not for intermediate, senior creatives - Copywriter Kensington Tours Employee Review

There is no opportunity here, and if you're senior-level and looking to make contributions to the brand and the business, it won't happen here. My role was positioned as a senior role, one where I would be providing a POV on content + copy for the marketing department, and one where I had autonomy and opportunity to be a decision-maker and lead the strategy of copy moving forward - it never happened. Every project I was assigned was either killed, or farmed out to a third-party agency. Every line of copy I wrote was rewritten. I never wrote anything that didn’t go through a considerable, unnecessary number of people – all from varying departments outside of marketing - for review/changes/iterations, and every person who reviewed my work rewrote the copy to the point I just began executing everyone else’s copy demands and ideas. Nothing I wrote actually “stuck” or got approved – and that was the circle. My workload was junior, and I went days and weeks where I had nothing to do or contribute: I’d write a couple of lines of copy for digital or social, but there was no actual business plan for how we were going to move forward in the marketing department: There was no campaigns, no original copy projects, no channels: all print, OOH, and television initiatives (et al) were assigned to third-party agencies, not in-house. A copywriter is meant to contribute to multiple aspects of the company's marketing mix, but that was the issue - there is no marketing mix. There was no marketing business plan - from the CMO or anyone in a leadership position - and when the department creatives would ask leadership for some perspective on what we were doing, or where we were going, they couldn't answer it. They didn't know themselves. The leadership micro-manages to the point any existing projects never fully get off the ground because they can't find unison in their decisions, so no decisions are ultimately made. Every deadline the department was assigned was missed - and that was standard practise. We never met a deadline because they were so loose to begin with. Projects just evaporated. We never fully realized a number of project initiatives; they just disappeared into the ether. There is no leadership: In my time, a number of leaders were either demoted or fired, and there was no replacement. The creative department never had a CD, so we lacked structure and vision, and ultimately any sense of support or mentorship. The department doesn’t have anyone to advocate for the work, nor provide a strategy on where the department should go. Leadership is, at times, shockingly candid about how dysfunctional and lackadaisical the business is, to the point you wonder why you were hired in such an environment to begin with, and because of that, the level of gossip in the department is overwhelming and it lacks considerable professionalism and decorum. You won’t be promoted: There is no opportunity for growth, despite how much they may promise you in your interview. No one gets promoted or moves up the ranks. If you’re a junior, you won’t move up; if you’re a senior, you won’t have a future. Because there are no meaty projects or campaigns to work on, you have nothing to contribute to your portfolio. It's not an environment that will boost your career or make you a stronger creative; it has the reverse affect. It got to the point where I was too concerned about jeopardizing my skills and my future career potential if I stayed.