Join us Sept. 14-16 in Miami to connect with top publishing leaders
Digiday Research: Employees at indie agencies are happier than their holding company peers
This research is based on unique data collected from our proprietary audience of publisher, agency, brand and tech insiders. It’s available to Digiday+ members. More from the series →
Ask any agency employee how satisfied they are at work, and a litany of complaints is bound to come your way. There are plenty of reasons to grumble: The ad agency world tends to pay little (especially at junior levels), have very long hours and often feels unstable.
According to a new Digiday poll, just under half — 49% — of agency staffers say they’re happy at work. About 15% claim to be “extremely” happy, while 35% say they’re happy. About 17% said they’re unhappy. The rest were neutral.
That is less than the 54% of Americans who said they were “satisfied” with their jobs in an August 2019 Conference Board report.
The same poll last year found that 63% of agency professionals said they were happy.
Here’s where things get interesting: Those who said they worked at holding company-owned agencies were less likely to say they were happy than those at independent agencies. About 33% of them claimed to be happy, while a whopping 57% of those who worked at independent agencies said they were.
More in Marketing
Ace Hardware adds weather-triggered programmatic ads to retail media strategy
This story was originally published on sister site, Modern Retail. Almost one year into its existence, Ace Hardware’s retail media network, RedVest Media, just announced a slate of new features for advertisers as part of an upfront event last week. The new features include incrementality measurement functions for off-site media; social amplification and influencer marketing […]
How every major platform pays creators
Every platform monetizes creators differently, with varying requirements and audience thresholds, and a propensity for change.
Brands bring the U.S. Open to fans with tennis-themed pop-ups around New York City
Marketers are pulling out all the stops to tie their brands to the U.S. Open, including hosting public pop-ups in other parts of New York City.

