Hey junior, wanna avoid producing #$2=@!. Or how to sell good work.
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Fact of life, junior creative: not every client is going to buy your great work. Some will just wear you down until what finally runs is just bad. Why? Politics, bad taste, stupidity, or just plain arrogance. And in a good economy, great agencies fire them. But most agencies have clients that are there just to keep the lights on. Usually, juniors get stuck working on them while the senior people work on the fun stuff.
But most clients will buy decent work, at least on occasion. And a lot of it has to do with how it’s presented, defended, and the steps that are taken once an impasse is met.
Presenting: Some people do better selling work by practicing. Others take improv classes. And some use salesman’s tricks. Then there are the personality sellers, a rare breed of agency rainmaker that can force the work through just by using their charm – you can often find these guys selling bad work just because they hate losing. I try to connect on a personal level and let the client know that I’m being honest and that I have their concerns in mind. I find this strategy almost always works better for existing clients.
Defending: Most people will try to use the rhetorical skills of a lawyer. But my most powerful tool is listening. Just listen to what they have to say. Don’t be quick to refute and make sure they’ve finished talking before you offer up a critique of their thinking. A lot of times they just need to work through things in their mind. And just by keeping your mouth shut you can sell a great idea. I used to work with an awesome media director who later became a client. He uses his body language to get the other guy to talk first and allow him to win the negotiation every time.
It’s good to keep in mind that clients aren’t paid to have taste. (That’s actually your creative director’s job.) Their job is to drive incremental sales for the company. So qualitative arguments will often loose. A particularly blunt boss once reminded me, “this isn’t fucking Cannes, Jimmy.” No it wasn’t. And “artistic” arguments were never going to win the day. If you have to argue with them do it using their terms and goals, never yours.
Next steps: Don’t agree to any specific changes at the meeting. Take good notes (or make sure your AE is) and let them know you’re going to look at all of their suggestions and you’ll be coming back with solutions.
Bogusky calls these “change moments” and says to embrace them and make them positive.
If they’re insisting on something bad, try and figure out why. Most people have reasons why they’re suggesting something – although they don’t always share them unless they’re asked. Getting answers may feel like pulling teeth because some clients don’t want to share their motives – they’re not always positive. This can be hard. If it weren’t, every agency professional would be doing great work and the award annuals would be much thicker.
Unfortunately, sometimes you have to move on because the client refuse to buy anything good. After all, they’re paying. But that’s not your decision, it’s your creative directors. If you do punt, don’t give up on selling something good. Find something else to work on pro-bono or take on a side client to crank out some good stuff for the award shows yourself.
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Time to stop pussy footing, creative folks.
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I’m a copywriter and also a social media guy. So a post by Jim Mitchem got me fired up last week. And it also got me thinking about the role that creative folks are playing in the social space right now. The reality is we’re not doing all that much right now. In fact, a lot of what I’m doing in the social space has more to do with coaching and cheer leading than it does being creative.
So I think the time for the best in my field, copywriters and art directors, to help transform social media to a more creative space over the next couple of years. Right now, clients are still just talking about spending big bucks on social media and we in the agency world, are still trying to get them to actually pony up the agency fees required to have a senior creative do something transformative. And I can’t wait.
Right now the inspiring and creative things are coming from developers and technical innovators. But sooner or later the wizzbang excitement is going to be gone and we’re going to need these tools to be distributing engaging content. The creatives role will be to step up and make make this interesting, exciting and well, creative.
Back in the early days of film, audiences were happy to sit through a screening of a horse running and train chugging along a track. And they were actually afraid they were going to get hit by the train. It was damn exciting stuff for people who had never seen anything like it before. After a few years though, the same audiences started demanding a story. And directors like Eisenstein and DW Griffin delivered with Battleship Potemkin and Birth of a Nation.
Web 2.0 is delivering us the tools to be creative in entirely new ways and it’s now up to us to figure out how make the most of it. Yes there have been some interesting projects and I hope it won’t be till the One Show and D&AD create an award for Twitter before we see the full power of advertising creativity unleashed on the space. Let’s not wait, lets start moving the ball now. It can never hurt to get ahead of everyone else.
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Fast enough is the new good enough
Pick two and only two sides
Today fast enough is the new good enough.
Fortunately, this will change and clients will start by asking for quality again, in addition to cheap and fast. The cyclical nature of business will cause them to demand memorable and even entertaining work again.
Do you have a plan for this eventual turn back toward quality? Are you still trying to do the best you can with every project? Or have you been consumed by the apathy bug and just trying to get the project out the door on time? The worst situation you can find yourself in is focused only on fast and cheap when your clients want good again. So ask your self on the next rush job – is this as good as it can be, or is just cheap and fast enough?
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