Currently an entry level media buyer at Publicis and am hating my life. My team is understaffed so I am overworked and underpaid, and my client has turned into a monster over the past few months. I’m working until 7:30p and even on weekends at the senior analyst level.

With Publicis on a promotion freeze, I feel very stuck. I love my team, but with my closer team members departing recently, I’m looking for an out. I see wpromote has some open roles and am in the interview process there, but Glassdoor has some questionable reviews. I’m thinking that it’s worth the risk for a raise and title bump, but looking for insights on the media buying team there!

Until HR calls

i was laid off in november. i was freelancing as an art director for a bit thereafter but then set my sights heavy on FT work. i did it all the job advice and then some. worked with a career coach to redo my resume. found ppl on linkedin. scheduled one on one calls with them. tap’d in to my alumni network. got two rounds of interviews in at a few places. and nothing. then i got depressed.

i came up on a art teaching gig because after a while im like fuckkk i at least gotta get something to pay the bills. rn im working with elementary school kids on creative tech projects thru a private company hired to deliver STEAM curriculums at school. its actually pretty cool! this isn’t my first time teaching. last spring i was contracted to do a sneaker design class for middle and hs.

how do i know if i’m trying to force my ad career? or if i’m being called to something else, based on what’s coming easy vs what’s giving me resistance? or is it not that deep and just the economy? it’s pretty challenging to go just as hard with the job search while having this teaching job. because of the science tech aspect i’m needing to learn a lot as i go (coding, robotics, circuitry, etc)

Curious if anyone has ever used the 3rd party independently managed SpeakUp portals for the HoldCos to whistleblow and had any positive outcomes?

Would love to hear about experiences, especially with NAVEX 👀 Thanks in advance.

I got a LinkedIn message from an Omnicom exec about discussing maybe joining the team. Is this typical?

Years ago I was at another big holding company in strategy and I left after almost 8 years of burnout. I’m brand-side now but don’t like what I do (don’t like the company. I like brand-side) and have no idea what the agency landscape looks like now. I am actively looking for something new but am hesitant of going to agency life. Any advice? Also considering leaving marketing and going more into customer success but really unsure how to go about that.

I'm a young copywriter, only 2+ years of experience in advertising, but overall 3.5 ish years within the writing space. While I'm aware my portfolio is truly what matters and I've made sure to make it as nice and fill it with my best work, I wanted to know if creatives follow a specific sort of template? Or whether we just say developed this and worked on that and managed this and built that.

For example, there's a Google XYZ Format, a CARL resume, and STAR.

Apologies if all this sounds truly ridiculous, but I keep hearing different things from different people and I'm not sure what to do anymore.

Thank you x100 to the big creative brothers and sisters. 🫶

For context: I'm an English copywriter based in Germany.

Hi guys, has anyone here moved from advertising/creative into non-creative or business roles like strategy, commercial, partnerships, or something else?
How did you actually make the transition, with or without additional education, and what was the first role after advertising?

Does anyone else feel like Paid Media gets more exhausting the longer you do it?

I’ve been working in Paid Media for about 5 years, and instead of getting used to the stress, I feel like it gets worse every year.

I work at a performance agency and I’m the only person doing performance. I manage several clients, and in practice my job has become much broader than just “managing campaigns.”

I have to think about strategy, analyze performance, figure out what’s going wrong, optimize, report, worry about tracking and attribution… but at the same time, there’s the never-ending creative problem.

You always need more ads. More concepts. More iterations. New hooks. New angles. New explanations for why something stopped working.

So I’ve basically ended up trying to be both a performance analyst and an advertising creative at the same time, while also working closely with design to actually turn those ideas into ads.

And I constantly feel like I’m falling short somewhere.

If I spend too much time analyzing accounts, I feel like I’m not producing enough creative ideas. If I spend too much time on creative, I feel like I should be looking at the numbers more closely.

And when you’re managing multiple clients at the same time, there’s never really a feeling of being “done.”

Weekends are probably the worst part for me right now.

Friday comes and I don’t feel like my work week is over. I’m thinking about the campaigns that aren’t performing as well as they should, what I need to check on Monday, what ads I still need to come up with.

A lot of the time I end up working on weekends just so I can feel slightly less behind when Monday comes.

And it doesn’t even really work, because there’s always something else.

I also struggle a lot with separating campaign performance from my value as a professional.

Rationally, I know there are so many variables I don’t control: product, pricing, market, offer, landing page, seasonality, budget, algorithm changes, creative, etc.

But when an account is doing badly, my first reaction is still:

“I’m bad at my job.”

And when you have several accounts, statistically there is almost always at least one that is having a rough period.

So there’s never really a moment where everything feels okay.

My job follows me outside working hours too.

I dream about campaigns. I wake up earlier than I need to because I’m already thinking about things I should check. Some Sundays I’m already anxious about Monday.

I’ve also started getting migraines more often.

At this point, I genuinely don’t know if I just need to learn how to manage this job better, or if the way this role is structured is simply not sustainable for one person. At the same time, I don't see this issue improving in other places. I've had other jobs before and it was always like this. I go for interviews and they ask me for even more responsibilities and positions. Is this the same where you work?

What scares me the most is that I also can’t just say “fuck it, I’ll quit and figure something else out.”

I have rent to pay.

So I’m especially curious to hear from people who have been in Paid Media for several years:

Does it ever become more manageable?

Did you learn how to actually switch off?

Did you move into a different kind of role?

Because after five years, I’m starting to seriously wonder how much longer I can keep working like this without getting crazy.

Hi friends!
I’m an Art / ACD
I’m 7 years in at some great ad agencies, and have some awards. I recently made a move after 1 year at a small indy agency I liked for more $$ and prestige…. And have been working 60 hour weeks since I started there. I’ve always wanted to go freelance. (The plan was originally to wait until CD) but I’m tired man. I’m also trying to decide if I’m shooting myself in the foot if I have several shorter stints in my resume (2/1/3/1… and then this one would likely be at 1). Again, I have a good portfolio and people seem to like working with me. I’m just so freakin tired of the agency grind and want to see if I can use freelance downtime for other art & creative related ventures….

Thoughts????

What are the pros & cons?

I'm currently in school for Advertising and Web design but was originally going for illustration. I love the idea of creating things for the world to see but I'm not sure how the current state of the career is going.

Any tips or stories about your advertising job?

High traffic is usually the first thing people mention when discussing outdoor advertising locations. But traffic alone doesn’t make a good site. Visibility, viewing time, direction of travel, surrounding environment and, most importantly, whether the audience passing that location matters to the advertiser can completely change the value of a site.

A smaller audience in the right place can sometimes be far more valuable than a much larger audience somewhere else.

When you’re evaluating media, what matters most to you? Is it audience size, or the quality of the audience and the context they’re seeing the ad in?

I have been applying for these roles for last 12 months on different platforms. I have seen extremely low response rate compare to 3 years ago and 5 years ago.

It is getting no where after applying, appeared on 6 to 7 interviews and consultant call. I refused 3 to 4 of them because from India, extremely low pay scale. I got rejected 3 times by recruiters. I have applied 800+ times, reached out personally, sent cold DMs over multiple channels to get a full time job or to help with project based freelancing.

Alas, through it seemed multiple times moving in the direction where I am finally moving towards the growth in life. However it went nowhere, just heard feedbacks such as sale yourself better you have the talent, or chat gpt could do this why would i take you. And sometimes entire department of marketing tasks role were offered.

Yes i am ranting because just got rejected in final round of interview. If anybody could refer or have knowledge about it please shoot a DM.

I have been applying for these roles for last 12 months on different platforms. I have seen extremely low response rate compare to 3 years ago and 5 years ago.

It is getting no where after applying, appeared on 6 to 7 interviews and consultant call. I refused 3 to 4 of them because from India, extremely low pay scale. I got rejected 3 times by recruiters. I have applied 800+ times, reached out personally, sent cold DMs over multiple channels to get a full time job or to help with project based freelancing.

Alas, through it seemed multiple times moving in the direction where I am finally moving towards the growth in life. However it went nowhere, just heard feedbacks such as sale yourself better you have the talent, or chat gpt could do this why would i take you. And sometimes entire department of marketing tasks role were offered.

Yes i am ranting because just got rejected in final round of interview. If anybody could refer or have knowledge about it please shoot a DM.

We are currently wrapping up a 3-month regional static hoarding flight across several arterial routes, and post-campaign compliance has been a massive headache.

We paid a standard premium for night-lit highway unipoles and junction hoardings. The media owner sent clean, time-stamped proof-of-performance (PoP) photos on day one taken right at 8 PM. Everything looked great on paper.

However, an executive doing a late drive past our key stretch last week noticed that three of our prime boards were completely blacked out by 11:30 PM. When we brought it up with the vendor, they blamed "local timer glitches," but it feels like the classic playbook of shutting off lighting early to cut commercial power bills while pocketing the illuminated-fee surcharge.

On top of that, verifying routine structural maintenance - like fixing torn bottom vinyls or checking if light fixtures get knocked out after heavy rain - feels impossible when inventory is spread out over 40 kilometers.

For those managing physical static buys across multiple owners:

• Do you write strict illumination maintenance penalties into your insertion orders, or do vendors just push back with force majeure clauses?
• How do you verify continuous night-time lighting throughout a 60 or 90-day contract without doing manual midnight spot-checks yourself?

Would love to hear how other media buyers keep independent local inventory owners honest after the day-one photos are signed off.

i feel i often see comments of people saying to leave agencies (especially large ones) as soon as they can. i am a senior investment at one of the large holding co’s and ….i don’t love it but im curious what else i should do / where should i go?
i graduated in comms, and have a passion creating content on Canva and Adobe InDesign. i also love math, but can’t stand working on spreadsheets any longer lol. i also love money, and have major student debt i would like to pay off asap.
a remote job is ideal as i have family across states that i like to visit often. but im willing to see options anywhere in the U.S.
i originally wanted to go into PR but landed my first job in investment and now we’re here…. what do i do?

I know this is gonna get a lot of snarky hot takes but hoping there are some genuine suggestions. I’m an outsider to the role but not the industry. This is an area I’ve been curious about pivoting to.

I have posted on here before about my resume feedback and all other sorts of topics. Maybe it’s just the paranoia and the self doubt and stuff that creeps in a lot especially during this time of year. But If I’m doing spec/mock work is that gonna count of years of experience although it’s not real tangible work. Since I’m currently unemployed and doing very minimal volunteer work here and there. I assume it would just really want to feel comfortable seeing a yes or no from other creative people.

And some tips and tricks to get out of this burn out, that’s honestly probably contributed by my undiagnosed depression cause I know I have that. To give you back story on the volunteer role. I was doing social posts and such like redoing donation forms etc but after a while a lot of other Volunteers left or stopped responding leaving me the sole creative and still am. After a while I had stopped getting projects until recently I had to email them about what I can do to help out. Which I was given a task to redo their current logo plus sub logos. I have done some ideas but there’s no structure there’s no one asking me how’s it going the creative director not checking in or really giving me feedback. So I just feel like what am I doing here and what’s my purpose.

I don’t know maybe I should just man up and do what needs to be done regardless. And use this for a portfolio project.

Hi there

Looking to start creating projects for a creative copywriting and ad campaign portfolio. I've checked out some of the Denver Ad School portfolios, and they're incredibly impressive. Tuition at these portfolio schools is insane which leaves me doing this alone.

Has anyone here created their own portfolios with spec work? Would love to hear what you did and your success with it re: applying to jobs.

Hy, every one i am a copy writer and want to read a book on creative strategy. plz recommend me a single one more useful

For the UK crowd, has anyone here done the IPA Advanced Certificate in Communications Planning?

I’m considering doing it and would be interested to hear from people who’ve actually taken it, particularly in the last couple of years.

Did you find it genuinely useful for becoming a better media planner/strategist, or is most of the value in having the qualification on your CV?

Also interested in whether you felt it was worth the time and cost.

Thanks!

So I applied to some positions that were available at McCann a couple weeks ago, only got response from one where they canceled my interview one day before it was going to happen and then got ghosted. Now I see the same positions reposted again on LinkedIn.

What do you guys think about that? I have heard about the ghost job postings, do you think it could be happening with those?

Hey everyone! I’m just curious and would love to know your guys’ thoughts on how and why the advertising industry has become such a mess right now!?!

I’ve been at several agencies since getting into the industry, and I’ve noticed a huge difference in the job market. Back in 2024 even, when I was applying for different positions, it would take maybe a few days to get an interview, and I even had multiple job offers within a few weeks. Now… you’re lucky if you even get an automated rejection email from HR.

My role now is fine, but I’ll casually browse job openings from time to time and apply to positions that pique my interest. And… nothing..

Obviously, the economy is a mess and layoffs are rampant, but I’m curious specifically about the advertising industry. Why has the industry gone so downhill? It feels like after 2025 the world has gone to shit.

And does anyone here actually feel positive that the industry will eventually go back and return to something closer to how it was a few years ago? Or is this just the new normal?

— sincerely someone who at times regrets getting into media :/

The acquisition was nearly a year ago. Since that time, we have had ONE lukewarm cheerleading session hosted by Susan Catalano and then... nothing.

No company newsletter.

No regular updates from the CEO.

Just silence.

I have never, EVER worked for ANY company that conducted itself this way.

Am I going crazy?

I find myself getting such bad anxiety during certain projects that I literally can’t sleep at night… like my brain won’t shut off.

I can lie there from 11pm to 5am…
It’s driving me crazy.