Pros
- Impressive clients. Most have been challenging to work with but you'd struggle to find an agency with clients like theirs outside of London or Manchester. - The people have always been great. So many friendly, hard-working and talented people in one agency. Truly inspiring to be amongst and some real friends for life. - The creative work produced by those people has been consistently exceptional and would rival any top agency, hence the clients they've garnered over the years. - The experience offered to newcomers cannot be understated. Although the monetary rewards have been below industry standard, it cannot be argued that the value of experience received would stand you in good stead when the time came to move on.
Cons
GAIN Creative Studios feels increasingly disconnected from what made Sideshow and Thinking Juice (later Eleven Miles) so successful. From my perspective, recent restructures have shifted the focus away from creativity and culture and more toward operational efficiency, with more and more work being outsourced or distributed to freelancers. Whether that’s in preparation for a sale or just to tighten budgets, isn't clear—what is clear is there is a consistent focus on cutting costs above all else. As such, the aforementioned pros have all but been eroded so that; - If you join the agency now, you won't get anywhere near the big names you see on the website. This is because many of them are either no longer active clients, handled by other agencies in the group, or off-limits to newer team members. If you do get access to one, it’s often because they are so difficult to manage, others have stepped away from them. - The team that made this place great is disappearing. Over the past six months, a third of the workforce has left or been let go. In the last month, several respected, long-serving employees have departed suddenly, without clear context as to why. Understandably, this has left those remaining feeling overloaded, demoralised and uncertain about their futures, with many already looking elsewhere. - Delivering quality has become harder than ever. It seems as if the ever-evolving new business team is encouraged to sell any and all services, regardless of whether we have the in-house expertise or capacity. When projects land, there often isn’t the resource—or the right resource—to deliver. This means even projects that used to be our bread and butter feel like a scramble, making it increasingly difficult for ill-equipped and overstretched creative and CS teams to meet the standards clients are expecting.