Good lord, where to begin? - Acounts Manager Barkley Employee Review

Acquisition: They acquired my agency, which was previously full of life, culture, and talent. They fed us so many lies from the jump like no one would be laid off and no redundancies. Previously, when we lost clients, it was not a death sentence. Our agency had the ability to bounce back every time because of our awesome sales team. What does new leadership do once our side of the business loses clients? Lay off the sales team. Business Model: They claim to be “big indie,” yet want to operate like a holdco so bad, down to the sweatshop conditions and business model. So they only go after big whales now, which can take up to 6 months to pitch to. They hype you up for this potential client, while you wait 6 months only to find out we lost it with no real explanation to teams, so that we can improve with feedback. Awesome. Creative vs Performance Media Disconnect: Their sales pitches are mostly creative focused (but who’s to really know they aren’t transparent). What indicates this is that the deals “won” immediately create work for creative, while performance media hears crickets or promises of ad buys months down the line that never materialize (because many of these wins already have another agency that does their media buys) Despite having acquired very talented people and unique tech that they supposedly “wanted” us for, we are neglected while BarkleyOKRP puts their egos over ideas. We haven’t seen a new client in over a year and have only lost clients (some that have been with us for 8+ years). You focus on creative, and clients think we only do creative. Why did you buy us again? Stability & Growth: 2 rounds of abrupt layoffs, and everyone is overworked with no promotions in sight, despite many having performed well in their role, some 2-4 years. Many legacy employees are leaving for better opportunities. Client Reaction: Most clients were willing to hear this merger out. After 2 rounds of layoffs, clients raised their eyebrows. Leadership told us over and over that we are merging to be “one agency” and that we need to change our emails to @BarkleyOKRP no matter how hideous and long that name looks. Alright, so we did a gradual transition for this with clients having time to adjust to new meeting invites and team aliases. Amazing, a planned transition. Then 3 months later, out of nowhere, we’re told actually we are two separate agencies. “You’re going to be missiononemedia with missiononemedia emails effective immediately.” Us and our clients were caught off guard. Even IT, who hadn’t even set up new aliases for it. All of my clients have made jokes about the numerous name changes and still struggle to figure out which email to use. Weird Culture: One of their latest internal taglines is “1+1=4.” They sent us stickers with this slogan. They say “That’s a 1+1=4 moment!” when talking about good ideas. The company that can’t give you a straight answer about your career path, promotions, state of the business thought this would go over well. The party told you to reject your eyes and ears folks! Outlook: Performance media is hanging on to the clients that they do have for dear life with skeleton crews. The poor souls left are being strung along in hopes of making a living wage and bust their butt to handle way too clients each since lay-offs. Help is never coming.