After spending decades in this industry, almost all of that time at the executive level, I have never seen a company that is so dysfunctional or so horribly toxic. I can tell you first hand that there’s a gnawing cancer in this organization and it starts at the very top in of all places, HR. This is a sinking ship captained by a lost leader and it’s sailing on a model that was broken, beaten and stranded on the reef 20 years ago. They’ve begun to represent themselves only recently as a full service advertising agency but in reality, they have less than 12 months experience in that arena. It’s just a last ditch and feeble attempt to create a new revenue stream to prop up the dilapidated model. Every advertising client they’ve gained in the past year has fired them because they don't know how to cultivate return or ongoing business as they're used to creating low quality, one-off projects for clients who never return. Each attempt and decision upper management makes to right this hopeless vessel is the exact opposite of what needs to be done, pushing it further up on to the rocks. Look at the smiling faces on the crew in the photo staged in front of the building - more than half of those people are gone; either because they jumped ship by their own wisdom or they were fired on a Friday afternoon in a, “too little, too late” attempt to make the next payroll. Those that are left are simply “yes” men that tell the owner what he WANTS to hear but sadly, never what he NEEDS to hear. To add insult to injury, during my time there I was asked to “hold my paycheck until further notice” much of the time. So sad.
If you’re talking to Brandstar for any reason whatsoever my advice to you is this:
1. If you’re a current employee tidy up your resume and start looking TODAY.
2. If they offer you a job, RUN. Run flailing and screaming as fast as you can in the opposite direction and don’t look back.
3. If they offer you a freelance or contract job REFUSE it or get paid in full in ADVANCE. Then wait for the check to clear before you lift a finger on the project.
On a final note, any review that you see on this page that has more than two stars was posted by management or new employees in a last ditch effort at some reputation management. All the name changes in the world won’t help this festering barge now. Just look into the reviews of 02 Media - the name they used less than two years ago. It’s even worse now as it was then.
