Jimmy Gilmore – Writer – Director

There’s a kind of deviant you can find in lurk­ing in most ad agen­cies. Some­times they’ve made it to the top, some­times they’re just bot­tom dwellers but they rarely have a pas­sion for what an agency actu­ally pro­duces – cre­ative solu­tions to busi­ness prob­lem. But they do aim to please the client and maybe even col­lect a tip along the way.

Here are the top 10 signs you are one of these ene­mies to the work:

1. You worry more about the pre­sen­ta­tion than the substance.
2. You think your job is to get cre­ative to under­stand the client’s pos­tion and not to solve the client’s under­ly­ing problem.
3. A brief is a “form” you fill out to get the cre­atives to do their damn job.
4. Your unique sell­ing posi­tion is access to a sky­box at the stadium.
5. The client is your “friend” and not a busi­ness part­ner or colleague.
6. You get the traf­fic man­ager to do your dirty work.
7. Your best come­back is “but this is what the client wants.”
8. Your job has more to do with man­ag­ing projects than solv­ing problems.
9. You feel you need to apol­o­gize if you come back to the client with a bet­ter solu­tion than was asked for.
10. You expect every­thing you jot down on a pad from the customer’s mouth to come hot off the grill ASAP with­out any back talk.