The Good, the Bad. The Agency.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” is probably how I would describe my many years spent in ad agencies. When I joined as a young and hungry copywriter way back in 2006, I loved the work, the exposure, the learning, the people, and most of all the culture. Every brief, pitch, and brainstorming session was another opportunity to exercise my creative muscle and prove my mettle amongst my peers. The agency quickly became my second home; I would come in fully charged and leave feeling excited about the next day. To me, it didn’t feel like work; it was just something I loved to do and was lucky enough to get paid for it.

But as I became more senior and took on more responsibility, all the joy that once drew me to the agency started to fade away. Work became stressful and soul-sucking. Clients and team members became unreasonable, demanding and unsupportive. Work-life balance fell apart. The free and fostering culture that once welcomed, valued and inspired me now felt arduous, suffocating and unfamiliar.

After years of dedicating my life to agencies, my greatest fear had finally been realised: work became work and nothing more. As more and more of my colleagues jumped ship, I felt the walls closing in, causing me to question my future in the field. Burnt out, disillusioned and frustrated, I too exited the agency racket in search of a place that would rekindle my love for all things creative.

Today, agency life is much the same, if not worse. Instead of being fun, free and progressive places to work, the majority of creative agencies in Pakistan are known for being pressure cookers – notoriously cutthroat and bureaucratic organisations marred by low morale, minimal job satisfaction and high turnover. Micromanagement, late sittings, lack of direction and leadership are commonplace. Creatives are often overworked, overwhelmed and underpaid, which is why they constantly hop around, looking out for other opportunities, or moving to their own setups. And why wouldn’t they be? Skilled, diligent creatives are rare, so you would imagine that agencies would treat them well and value them highly, right? Not really.

Even senior creatives are often overburdened with extensive portfolios, bogged down with mounds of mundane low-level work, supported by small and inexperienced teams, and made to work late hours. Many are responsible for work outside of their job descriptions, dabbling in strategy and client servicing – all the while being modestly paid for their time (forget about overtime). Not to mention the regular grind of working with unclear briefs, dealing with temperamental clients, managing constant feedback, unreasonable timelines, office politics, lengthy meetings and slews of ad hoc emails, messages and calls. Whereas external pressure is part and parcel of the job, creatives are also forced to work with the internal pressure of unsupportive team members and management that end up behaving more like clients than agency peers. It’s a thankless and frustrating job to begin with, which is why being stuck in the wrong environment makes it almost impossible to function.

The sad irony is that creative people are expected to come up with big imaginative ideas while working in stifling environments that offer little to no inspiration, breathing room, or mental peace. It’s like cramming someone into a small dark box and expecting them to have bright ideas about the world outside. It’s not an ideal recipe for producing good work and it’s certainly no way to motivate creative people. Post-pandemic, as the rest of the world moved ahead, local creative agencies were stuck employing the same archaic practices they were 20 years ago. Even now, many continue to operate like government organisations and corporate offices, micromanaging their employees’ time and output, expecting them to conform to rigid policies and practices. This type of thinking can also be attributed to the growing generational gap between older agency managements and younger workers, which contributes to a lack of understanding and willingness to introduce more progressive ways of working. In the end, frustrated creatives continue to flee from such environments, and agencies continue to blame them for their lack of loyalty.

Whereas recognition, compensation and benefits are undoubtedly important, nothing outweighs the satisfaction and peace of mind of having an open, flexible and supportive work environment. A lot of agencies expect creatives to sit at a desk from nine to five (and way beyond) and churn out job after job. But creative work isn’t made on an assembly line, nor is it manual labour. You wouldn’t expect a surgeon or a music composer to work the same number of hours in the same environment, so why do agencies expect creatives to work like the rest of the corporate world?

Creative people by nature are disruptive and divergent thinkers. They are supposed to throw convention to the wind and colour outside the lines, and for that, they require an environment that harnesses their talent while providing the freedom and flexibility to think and work – not just in terms of what they do but in terms of how they do it. That is why ad agencies must focus on fostering a work culture that recognises individualism, reduces pressure and promotes mental well-being. It means understanding what makes creatives tick, adjusting to their style of working, and allowing them to focus on their core responsibilities. It also means offering flexible timings, remote working, casual dress codes, mixed work-play environments and relaxed policies. [A global study][2] in 2025 interviewed over 4,000 people across nine countries and showed that 80% of employees seek flexible work options and that 85% of businesses offering flexible work policies report higher productivity. Furthermore, in addition to increasing output, flexible working environments also boost employee loyalty by 81%, something that agencies here struggle with severely. Even local, non-agency-based start-ups have understood this trend, offering flexible work environments to attract young talent. If regular companies can do it, there is no reason why agencies that pride themselves on being ‘creative’ can’t.

A good culture is the number one reason why creative people join ad agencies and a bad culture is the number one reason why they leave them. To innovate and grow, creatives need the right working environment that allows them to do so. That means giving them the autonomy, mental and physical space to focus, as well as the team support, validation and trust they need to express themselves creatively. They aren’t cut from the corporate cloth; they are artists, dreamers and misfits looking for equally unconventional environments to fit into. They think and work differently, and ad agencies have to understand and adjust to this to retain such talent.

Finding good creative people is not easy. Any agency can offer them a higher salary, better benefits or a sexier office, but very few can offer the right work culture. Give them that and good talent will not only come to you; they will probably never leave you either.

Taimur Tajik is Creative Director and Founder, Creative Liberty.taimur@thecreativeliberty.com

[2]: https://zoetalentsolutions.com/flexible-work-arrangements)