Case Study: Big Spaceship

Big Spaceship

Introduction

Big Spaceship is a fast-growing creative advertising and marketing agency headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. Founded by Michael Lebowitz in 2000 with only a few employees, Big Spaceship has reached great success and good reputation at the first stage. By 2008, Big Spaceship has already gained around $10 million annual revenue with 50 employees (Groysberg, B., & Slind, M., 2009). In 2009, Big Spaceship was awarded one of the World’s Leading Independent Agencies by the networkone and Campaign Magazine. In 2012, Big Spaceship was recognized as one of the top 50 best places to work by Crain’s NY. In 2017, the company received Media Post’s OMMA, Agency of the Year. By now, Big Spaceship has over 100 employees
According to Lebowitz, he holds the view that it is not efficient to spend money on recruiting. They want people to come to them and be truly willing to get on board and work for Big Spaceship. People who want to work for Big Spaceship will come to you, said Lebowitz (Groysberg, B., & Slind, M. 2009, p.11).

According to Jason Prohaska, the previous director and partner at Big Spaceship, it is very difficult to find people who can align with Big Spaceship’s culture while have the different skillsets and thinking-on-your-feet kind of approach that the company need (Groysberg, B., & Slind, M., 2009, p.11). Besides the skillsets Big Spaceship needed, fit is also critical factor they take into consideration. They want passionate and dedicated people. However, Big Spaceship cannot offer a competitive salary to compete with big adverting or marketing firms.

There is no typical profile in Big Spaceship since they believe everyone is shining in a unique way and the fact that the skillets clients need are changing rapidly. The majority of Big Spaceship’s employees at least hold Bachelor’s degree. The main similarities among employees are creativity and good communications skills. The general skills needed are marketing and advertising, especially social media marketing skills. Below is information about education level and
Michael Lebowizt and his HR team meet every quarter to discuss employees who had left (Groysberg, B., & Preble, M., 2016, p.12). There are several reasons that lead to the high turnover rate. Externally, Big Spaceship is known for decent employee development so even companies outside marketing industry want to hire people from Big Spaceship with a competitive salary. For example, some employees work for Google or Twitter after leaving Big Spaceship. Also, the new generation tends to be more adventurous and explorative. Most of the millennial are not willing to stay in the same company for their entire career as their parents. Thirdly, technology has been development rapidly and the skillsets client need also has been constantly changing. Big Spaceship also constantly needs new blood to keep up with the current trend. Internally, Big Spaceship is not able to offer a competitive salary due to the size of the company. As Lebowizt said, it is not unusual that employees receive 40% more salary after leaving Big Spaceship (Ibis). Since Lebowizt and his team are aware of the fact that Big Spaceship will not be the last place their employees work at, they encourage their employees to take advantage of the time working at Big Spaceship and make the most of their