Thank you Ricki Arches, and Micky Domingo for not firing me. We had a client who mandated that whenever a new, major communication campaign was to be launched, the agency and the brand stakeholders had to hammer out a clear strategy during a day-long brainstorming. Sounds good in theory. In practice, it was the equivalent of a root canal for your brain. 95% of the discussions were semantics. “Does satisfaction really capture the reaction we want from consumers?” “What about joy?” “It sounds right but maybe there’s something stronger.” There was a quarter where we had three of these sessions. Internally, I was seething, fuming, and devising various ways to vivisect the clients. I called on all my theater training and found the motivation to act gleefully engrossed and engaged. I turned nodding into an art form. I became a master of deftly rephrasing what had just had been discussed when asked for my input. The accounts guy I worked with said he was going to nominate me for a best actor award. But after one particularly torturous strategy discussion, I discovered that when you push the envelope too far, envelopes get ripped. We were about done. We’d locked down the proposition. And then the client asked me, “So, Alex, do you think this strategy will inspire your creatives?” I could have said “Yes, ma’am,” and that would have been the end of it. I could have smiled and nodded assent. But no. I rolled my eyes as if my very existence depended on it and let the words shoot out of my stupid mouth like bullets aimed at the face of the client, “MY. TEAM. AND. I. ARE. PROFESSIONALS. WE. DON’T. NEED. A. STRATEGY. TO. BE. INSPIRING. WE. JUST. NEED. IT. TO. BE. CLEAR.” After the next agency evaluation, the accounts guy told me the clients wanted me off the account. Moral lesson: creatives like it when strats are inspiring.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 09:26:43 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015