Vantaggi
The agency's leadership has done a lot of things since 2007 to turn the agency around and create a new culture - not easy when the place is named after an extroverted crazy British, morphed into an unregocnizable corporate behemoth, and owned by a public company (IPG). The agency however has left the aweful midtown area on 42nd and 3rd/Lex and moved into an edgy loft space in Soho. They've torn down the walls, got rid of all cubicles, and instilled a new spirit. Plus, there seems to be a great chemistry now between the employees. The pay is fair. Benefits are good. Just don't buy into their stock option plan. The stock's performance has been flat ever since, but that's due to the non-scalable business model of ad agencies.
Svantaggi
The agency finally realized it had to change, but change would take a minimum of 12 months to implement, and I simply couldn't wait that long. The office space on 42nd Street was aweful. It had the look and feel of typical American cubicle country. You'd sometimes walk in in the morning wondering if anyone was there. It looked and felt much more like a cost consultancy / accounting firm than a creative space. Furthermore, there was hardly any interaction between departments. Everyone acted and lived in their own silos. Many upper level managers came in, meant well, talked about change, but then soon hit the corporate wall resisting any kind of change. The killer came when SAP/R3 was implemented as business management software as imposed by the Interpublic Group. That definitely killed any kind of creative leftover spirit. Entering a "material code" into a horribly looking software interface when booking a photographer? Are you kidding me?