Message sent by Antonio Ramirez.
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Jorge,
How do you do. We don’t know each other but I’m an advertising and marketing fever. I signed up for your blog because a creative friend of mine, known as Yorsh, passed it on to me. Maybe I’ve worked more on the design side, post and other areas like web etc.
Number one I wanted to congratulate you for the effort to create a forum where people can get information about advertising in CR.
My concern is the following and I think it will be a topic to exploit. A few years ago I moved from Costa Rica to Los Angeles CA. I specialized in various areas of entertainment such as animation and post. I worked for several companies there including commercials for budweiser, mtv, and some movies like Night and Day and Mousters ball doing intro titles.
When I returned to CR and applied to several agencies I realized that the only thing left for me was to go to a sportsbook or something on the internet because of the low salaries offered to designers and creatives. I had great offers from $400 to $800 (don’t get me wrong, I know that’s a payroll in CR) but my question is directed to the exploitation of the most valuable resource of an agency, THEIR CREATIVES AND DESIGNERS vs. what the agencies actually charge.
Maybe many people don’t comment on this directly but the truth is that it is worrying to see how great talents go from agency to agency looking for a little more money and end up in a sportsbook (because love for design and creativity is not a way to live).
I would like to know your opinion on this matter or if this topic could be discussed in the forum.
I lived what it is to be the most valuable resource of a company in the USA, because in the end what would the owners, financiers and account managers do without their designers and creatives? It’s a chain where we all need each other but also where everyone should win.
I would like to know your opinion. This is not an anonymous message nor a personal attack just a personal questioning.
Thank you
Antonio Ramirez
CCO
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Thank you, Antonio, for your message. I think it is indeed a valid concern across the spectrum of our business. Expect a comment from me next week, as well as taking the opportunity to invite others in the industry to weigh in. For example, it would be very interesting to know what Carlos Fonseca, Publimark, Gonzalo Paez, from the Garnier group, or people like Jose Fco. Correa, who conducts a periodic salary survey among our companies, as well as multinationals, would be very interesting to have opinions from Leo Burnett and McCann.
I will return to the subject next week with my contribution. Best regards!