Pros
Lots of new business in a diverse assortment of categories. Teams are all very young which brings a good energy to the agency. Spark also has a surprisingly good reputation and loyalty from its more tenured employees.
Cons
Word to the wise - all agencies are generally similar, but caveat emptor (buyer beware). It’s almost unbelievable how light the accounts are staffed. Equally surprising that clients even approve their SOW when it should be evident that severely reducing headcount to get a lower fee is going to yield shoddy work. New business structures are just not created with the client in mind, and on-boarding processes are non-existent. From an organizational perspective, the agency is overly bottom heavy. The lack of mid-junior roles (known as the elusive “Senior Associate”) means that accounts are mainly being staffed by recent graduates with no media strategy/execution foundation. While this is similar at many agencies, Spark seems to overstaff at the bottom which will require everyone up to the Director level to work down a grade. I imagine this is also how they lower their fees (which is likely where the new business keeps coming from), but it comes with serious setbacks. Benefits are standard to the industry, but pay is almost criminally low, specifically if you are looking at raises from internal promotions. That, in turn, causes a lot of churn at the agency. Hours can be brutal, but it does depend on the account. That being said, complaints will fall on deaf ears when things get out of control. Also, do not be surprised if SVP level employees are no where to be found when teams are burning the midnight oil.