The Pitch Aftermath Will Not Be Televised

We’ve just lost one of our main flagship accounts. I am not affected directly but it is obvious that they will have to make redundancies or people will leave through TUPE. I was thinking of moving on next year as I am fairly enjoying the work but not immensely. Should I think about leaving now as things are going to change for the worse in the next few months?

This is one of the typical times people review their own current job situation. Your question coincided with the news this week about the Virgin Media pitch – sad news for my old friends at Rapier (I thought their Samuel L. Jackson “The Revolution will not be Televised” style TV ads a few years back were particularly impressive) but exciting times for other friends of mine at DDB. And that’s the thing about these things – all is fair in love, war and pitches. Some agency’s loss is another’s massive gain.

At this stage of the year, the DDB management team will be very pleased with fulfilling a good chunk of their new business target and welcome the headache of resourcing such an account. Rapier on the other hand will be working out what it does for their income, morale and their new business drive.

In your situation, you are maybe using an external factor to accelerate your jobhunting. It doesn’t sound as though you are massively happy on the account so it is highlighting an issue. However I would look closely at whether it is the account or agency which is not working for you. If it is the agency, then yes you should think about moving as the forthcoming months will require a tenacity from you as a loyal employee; the agency will undoubtedly dip for a few months but the good agencies bounce back and sometimes the energy that a replacement account brings makes things even better. So it may be worth staying – in fact there may be new opportunities for you.

However if you are thinking of moving, then bear in mind that in addition to those whose jobs are directly affected by the loss, there will be others in your agency who will be dusting off their cvs. When recruiting for new roles, I have often encountered a glut of cvs from one agency which is either imploding or affected by a big loss. And because of this it is probably inevitable that your cvs will be viewed collectively rather than individually. In fact last month I interviewed separately two candidates from the same agency working on the same account and it was interesting to see where their stories agreed and diverged.

If you do decide on moving, maybe apply directly to the winning agency who took the account off your agency or DDB and Rapp. I am sure they are on the lookout for good people.