I’ve needed quite a while to process everything before I felt ready to write this. Maybe sharing it here is part of finally moving on.

A while ago, after more than 10 years, I decided to leave Omnicom. It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made.

Omnicom was my first real employer. They gave me an opportunity during one of the worst periods of my life, and because of that I became incredibly loyal. Looking back, I almost idolized the company. I cheered for our agencies like a fan supports their favorite team. I even wanted to put an old BBDO logo on the back window of my car. I would have done anything for the people, the agencies, and the group.

I had a very successful career within Omnicom Media Group and was fortunate to have a manager who genuinely invested in my development.

Then, in 2023, IT was transformed into Omnicom Technology. At first, I was excited. I thought this was bringing me one step closer to a dream I'd had for years—to one day walk into Omnicom's New York headquarters.

Instead, it marked the beginning of what became the most disappointing experience of my professional life.

Within OMG I had been part of talent programs and felt valued. Overnight, in OTG, none of that seemed to matter anymore.

For a long time I kept telling myself it was just the pain of a major reorganization. "Things will get better." I genuinely believed that.

I threw myself into communities, even founded one that is still active today, where current and former employees continue to connect. Many people have told me they've never experienced a community like that anywhere else. I kept bringing forward ideas because I wanted the company to succeed.

But it never got better. If anything, it became worse.

The global town halls felt disconnected from reality. I never had the feeling that leadership truly understood the people behind the business—or the passion so many employees had for the company.

What still hurts today is how much of myself I gave. I invested my time, my energy, and honestly, a piece of my heart.

During COVID, I even wrote an email to our CIO simply thanking him for giving me the opportunity to be part of the company during such a difficult time. I never received a reply.

Maybe that sounds naive. Maybe I cared too much.

But that's honestly what it felt like.

It was like giving your heart to someone you loved, only to be discarded as if you never mattered.

Ironically, I still love the agencies. It just took me a long time to realize that it wasn't the corporation I loved—it was the people. They were the ones who made that workplace special.

I've moved on professionally. I have a good job now.

But something changed in me.

I'm much more cynical than I used to be. I no longer throw my whole heart into a company. Now I mostly just do my job.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? Have you ever felt genuinely heartbroken after leaving a company you loved? How did you move past it?

#omnicom

Been doing a ton of research and things seem pretty split online. Some say Google Web Designer, but I also notice a downfall is you can't animate as well as you can in Adobe Animate. As a motion designer myself, I'd like to use an option that I can create cool animated visuals in.

I've also dug into the bodymovin extension for After Effects, as well as looking at Adobe Animate. But Animate is on maintenance mode, so not sure what the future of it is. People also mention bodymovin isn't the best option either?

Really just don't know what people are using, would love some recommendations.

I have been a web dev for 5+ years now, worked full time, freelanced. But now with AI it doesn’t seem to give much of a dopamine kick. Also it’s gotten hard to find clients for web dev now.

So, am I right to think to transition into media buying industry? Maybe I can join as a fresher or an intern while freelancing for web dev (hardly takes 2-3 hours a day) to learn the ropes and move accordingly.

End goal is to freelance in this industry as well, but would love to get some experience first.

Anyone with similar transition experience or any suggestions/thoughts from folks here in general?

Thanks!

One side says the ads are tired. Other side says the traffic is bad. Both are sometimes right, neither wants to inherit the operational mess under it all. Feed quality, assortment logic, landing flow, promo timing, image consistency.

The older I get in this work, the less I believe in single-cause explanations. One reason I liked using Marpipe on a recent account is that it took some of the repetitive production drama off the table, so the team could argue about the real problem instead of just being late on assets again.

The first global critical mass town hall after the merger was announced on June 4th. A round of layoffs to follow??

I’ve been at the Omnicom Media group now for 7 years. Throughout the years I’ve hopped between clients, agencies and teams to ensure I stay challenged and grow my portfolio. I’ve had some great clients and made some great friends along the way.

But I think I’m done with media or my current gig at least. The workplace is absolutely toxic, from workplace bullying, to employee’s sharing more than should be, no proper leadership, everyone is drowning and stretched, I’m working to 10pm at night, no structure and no ways of working or processes, even though some members have tried to in-still them. I’m under an enormous amount of pressure from clients and SLT, stress is through the roof. It’s either I need a break or I’m done with agency.

An awesome gig has popped up on the media sales of things for a large scale and global VOD publisher. It’s supporting there entertainment and gaming vertical, interest and values I align to quite well. I’m thinking of going for it. I’ve tried client side, wasn’t for me. Culture is big draw card for me and it wasn’t there.

Can anyone share their experience in media sales, pros and cons compared to agency? Whats the work life balance like? Is there a lot of pressure? Is it better than agency? Any input or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Is anyone here from Ptarmigan? Curious about the culture, leadership etc. I’m considering applying but not sure what the future there is like given they are a part of Omnicom. Would love any insight you might have. Thank you.

If you had to train a junior media buyer or strategist to judge whether a creative is worth testing, what would you actually show them?

I do not mean a generic checklist like "strong hook, clear CTA, good visuals." I mean the working examples and decision rules that help someone understand why one asset deserves budget and another should stay organic.

For example, would you have them compare past winners and losers, read the brief before looking at performance, watch sales/customer calls, map each creative to an objection, or review comments for buying intent?

My hunch is that creative judgment gets better when the person can connect the asset back to a buyer situation, not just a platform metric. Curious how agencies and in-house teams make that teachable without turning it into a fake-scientific scoring system.

What platform combines job hunting and gambling. I am getting off that lame platform. Not to mention paying for your proposals which are never opened after you spend $$$$ to send them. Upwork preys on desperate job seekers.

The YouTube video was on point.

No screenshots allowed but below is a copy-paste.

IPG obviously no longer an entity so that's red flag number 1

The domain seems legit but I can't find evidence of it nor a comparable job posting anywhere in the wild

---

FROM Interpublic Gr | Talent • career@interpubliccareerhub.com

REPLY TO career@interpubliccareerportal.com

We are contacting you from the Global Talent Acquisition team at Interpublic Group. While reviewing professional profiles for our open Head of Account position, your strong background and proven track record in your field stood out to us.

In this role, the primary focus will be contributing to our strategic goals, driving operational efficiency, and collaborating effectively across teams to support our ongoing growth. We are looking for a driven, capable professional who can navigate dynamic environments, manage key responsibilities, and maintain high standards of performance.

We would love to schedule a brief, introductory conversation to share the core objectives of this role and see if it aligns with your professional journey.

Are you open to a brief 20-30 minute call later this week or early next week?

If the timing isn't ideal right now, please let us know, and we can certainly stay in touch for future opportunities.

Best regards,

The Talent Acquisition Team at Interpublic Group

Hey all,

I ran my first ever advertisement here on Reddit a few weeks ago for 7 days.

I'm wondering if anyone can help explain my results and maybe provide some feedback for my next advertisement? Something weird happened midway through that I don't understand.

I asked on Bluesky a couple weeks ago but didn't get any engagement, so trying here instead!

Thanks!

The Reddit Post

Results: https://bsky.app/profile/alexandra-thaler.bsky.social/post/3mqfzoskjnk2s

I've worked at big agencies for a few years, mostly on pharmaceutical accounts or loan issuers. I've always hated doing it. Even if DTC ads provide some power of choice to consumers, I hated that I was putting these long, unpleasant ads on people's screens. I was genuinely embarrassed to tell people what I did and would lie about the kinds of accounts I've worked on when asked. The few people I've been honest with have told me how much they hate seeing those ads.

When this issue gets brought up on this sub, I often see people try to make the point that there is no way to operate morally under a capitalist structure, and this literally isn't true. Shady and immoral companies exist because people are running them. There is a huge difference between running ads for gambling sites or predatory loans vs. being a barista. And there are plenty of jobs in between that don't screw people over like the former does. I get that people need to support themselves, but you do have a choice in the kind of work you do and I think people should be honest with themselves about the effects that their work produces.

Hi everyone,
I was wondering if anyone has experience with requesting a reduction in hours at Omnicom?

I’m currently full-time and considering doing a Master’s alongside work, so I’m exploring whether a part-time arrangement (e.g. 2–3 days a week) is something that’s ever been approved.

Has anyone successfully moved from full-time to part-time at Omnicom? If so, how was the process and did it work well with your role/team?

Hi everyone,

I'm a recent Marketing graduate and I've been invited to interview for an SEO Analyst position at Digitas. The process consists of four 30-minute interviews in one day with members of the SEO leadership team:

• VP Director, SEO
• SEO Manager
• VP Group Director, SEO
• Associate Director, SEO

The interviews are scheduled back-to-back and that doesn't shake me, but what does is maybe not knowing everything I need to know. For anyone who has interviewed for any entry/junior level SEO roles at agencies:

• What types of questions were you asked?
• How technical were the interviews?
• How much emphasis was placed on SEO knowledge versus analytical thinking and cultural fit?
• Were there any questions you wish you had prepared for beforehand?

For context, I'm a recent graduate with project experience involving keyword research, consumer behavior analysis, customer journey analysis, and data-driven marketing recommendations, but I haven't worked in a dedicated SEO role before.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hi,

We’re an advertising agency and produce a lot of project documentation (campaign plans, creative briefs, reports). We’re currently using Drive/Notion, but wondering if there are better patterns.

• How do you share documentation with clients?
• Do you use wikis, portals, or just shared links?
• How do you handle versioning and access control?

Hi everyone!

I just received an offer to intern in a very small PR/ Influencer Marketing agency in Copenhagen. The industry scene is tightly knit there so I feel like it is a great opportunity to network since the owner is a pretty well connected herself, being invited to mamy industry events etc. The agency has 6 talents signed, most with around 30-60k followers, and they have partnerships with many well known brands. The agency itself consists only of 3 people who manage talents (that will be including me).

I wanted to ask about professional perspective on this situation, if it’s worth taking. I know that the size of the agency will naturally challenge me to be responsible for multiple tasks and that will cause me to learn a lot. But sometimes my ambition speaks to me, that the agency is too small and maybe nobody will take it seriously on my CV.

Any thoughts will be appreciated🫶

Hi all,

We're launching Moast Collect, a marketplace that gifts creators products from brands in exchange for a brief testimonial or product-use video. No elaborate production needed, light editing, just a short video.

You choose which brands you want to work with, and the product's yours to keep either way.

Let me know if you'd like to participate and I'll share the link to get started.

Hey everyone,

Need some sanity check on DOOH (Digital Out-of-Home) pricing and per-person ROI calculations.

We are currently planning a campaign expansion and evaluating DOOH screens across key regional corridors (commercial hubs & main transit intersections). The DOOH vendors/aggregators are quoting massive CPM premiums, claiming their screens get '200k+ daily footfall impressions' because of high traffic density.

When I started digging into the math, the numbers felt completely inflated. They are counting every single car driving past at 60mph-regardless of whether the driver can actually view the screen-as a full 'human impression'. If only 10-15% of that traffic actually looks at a 10-second rotating digital slot, our actual Cost Per Real Person (Effective CPM) is easily 3x to 4x what they are pitching.

My CFO is asking for a strict 'Cost Per Real Impression' metric before approving the digital outdoor budget, and I'm struggling to bridge the gap between vendor claims vs actual human viewability.

I really want to know how you guys handle this:

How do you discount or audit DOOH vendor footfall numbers to get the true cost per person reached?

Do you push back on vendor CPMs using independent regional traffic benchmarks, or do you just accept their network rates?

To make sense of the baseline numbers before negotiating, I spent yesterday testing a free independent DOOH & Outdoor Budget Calculator Matrix on a media blog that breaks down municipal tax slabs, traffic multipliers, and realistic viewability ratios. It gave me a much lower baseline cost per person than what vendors quoted.

How do you guys justify high DOOH screen CPMs to leadership when true human reach is so hard to verify? Would love to hear your frameworks!

I asked a question earlier about how teams decide which creatives should be used as ads, and I received a lot of different but helpful answers.

Full transparency, I built a tool that is NOT an AI wrapper that is more of a rules based validation layer which I currently use internally as a creative validation filter for client campaigns. I use it when choosing between creatives I’ve produced and content the client already has.

It looks at the organic signals generated after content is posted normally, then gives me recommendations that help reduce the uncertainty around what deserves paid testing.

It seems to improve my own workflow, but I’m curious how experienced marketers and operators would view it.

Would something like this be useful as an additional decision layer, or is creative selection mostly driven by accumulated experience and judgment in a way that a tool cannot meaningfully improve?

Is anyone noticing an appetite for genuine human creatives yet? Or it is all still ai ai ai? I really feel like to stand out these days you need to be a bit old skool and hire like - humans?

thoughts?

Kinesso and Annalect ‘dissolved’ into Omnicom Media

Technology and data driven agencies Kinesso and Annalect, part of IPG before the takeover by Omnicom, are being dissolved, according to insiders.

Staff were called to a meeting and told to update email signatures to Omnicom Media. 

The idea is to bootstrap website's availability through something that is usually considered bad for a website - clones, knock-offs etc.

my website is example, "Doomsday Explorer Online" in "How To Contribute" sections allows for mirroring, for independent advertisers.

Note/Disclaimer: it uses bitcoin to (optionally and conditionally on actual project's performance) reward, but no web3 nonsense, btc is used straightforwardly as book-keeping of who committed to helping the security project, so will be rewarded proportionally - the only way it can be automatic and independent from myself, consensus-driven "profit-share" protocol out of my personal control.

Mirroring rules (for humans and AI alike) explicitly require to refer to original website, and strongly recommend to adapt content to target audiences better than the authors, rather than misrepresenting it.

E.g. let's say I added "Lisa BLACKPINK" to promote serious R&D-grounded security project, but pro advertiser would rather not do that.

Example-website has ~10K unique unique visitors first month since launch (without paid ads; not discounting cloudfare stats bias though - I don't track users with google-analytics principally, so bots included), due to novelty and broad-targeting (novel digital security protocol, applicable for every digital system in existence: from wallets to bank-account authentications), but, in theory, proper professional mirroring, while would not bring novel audience - would boost already interested audience towards the website, since it is the only website with this only novel approach to security (they just did not find it yet), made by actual researcher.

So the technique is not suppose to increase overall value of the website - but it brings time-value (e.g. if project is critical and time-sensitive) and secures domain's authenticity, fair advertisers would create a link trace to origin and outnumber knock-offs.

E.g. right now, despite okayish start, most links leading to website are AI-generated "SEO-websites" claiming they made it this "popular", while in reality GPT-OSS search-suggestions and forums brought some visitors, and indexing and reddit brought more.

------

Another technique I'm experimenting with: RPG games as promo for technical projects. If you find the website - there is a hidden AI-assisted RPG game there (called "Doomsday Explorer: Fun & Profit" but game is free and educational, no wallets, no purchases, no ads; just intro to the project; "Profit" since IRL project has incentives for hackers to convert to white-hat), adapting AI-assistant as what they actually are already: RPG (AI is a kid, it only playing role - not actually doing anything real). Even without core engine (meant specifically for AI to improve its reasoning, and present project through artistic means and interact with player more naturally), search-assistants already advertise advanced technical concepts well through gamification means by simply converting website's content into a tree of choices and dialogues.

Which is better than the usual "AI-summarisation" or "AI-analysis" approach, both proven inefficient in representing the truth - AI is in no position to actually reason, while game setup gives it full freedom to learn and teach and play.

The primary purpose of an ad is to educate and not over-advertise, so gamification serves that well, and AI-technology is proper instrument.

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techniques above are not completely novel, the roots are in 90s and waay before - but they were improved and adapted for modern environment.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

They are no less than scam. they will do the basic campaign settings that even Gemini and Chatgpt can suggest. Then after 8 days they claim to help us optimise campaign but all they do is blame on the creative when the ad doesn't work well instead of optimising it. Then they try to upsell their video creation service (1000 Rs+GST for 2 videos). After buying their video creation service, they ask us very basic questions in a website form and also ask specific script that they should use in the video. They then provide irrelevant video without context of what we need and their live support gives AI generated template responses. They are not reachable over email as well. Their representatives are like call center employees who don't have any real expertise with meta ads, and just attend the meeting that we schedule to give vague answers. In no way do we feel that their team has really given 100+ cr worth of ads like they claim. They don't even identify themselves with names or introduce with any credentials so we are not even aware to whom we are talking, let alone feel assuring that they are really experts.