The Toughest Lesson I Ever Learned.

I once had a job I loved. Really loved. Working for clients and agency partners I admired. I no longer feel that same love or admiration except for the clients.

When I took the helm of the creative department, I was given three clear directives by the independent agency's owners.

1. No bad ads.
2. Bridge the deep rift between the advertising and design departments.
3. Partner with the head of accounts.

I was hard on the work from day one and I know it wasn't easy on the teams because I was still a working writer and willing to step in at a moment's notice, and did so without apology.

I tried to treat everyone with respect but my days of trying to please everyone were long behind me.

If I didn't see work I liked at the first check-in, I'd say so and add a team or jump on it myself with my CD partner. Nothing personal.

It was my way of delivering on, "no bad ads".

Ernie Schenck once shared a piece of advice with me when I was a newbie creative director and I never forgot it: "You can't be friends with the people who work under you in your department."

Ernie was right. Ernie is pretty much always right. Take note.

I never tried to be best buddies with my people and didn't go drinking with them. I went home to my family at night. No regrets.

Take another note: I know where what really matters is.

In an attempt to repair the rift between the creative and design departments, I brought a small client into the agency and asked a young designer to work on a freebie assignment with me. It was not the most popular move within the creative department that considered themselves more conceptual than the agency's designers.

We'd soon see about that.

My gambit paid off.

A year later the South Austin Speed Shop grand opening poster got into the CA Design Annual, a first for the agency, and notable for being the output of a hybrid creative/designer team.

It was a step towards extending the olive branch between the design and advertising departments.

Aligning with the head of accounts proved more difficult through no fault of his.

The individual met with an unimaginable personal tragedy on my first week of the job. Doing my best not to add stress to his situation proved my biggest contribution.

To the agency's credit, the clients were also among the best I ever worked with, and we had a knack for really getting into their DNA and gaining their trust.

We solved a lot of business problems in very creative ways. Without A-list budgets, we time and again found smarter answers.

Having access to great designers certainly didn't hurt.

We were small but steadily growing and in control of our destiny.

It was a heady time for the growing agency, an independent that wasn't afraid to play the integrity card if clients proved unwilling to approve work we could collectively be proud of.

We went from winning a smattering of awards to besting GSDM in every local Addy competition every year I was there except in the categories where big budgets mattered.

I used that as a barometer, having come from GSD&M with work for bigger players like Land Rover, 7Eleven, and Rolling Stone magazine.

The other barometer I used was seeing everyone in both departments winning awards. We began having to cart them out of the room by the double and triple armload. We were hot.

I got along famously with the new head of design, who replaced the disgruntled design director who left to partner in a great local design firm.

I suddenly had a comrade who pushed his people in all the right ways. An adult.

Cross-department collaboration became commonplace.

One year, we won nine National Addys with three separate clients. Only two global agency networks outperformed our hot little 35-person shop. The Addy awards started stacking up and we used them to fill the steel I-beams that reinforced the interior of our turn-of-the-century building they ultimately outgrew.

Bronze, silver, and gold Addy's filled the steel rafters the entire expanse of the building. Best of Show awards became a reoccurring theme because much of our problem-solving didn't play up to specific awards categories.

Everyone was winning awards. And special judges awards became a regular occurance.

We were chosen Ad Age's Small Agency of the Year for the first time. We got into CA Design, CA Photography, CA Adevertising, and CA Typography annuals—all in the same year.

We thought deep and wide and looked for ways to solve business problems with small budgets. We got quite good at it and organic growth from existing clients became our secret sauce.

We treated every opportunity, no matter how small, as an opportunity.

Our solutions rarely required A-list resources. We crafted stuff internally and learned to do much of the lifting ourselves. The design and advertising departments were truly integrated and we changed the seating charts accordingly.

Then came the one-two punch. The Internet arrived, and the economy flat-lined. Organic growth slowed to a trickle. Existing clients pulled back. New business was scarce.

Playing to not lose became the order of the day.

The agency pivoted from playing to win to playing not to lose.

We took assignments from clients we normally wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Salaries were frozen, and agency perks became few and far between.

Suddenly that integrity card was staying face down on the table most of the time.

Throughout the industry, senior advertising people we being sent to Hyper Island to better understand the new frontier. My agency wasn't investing in our people, myself included.

Everyone was expected to work harder. People were nervous and scared.

The partners decided we would pitch a company that was fracking throughout Texas. It was a clear violation of the integrity the agency purported to have.

The staff pushed back and the partners changed their minds. Whew.

People began to second-guess the founders.

Another account came on board with a questionable owner, a doctor who didn't have the credentials to call himself one. But that didn't stop him from doing so. We bit our lips and took the billings.

Morale was dropping like a lead balloon.

Then, the partners in their infinite wisdom sponsored an anonymous all-agency survey, and the guy who didn't try to be everyone's pal got tossed into the saltwater with no warning whatsoever.

I had never received so much as a bad review. No severance was given. Fuck off.

Gulp.

After the agency had won over two hundred awards during my tenure, and with the agency's creative reputation from the outside looking in at a high point, I was sent plunging into the icy waters of uncertainty.

Months later, Communication Arts featured the agency in a several-page article and fully half the work they chose to share was stuff I'd personally written.

Thankfully, my name was in the credits but I was conveniently never mentioned in the article.

A recommendation written for me by one of the founders mysteriously disappeared one day when he decided to abandon LinkedIn. Also convenient.

And therein lies the rub.

What I learned the hard way.

People don't like competing against their bosses. That's the fragile nature of the human ego. And all it takes is one shitty anonymous survey to give everyone a free shot at knocking their number one competitor into the drink.

The truth is, you can't please all the people all of the time. So don't waste your energy trying. That's a politician's job.

Being a leader is a bitch and sometimes you take the fall, whether you deserve it or not.

So, what can you do to prevent this?

Not much actually. All you can do is great work. It's your only bar.

If I had it to do all over again, there's only one thing I would have done differently: I would have negotiated a fair and equitable severance when hired. And I would have had "fuck-you money" squirreled away.

I certainly never expected to get what I did when we parted ways amidst a deep economic recession. But there it was. I was fortunate I was able to find a job, given the nature of the economy.

Not a job I wanted but something.

Never make the same mistake twice.

Here's the advice section and I've got enough of it to fill a book -- but that's another story altogether.

• Nobody is recession-proof.
• If you're the lead dog, know who your real friends are. Hint: they're not your employees.
• Do your socializing with your real friends. The ones outside of your building.
• Appreciate your life outside of advertising and whatever you do, don't drink the punch.
• Keep your nose to the grindstone and push for the best work possible whether it's your own or someone else's.
• In the final analysis, the work that is done is your only redemption.

As for that agency's reputation today?

It's as tarnished as all those Addy awards that got moved outdoors when they moved to a larger building. They tarnished every bit as quickly as the agency's reputation.

There's nothing sadder than hundreds of once illustrious awards left out in the elements because there were bigger awards to win.

Ouch.

Three parting survival tips:

• Advertising isn't always fair. Don't expect it to be.
• You find out a lot about people's true beliefs when the economy hits the skids.
• Know how to swim among sharks. They're out there.

Onward.

Cameron Day is a lucky man. He married well, has a hobby he loves, and gets enough freelance assignments from people he truly respects to maintain a healthy balance between pirate-in-exile and working ideator. His Advertising Survival Guide trilogy is his love letter to a business that has filled him with joy and sorrow in equal measure. He hopes his books can help others navigate both. See his link for deets.

www.iamcameronday.com