I come from a sports PR background, and I’ve always found how football coaches are hired/fired to be unique. What if you tried the football model in the agency world?
First, let’s use independently owned advertising agencies. This means the structure involved with holding companies like WPP or Omnicom won’t be used in this example. A total of 32 agencies exist in the country.
Let’s say the investors/board represent the owners/GM, and the president/CEO is the head coach. On offense, the creative director is the coordinator, and the designers, copywriters, etc. are the position coaches. On defense, the head of client services is the coordinator, and the account managers, strategists, etc. are the position coaches.
Scenario 1: a team needs a new head coach
The agency conducts a national search. It is considering promoting its creative director, but in a surprise move, it hires the media buyer from last year’s top agency. In football, you sometimes see a position coach skip the coordinator role en route to becoming a head coach. However, it would be rare for a mid-level agency person to make the direct leap to company president/CEO, excluding starting their own agency.
Scenario 2: a head coach is looking to hire a position coach
The president/CEO knows of the good work an animator did for another agency, and without knowing anything about how he/she will fit in the current workplace culture, hires the animator over the phone. It’s stunning how often head coaches do this. And somehow, coaching staffs are able to work through their dysfunction (if there is one), at least for a while (see Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin).
Scenario 3: a head coach is fired and gets a job as a coordinator for another team
The president/CEO takes a demotion by accepting a creative director or head of client services position at another agency. You hardly ever see this situation in the agency world, but it happens all the time in football. For example, the Green Bay Packers’ two coordinators are former head coaches.
Scenario 4: a head coach reassigns the duties of position coaches
The president/CEO tells the media buyer that he/she will now be in charge of public relations. In boutique agencies, you may find more people with a wide breadth of experience, but the larger the agency, the more the staff members focus on depth of experience. Yet in football, it’s not odd for a quarterbacks coach to now coach the tight ends, or a linebackers coach to now coach the safeties.
Scenario 5: a head coach also serves as the play-caller on offense or defense (instead of their coordinator handling those duties)
Due to its size, a boutique advertising agency may see the president/CEO also serving as the creative director, but this scenario would be rare in a larger agency. Meanwhile, examples of this in football include the Vikings’ Mike Zimmer (defense) and the Wisconsin Badgers’ Paul Chryst (offense).