Students are resigned to a scheme that is good and bad, Richard Cook
reports
When the great and good of the film world make their annual pilgrimage
to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles they do so in
expectation. Ditto those members of the advertising fraternity who made
their way to the Grosvenor House Hotel last week.
Both sets sit through speeches and what passes for entertainment; both
catch up with their peers; both do a little gladhanding. But the
similarity between the sets stops just about there.
While the latter rewards dedicated professionals with years of
experience, the former tends not to round off its evening by presenting
the best film Oscar to a couple of producers just filling in at the
studio for experience and pounds 50 a week expenses.
But that is effectively what happened at the Campaign Poster Awards last
week. The winning poster, by common consent out of the very top drawer,
was devised by the copywriter, Pete Cain, and art directed by his
partner, Louis Bogue, both of whom are currently on placement at M&C
Saatchi.
Should we be worried? ‘The system of placements is a necessary evil,’
Tony Cullingham, the art direction course director at Watford College,
contends. ‘Ideally, they are part of a young team paying their dues in
the industry. The problem is that the system can and does suffer
considerable abuse from some agencies, and we have all sorts of horror
stories. One team of ours worked an 18-month placement, for example, was
D&AD-listed twice and still didn’t get a job. That sort of behaviour
drives people out of the industry and is a waste of talent.’
‘It’s a system that is open to exploitation and abuse,’ agrees Trevor
Beattie, creative director of TBWA and the chairman of last week’s
awards judges. ‘It causes problems with agencies taking advantage of
cheap talent; it causes problems with the Department of Social Security
and the taxman - both are completely baffled by the practice; but it is
still the best way for agencies to take a look at a team in a work-
experience situation, and for the team to get a taste of what the
industry is all about.’
That may be so, but it can be hard for the placement teams themselves to
see light at the end of the tunnel. The experience of Brendan Wilkins
and Paul Hancock, now an award-winning team at Duckworth Finn Grubb
Waters, is becoming increasingly typical. The pair spent 18 months on
placement at five different agencies before they were hired, through
headhunters, for Duckworth Finn - ironically, one of the small number of
agencies that doesn’t subscribe to the placement theory.
Starting at the business-to-business agency, First City BBDO, they moved
through GGK, Cowan Kemsley Taylor and Ogilvy and Mather, spending an
average of three months at each, before a seven-month stint at TBWA.
The ‘expenses’ paid to them over the period ranged from a travel card at
First City through to pounds 50 a week at O&M and TBWA to pounds 100 at
GGK. By the time they reached TBWA the pair were sufficiently proficient
to turn out 20 ads in one five-month burst, while coming up with the
successful idea for the Nissan Micra ‘Hollywood’ TV ad. Attending the
Beverly Hills shoot was a quality perk, and Beattie did provide a
financial bonus for the team, but generally they found the whole
placement process taxing.
‘It does get incredibly frustrating, and you do start to think why, if
you are good enough to produce ads that are getting through, you are not
good enough to get a job,’ Wilkins says. ‘Although we wouldn’t have got
the job here without all that effort on placement, it can be a real
financial struggle.’
In fact, Beattie would have liked to hire the pair but wasn’t in a
position to. Still, it hardly seems the most equitable or efficient
training programme.
‘They have graduate trainee schemes for account handlers and media
people,’ complains one creative currently on placement, ‘and yet seem
quite happy to let creatives eke out pounds 50 a week literally for
years at a time.’
J. Walter Thompson pays its placement creatives unusually well (see
table) - as it should.
After all, that is how the creative director, Jaspar Shelbourne, started
out himself.
‘The system that benefited me is pretty much the one still running,’ he
explains. ‘The placement offers what young creatives can’t get anywhere
else - the judgment of people who already do what it is that they are
wanting to do, and that is absolutely vital. Placements aren’t perfect
but the book isn’t enough evidence to take someone on and, at the end of
the day, it’s a buyer’s market.’
But even if no better system than placements currently exists, there are
ways for agencies to reduce the load on young creative teams. One is by
only offering placements for fixed periods, rather than stringing young
talent along in the hope of jobs that never seem to materialise.
‘We now take on teams for a fixed six-week period,’ Nick Kidney, who
runs the placement programme at WCRS, explains. ‘Then we call the really
good ones back for interview when there is a job going.
‘The other real problem,’ he continues, ‘is when these teams are working
on live campaigns that are being sold to the clients. In that case, I
try to get them put on freelance rates. Otherwise it quickly becomes
ridiculous, and they quite rightly start to lose faith in the whole
process.’
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How agencies reward teams on creative placement
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Agency Salary/week (pounds ) Comments
J. Walter Thompson pounds 150
AMV BBDO n/a Do not do placements
Ogilvy and Mather pounds 50 Must sign off. Two-week
stints
BMP DDB pounds 50 Bonus for ads that play
Saatchi and Saatchi pounds 50
Bates Dorland pounds 100 Two months minimum
Lowe Howard-Spink Up to pounds 60
Grey pounds 60 if required
Publicis pounds 100 after tax One month only
WCRS pounds 50 Fixed six-week
placement
McCann-Erickson pounds 50 No fixed period
Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper Expenses Two weeks, can be
extended
Bartle Bogle Hegarty pounds 150 Three months
Young and Rubicam pounds 57 expenses Minimum two weeks
TBWA pounds 50 to pounds 80
CDP pounds 60
HHCL Freelance contract
GGT pounds 100 to pounds 150
SOURCE: Agencies 1996
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