Jason Rose confesses that being a client is hard
12 months after leaving the industry, former agency creative, Jason Rose (left), wonders if in hindsight he should have been more understanding of his clients and their challenges:
I spent nearly 10 years as a copywriter and I have a confession to make: looking back now, my attitude towards clients was often misguided.
During my decade as a creative, I strode into countless client meetings convinced I knew more about the client’s business and customers than they did. My job was to convince them, not to listen to them. And if, in the end, I just couldn’t get them to buy an idea, my job was to spend the entire cab ride back to the agency deriding them.
I’ve now changed sides. I’m now the client, running my own business, adboss.com.au. They’re now my dollars (and balls) on the line and the decisions that used to be so easy have become much, much harder. Bottom line? I have developed a whole new world of respect for clients.
As a copywriter, I spent countless nights at my desk trying to create that killer idea – the one that would clean up at award shows and, finally, take my career to a whole new level. Cannes, D&AD, One Show. That was pressure. But it’s not a fraction of the pressure I now feel sitting in my office asking myself the real question: will it work? Will it build my business?
I used to believe that effective work had to be edgy, original and innovative. It had to make you feel uneasy, move you out of your comfort zone and be the result of smashing your head against the brick wall of cliché. I still believe that, sort of.
Since going out on my own, I have executed countless ideas to market my business. Some of them have been edgy and ‘creative’ and others have been super boring, conservative and safe. Scarily, there has been little to no correlation between edginess and effectiveness. Some of the dullest things we have done have produced the best results and certainly vice versa.
I don’t believe creativity does not work. Engaging consumers, catching them in unexpected ways, helping them to like you, showing that you really understand them and their needs have to be worthy strategies. However, I look back now at the countless passionate, and often heated, arguments that I had with clients over the years and wonder if I was always right.
Was that battle I once had with an FMCG client over the size of their logo intelligent? Was my intransigent view that the logo had to be microscopic right?
I know I was told in AWARD school that making the logo smaller encouraged people to engage with the idea. And it’s been deified in every Cannes annual since the early ’90s. But I now think that the client may have been right. Why bury a logo? Where’s the evidence that’s more effective?
Another client – a property website – once briefed us for a campaign to increase visitors. We came up with a concept that we thought rocked. The client loved it (at least, initially). A few days later the suit sat us down with that grim look. The senior client who was not in the meeting – they never are – decided our idea could alienate real estate agents. They still loved it, but…
Fools! It’s a great campaign, I thought. Punters will love it. Punters and award juries.
The funny thing is I now make those kinds of balanced judgements every day without a second’s thought. I now realise that ads – the currency that I worshipped in agency land – are merely a bit-player in a far larger marketing matrix, which itself is merely one part of a business. So many times I would push a concept to the death with a client, and sometimes even beyond it, when it was plain to the client that it was just not right for the business. It was a good ad but not the right ad for them at that time.
I’m not saying clients are always right. Far from it. They make mistakes. They are often timid and desperately confused.
What I am saying is that I now understand why that is so often the case. It’s a tough gig. Commissioning work is a difficult, high stakes game. Clients have to live with the consequences – both internally and externally – far after the ad has run.
I guess if I had my time again, I would still be as passionate as I was in trying to sell my ideas. I’d just do so with a lot more humility and generosity towards the people I was trying to sell them to.
24 Comments
Good words, Jason. Life is a lesson. You read like a sad loss to copywriting. Times like this, I wish I was an art director. You sound like you would have been great to work with. All the best in your future.
Der.
interesting read, perhaps we could all get something out of swapping roles for a bit to see life from the other side…
Really refreshing. I too have worked both sides – you took the words right out of my mouth.
I think Jason’s touched on something quite relevant to the whole LB/Subaru fiasco of recent days. There was much comment about the fact that the suppliers – namely production companies – have long been called upon to spend their resources pitching on each and every job. There seemed to be a great deal of support from the agencies about standing up to a client about this sort of behaviour, but I think it’s only going to become more prevalent.
The industry is changing. If we assume audiences are more savvy, why does this not extend to clients too? Marketing has been demystified in recent decades, and a client worth their salary not only understands their product and audience, but has their own ideas about how to reach them. Ultimately, I think the agency model of years gone by is on its way out. Overheads are too high, not every idea is gold, clients understand how to market their product, and there’s just too much fat in the budgets. I think clients will begin to work directly with suppliers, with creatives brought in on a case by case basis, as we’ve seen with some of the smaller shops around town in recent years.
Jason’s note also touches on a misguided idea that permeates the industry as a whole. As creative as you think you are, you’re not actually in this industry to be creative. Your job exists to sell a product, plain and simple. A great idea, well executed, that doesn’t increase sales has failed. A bland idea that increases sales and brand awareness is a success. It seems the focus has shifted to awards and industry kudos. It’s an egotistical view, in my opinion.
Yep, good words indeed, & they should lead to a broader discussion. Awards as currency is clearly an issue with failures on both sides of the employment fence. The role of the Creative Director & the management of agencies is also a subject worthy of these pages. Clients & agencies need each other & it is a mystery to me that the relationship so critical to each others’ success is often poisonous.
12:44 – The biggest issue is when people draw a line between great ideas, and ideas that work…as if they’re mutually exclusive. I totally disagree that a lame idea that does the job is what creatives are here to do. That’s just not good enough and that too is the kind of old fashioned thinking that perpetuates the divide. Talent is more valuable today than it ever has been. I think that’ll always be the case, whatever the change and shape of the industry.
Great article. Thanks
Yes Jason, I think you missed the point entirely. The client knows their business more than us. Our specialism is supposed to be that we know consumers and our business more than them.
Sounds like you were a pretty jumped up creative back then? It’s good to see you humbling with time and experience.
Yep, nice. That’s a self promo you can sleep easy with.
Nicely written as well.
1:08 “Our ‘specialism’….”???
I think that we should carry this understanding through to our critiques of work on the blog. ie: Understand that it is there to do a job.
Could this article possibly be a way to promote Jason’s business?
A good creative should know not to wear your strategy on your sleeve.
If you listen closely you can hear the sounds of heads being extracted from arses.
@June 7, 2011 1:45 PM
Agreed – then when the results come in, we can revisit the work and slag it off as much/as little as needed. Fair?
What’s gone wrong? Is this intelligent debate I hear on the blog for once?
Anyone who starts work on a brief with the sole purpose of winning an award is a fool.
The work will give itself away to anyone with half a brain.
Because, the work will undoubtedly have very little to do with the product you have been paid to sell. Even a Telco client would be able to tell you that.
The job of advertising has always been to combine irresistible interestingness with a killer sales pitch and unmistakable branding.
Unfortunately it’s not easy, it doesn’t happen every time, and quite a few people have lost sight of the goalposts in the ridiculous and vain quest for awards (which of course are not judged by the people the ads are pitched at).
Simple, really.
David Ogilvy was ahead of his time.
Great article. I agree in so many ways and the derision that exists goes right through from the agency, the production house, the editor, the DOP, the runner… everyone thinks someone else is a jerk. It comes mostly from passion for what they believe is a good job in the context of what they know. Sometimes that is from a limited perspective and misguided.
I wonder if the thread between the work that sells and the work that doesn’t is actually sales psychology which is independent of the creative execution actually…. more discussion to be had around that.
For those that are concerned about this article being a sales pitch for Jason’s business have some limitations around sales to resolve. If you are in the business of selling for your client or simply selling yourself then this is a personal limitation worth looking at. Jason offered valuable content, he didn’t sell overtly in any instance – Cut loose I say. It’s my choice if I go to his website or not. He’s not been inappropriate by any stretch.
Onya Jason.
Refreshingly well said Jason.
I think this article is what it is & it’s great that it’s provoked debate. In my experience an Agency MD might be keener to meet Creative’s with several Effectiveness Awards under their belt but I can’t help think CDs & ECDs might be keener to meet Creative’s with Creative Awards. As far as I know the only way a Creative gets any kudos with its agency; moves up ranks or onto a better agency + gets a great pay packet is via Creative Awards which aren’t awarded for result gaining work. I’m not sure Creative Heads are thumbing thru a great book wondering if the shit hot press campaign with cut-through raised client KPIs.
5.25, you’re way wrong. Yes, awards help you move to a better agency. The best way you move forward in your own agency and to a better pay packet is by producing effective work, keeping your clients close and earning their trust by challenging them with proper business-building ideas.