When the Recession Lifts

What an interesting day it was yesterday. We were excluded from invites to the much hyped Google Wave, a clown got blasted into space and my cold got a bit worse. More interestingly for us online marketing types, the news that online advertising had for the first time surpassed TV advertising spend was far more significant.

By happy coincidence the North West Marketing resource, How Do hosted it’s first Creative Business Forum as well yesterday. This was a high end networking event where various key topics were debated by a panel consisting of various prominent managing directors, chairmen and chief execs of the regions digital sector. My invitation to add some credibility to this panel must have got lost in the post but fortunately I was able to keep up with proceedings via How Do’s Twitter feed. During the afternoon a quote attributed to Code Computerlove MD, Tony Foggett caught my eye:

tony

This was a hugely interesting and relevant point, especially since How Do also reported that Kellogg’s had also chosen that day to announce they would be looking to recruit a digital operations manager as well as a digital planner. You’re too late, Tony – it’s already happening!

It’s far from a revelation that bigger corporations contain their own in house creative and online marketing specialists, especially those working in fiercely competitive sectors. But if the future trend is that companies in general are more likely to embrace in advertising online and as a result invest more in recruiting their in house staff, where could this leave creative and digital agencies?

At the moment there is increased focus on the ability of Universities to provide volumes of graduates with the appropriate skills for the digital sector so what happens when the recession lifts? I think the problem could be even more urgent than we expect: if speculation is correct and in the future we see a wider range of companies fighting it out over the few graduates – and indeed other qualified jobseekers – the supply may be no where close to meeting demand.

Obviously this post is just speculation and this was the first thought that popped into my head upon reading How Do’s tweet. With the news that companies will be spending more online combined with the eventual (hopefully!) lift out of the recession, we really will be in uncharted waters and I think there will be as many opportunities for those companies and individuals in the industry as there will be threats.

I’m not going to pretend to offer any insights as that would just be plain naive but I’m genuinely interested to hear what everyone thinks as I reckon that we’re in for some very interesting times!

So whether you work in design, development, search, social media, education or indeed recruitment – do leave us your thoughts!

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SirBigWig

I think at lot of large companies choose to hire in-house digital staff on the assumption that it is cheaper than paying for SEO management, PPC etc. However, when you hire an SEO agency you are in effect buying into their IP, ability, ideas etc. This may not be replicated when you recruit one or two employees. Also agencies tend to keep up with new developments, trends, discussion, etc better than hiring one or two in house employees. Finally when you hire A PPC person or A SEO consultant, you only have one persons ideas, opinions, way of doing things etc.

Many decisions that come out of an agency for clients are based on previous internal discussions, reasoning, comparisons, judgments - something that will be lost when you hire in house staff - unless you build an entire team.

Phil Cookson

I've had some dealings with MMU recently and discussing ways to bring the university and employers in the creative industries together, the dearth of skilled graduates for the digital sector is already quite marked and i'm afraid as demand for digital keeps growing this is only going to get worse. Even IF they have the right courses with the right content and IF they fill them with students, it will be another 3-4 years before these people get into the workforce, therefore, I think in the short term the emphasis must be on agencies getting more involved with the training and developing of graduates.

mikecarter

David is doing some excellent work in this area. He's working hard to deliver the courses that we need but employers need to bear in mind the University's are very large organisations with complex planing structures, as such movement is slow.

A prominent point here is that graduates are queuing up to do Art and Design and Graphics, but the Uni's have real difficulties filling harder more technical courses. There are a huge number of graphic design graduates currently studying that have no Digital skills at all and won't be taught any.

As for Client side pinching good agency people, they will. However lets not forget that agency people like variety and often have specialties that only work when scaled over many accounts, whilst client side will offer better salaries and security only the really big brands would pose any real threat.

Culturally, even with an enlightened corporate employer, the two sides are miles apart from Fudge to Moneyexpert, i doubt it.

Jamie Clouting

You make a good point James. I was lucky enough to spend my time at university working part time for a digital firm in Manchester and when it came to placement time I took a year out and got some great experience in the field. I think Dave is right, we need to motivate our lecturers to promote placements, students to take them and agencies to offer them in the first place.

MMU have been doing some great work with their ProDev days, that they will be running for the 3rd successive year in November. I'd urge firms to get involved. As far as I'm aware Kellogg's won't be there - so this is a great opportunity for local firms to get along and get access to the next wave of graduates.

David Edmundson-Bird

Yes - as you note we are in for some very interesting times.

So - very simply and as nicely as possible as I can say it - work WITH us to get solutions to this problem.

But bear in mind some things.

1 - Someone's got to persuade students to study on these programmes: they're not coming because they are perceived as hard/no fun/ephemeral so it's time to influence school teachers

2 - Firms have to provide experience opportunities: most digital firms do not offer paid placements, paid internships, 1 day a week jobs. Pay the same money as they do in supermarkets or pubs

3 - Get involved in your local university. Teach on a course, adopt a lecturer, sponsor a prize, don't back out of a guest lecture at the last minute, take a lecturer into your business for a week over summer

4 - University learning is about to get a whole lot more expensive for the paying customer

5 - Ignore this at your peril and watch the buiness go offshore to less talented, less reputable firms far, far away

When the Recession Lifts

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