client. Why should a client pay for someone they don’t see. “The planner did all the hard work right?”
Only presenting 8 ideas would have been great. We’d regularly do 4-5 presentations to clients and present 8 or even more ideas in each.
Something tells me the clients/planners graph might have been wrong.
But it couldn’t be.
Fuck that, ¬£100k is more than fine. It’s slightly less than what the prime minister earns. It’s about the same as a heart surgeon. After a few more years of economic adjustment, agencies will start giving briefs to gifted 9 year olds in Bangalore via Skype and these will seem like the good old days.
Maybe ‘love’ is too strong a word.
I feel a little like the ad game is girlfriend who has let herself go somewhat.
I know someone who did Chip…
I think you can only have a period where you have exceptional profits for a temporary period of time before either clients get wise to it or competitors under cut it.
In the 60’s-80’s the agencies had a whale of a time, lots of money and lots of fun but that can never last, and the current situation is a result of the past. Agencies took the piss and people wanted a piece of it.
Whether that money and fun produced better ads with better results for clients i don’t know. All i know is that excessive profits are only ever temporary.
In my experience, you can be the least effective suit or planner but if the client likes you, you’ll keep your job and be well-paid to boot. The shy team that does great work but dislikes client meetings will always be kicked out before them, because it’s ultimately about client relationships, you see?
That said, doesn’t knowing your own worth come into play at some point?
I’m increasingly underwhelmed by the argument that our ideas make our clients millions of pound and we should be paid accordingly.
The client spends millions on the media, money they are gambling on our ideas delivering a return on. So if we wanted a share of the profits generated by the advertising, we should really agree to take a share of the media risk. If we paid for 10% of the media, then fair enough, lets take 10% of the reward. But to get paid and then not take the same risk as the client seems a little one sided…
On the other hand I once had a CEO who asked for a performace bonus for the agency in a fee. The client asked him why he wasn’t willing to do a risk or reward scheme. He said he would. Then the client asked him why he would only ‘bet’ 5% of the fee – wasn’t he convinced enough of the creative idea to do more. So my boss offered the whole fee up – double or quits against the sales lift requested in the brief.
Client said ‘actually, maybe the 5% figure would be fine…’
amIunderpaid, I’d say you’re over paid.
Well done.
how much are the junior teams worth nowadays anyway. 25k? too little? too much?
Am I underpaid
Yes, I’m pretty sure you are underpaid. Approach your next pay rise with the enthusiasm you put into a script that you KNOW is a great idea.
If they hold back on you, then make sure you have a few options to fall back on. I think a creative on 42k, with a good turnover of decent work is a bit of a joke, frankly.
Back in the days when you were working for Mike Cozens, rumour has it he was on ¬£400k+. In the mid-nineties that was a 3 bed house in Notting Hill. Now it’s a one bed flat in Dalston. The only agencies where creatives make big money are where they own a piece of the action, like Mother, droga5 and, no surprise, the work isn’t bad either.
Oh, yup. Part of the reason, I reckon, is a general assumption that creatives, dealing with something so weirdly poetically abstract as IDEAS all day, are kind of retarded in ways of the world. Like in dealing with such things as money. And negotiation. And knowing your actual worth.
And maybe it’s our fault for buying in to that kind of mythology, because while it’s not very remunerative, it is kind of romantically flattering.
I’m just a junior, so whatever, I dunno – but that’s my two cents.
Or one-point-five cents.
Whatever.
I’m fairly senior. Been doing this for about 15 years. Won a few Lions, D&AD nominations, and loads of other stuff.
My partner and I got made redundant a few months ago and were asking for around £70-80k.
The first question the head hunters ask is whether we’re willing to drop our price. Seems everyone thinks that they can get decent creative for around ¬£50k.
What do you get for that? A CD? someone who can run a pitch? Probably not. Seems they think they can.
Has anyone ever noticed how may people have a vested interest in NOT making an ad? For keeping the problem going. Keep the patient alive, but don’t close the wound.
Planners get paid for charts and research, suits for meetings and relationships, clients for budgeting and to be fair, all the other stuff they do that isn’t advertising. And they’re all very happy doing it.
It’s only the creatives who come along and spoil the party, saying right everyone, let’s stop this entire process right now, let’s all put our cocks on the block and make THIS ad.
Now.
Thirty very public seconds on national telly, saying this is what we’ve all arrived at.
Is it any wonder the easiest decision is to say no, and then have even more rounds of briefings, meetings and charts?
The truth is, too few people involved in the process want it to finish.
And that’s why I reckon that the creatives who actually make the ads aren’t just getting marginalised, they’re also slipping down the pay scale.
I’m minted!
I earn 200k a year and don’t have to CD any client.
Laughing all the way to the bank me!
And i just inherited a fortune.
Just the lottery win to get now!
HA!
Billy No Money, if you’ve been around 15 years and have won some half-decent awards then I’d have said you were really underpaid when you got the boot?
Surely, the majority of senior creatives (i’m saying senior after around 10 years employed) would be on over a ton if they haven’t been fucked over or not moved agencies enough?
Anyway, I think the best approach is to align yourself with a CD who knows your potential rather than having to rely on that Kinsale Bronze from 5 years ago. If you’re consistently writing the best stuff in the department you only need one every year or two to actually get made and you’ll still be high on the CD’s list of faves (providing that your client friendly and shit shovelling skills are equally good).
But what do I know, my partner and I are a bit underpaid…problem is, it’s all too cloak and dagger. I reckon if you negotiate hard on an agency move you can often put 50% on your salary. We’ve done it a couple of times…
Thought so.
I’m liking all the names people have to use now.
Better than Anon.
Here’s what Dave Trott will never write.
You want to know the secret of my £20m fortune?
It’s this.
Make about five million from an illustrious career over 40 years.
Then fifteen million from a gaff in Hampstead.
Just by living there for 20 years.
So there’s the thing.
Is the house way overvalued?
Or is what I did way undervalued?
Only the market can say.
PS. Mike Cozens was on 300 when he joined Grey in ’89. Tim Mellors was on a million pound contract over three years at GGT when he took over from Dave 20 years ago. Blood money, some might say.
If that’s supposed to be offensive, I don’t see how it is.
The new unit of currency is a ‘Cameron’ (¬£142,500.00). It replaced the Seymour earlier this year.
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