May 22, 2008
WSJ Expose: Bulgarians Are Stealing Our Jobs!
(By Eyleen Tavy)
Don't ask us what we were doing reading the Wall Street Journal this morning (aside: have you ever looked at Kevin Sprouls', the guy who does the Journal's portraits, other work? Love it!), but when we read this article on how those damned Bulgarians are stealing American web ad production jobs our blood started to boil.
Until recently, Web ads were produced mostly by creative types in downtown lofts in places like New York City or San Francisco. But big marketers are now increasingly shipping off that work to little-known businesses in places like Costa Rica and Bulgaria.
NO! Will San Francisco's "downtown lofts" be the next Flint, with grizzled "creative types" standing in line for federally supplied cheese (aren't most creative people lactose intolerant, or does it just seem that way)?
Glibness aside, we really are concerned. We remember similar things going down around 2001, 2002, and that ended with a lot of those "creative types" departing their lofts for their parents' homes (in truly Flintlike places a lot of those "creative types", and we count ourselves in this statement, had been thrilled to escape). Those of you who work in this industry, how on-target is this WSJ report? Is the web ad building industry moving offshore? Are the ads surrounding the text you're reading RIGHT NOW from the keyboards of an Aleksandar, not a Daniel ("Don't call me 'Dan'")? Give us the scoop in the comments.
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if they're jewish creative types, then they're lactose intolerant.
I'm a goy creative type and I love heavy cream.
The Creative underClass takes another hit.
I'm a graphic designer and my favorite food is cheese. I'd rather have a Bulgarian take my job than be lactose-intolerant any day.
This is way old news. The Indians are all pissy because all the tech companies are moving to Bulgaria and Romania. See, the Indians forgot about a little thing called infrastructure and companies were growing tired of daily electrical and water shortages.
Besides, how creative do you have to be to create the infamous mortgage cobra? Or the dancing mortgage hoochies? Wacked ideas like these can only come from places like Bulgaria. I think it's great this work is being farmed out to Bulgaria. It's high time Eastern Europe had a say in the global culture of advertising.
I wonder if Jonathan Franzen's gift basket from the good people of Bulgaria has arrived yet?
This all because the average "art director" in this city has one year of experience and still expects to be paid $90 an hour for piss poor work that has to be fitted in around their latest "opening".
All of those "Academy of Art College School University" diplomas should not have been earned in vain.