The Art Of Client Service, Revised And Updated Edition Part 3

Then Deliver It Tom Nelson, the cofounder and creative director of Gardner Nelson & Partners, says, "In my experience, account people spend too much time talking about partnership and not enough time practicing it. For your creative team, a detailed 16-point memo after the big presentation is no subst.i.tute for a lukewarm quart of Szechuan noodles the night before."

Tom is right. Many account people think the best way to help your colleagues is to be a resource to them. That's important, but the best account people go beyond being the repository of market and compet.i.tive wisdom. They go beyond being the expert on client wishes, requirements, and idiosyncrasies. They are a constant, contributing presence on every a.s.signment.

If the creative team is working late, or working the weekend to make a deadline, great account people will be there with them. They are there to answer questions, to provide input, to offer feedback and encouragement, and to order Chinese food or pizza. They are there in solidarity with their colleagues, partic.i.p.ating and contributing to the process in every way that's helpful.

Often it is the smallest gesture that makes the biggest impact. I remember a particularly stressful time preparing for a new business presentation. It was late on a Friday evening; most of the agency staff had called it a day. But one of my colleagues who was working on the pitch with me, a planner, was struggling to make the final revisions to the creative brief. She wasn't the most proficient person at the keyboard. I volunteered to help.

We sat in my office and worked from her rough notes. She dictated; I keyed. In an hour we had input the revisions and had the final version ready for distribution to the creative team.

It wasn't a big thing; maybe I saved the planner a half hour. But I know it made a difference, because the planner thanked me more than once. To this day we are friends, and on occasion she will remind me of that Friday evening. "You have no idea how important that was," she'll say. "You were a big help at a difficult moment."

She wasn't thanking me for my typing skills. She was thanking me for my gesture of support. It was almost as good as that quart of lukewarm Szechuan noodles Tom Nelson talks about.

By the way, I was at the agency early the following Sat.u.r.day morning, to be available to the creative team. If I recall correctly, I brought bagels and coffee.

Looking at creative . . .

CHAPTER 12.

Always Ask, "Does This Advertising Pa.s.s the 'So What' Test?"

The airwaves are filled with ads that, at best, put the viewer to sleep. At worst, they debase the client's brand, rather than build it.

It is not enough for the work to be on strategy; it has to engage consumers and make them want to pay attention. You can't influence how people think and act with boring advertising. To achieve those results requires advertising driven by a smart, honest, and emotionally true idea.

Whenever you're reviewing work with your creative colleagues, first ask yourself if it is on strategy. Then ask yourself if it makes you think, "So what?"

If the work doesn't pa.s.s this test, it will not pa.s.s the test of the marketplace. This isn't work that should go to the client. It is better, instead, to keep working, and to keep pushing for a solution that pa.s.ses the "So what" test.

CHAPTER 13.

Don't Fall in Love with Good Work There were safer alternatives on the wall, but my creative colleagues and I were convinced that one particular concept was right for the client. We were, however, having trouble convincing our boss, the head of the agency. We must have argued for an hour. He wanted to kill the idea; we wanted to make it our recommendation.

We took a break. The boss and I had a little conversation on our own.

"We can't go with that campaign as the recommendation," he said. "It's too risky and the client will never buy it."

"It is risky," I conceded, "but not because it's wrong, or because it's off strategy. It's risky because the client has never seen anything like this from us before, and it's not what she's expecting. We'd be crazy to kill it without at least showing it to her. It's just too good."

"But I really don't like it," my boss persisted.

"But all of us do," I countered. "If it were off strategy, I'd agree with you, but it isn't. It delivers perfectly on the strategy. It's brilliant and funny. There's a real idea at work. And it will have legs."

"I still don't like it." I could hear the frustration in his voice, but I wasn't going to give in.

"Look, do you really want to overrule me, the creative director, the writer, and the art director? It's four against one."

"Since when are all votes created equal?" he replied testily.

"Since never," I conceded. "But you yourself said it's my account to run. I'm asking you to trust my judgment. I know this client better than you do. They will love this work, and they're going to buy it."

"That's what I'm afraid of!" my boss exclaimed.

In the end, he backed off, grudgingly, reluctantly, fearfully. We could present the idea we were so in love with, but we also agreed to present four concepts instead of three, so the client would still have three ideas to choose from that my boss felt comfortable with.

Why did we fight so hard for this one particular idea? We had three other perfectly good concepts to go with-and that was the problem.

Good work is on strategy. It's smart, respects the viewer, and is well crafted. You can produce it on time and on budget. Your client can green light it. It makes you comfortable.

Good work is the enemy of great work. If you are satisfied with work that is merely good, you will never deliver great work for your clients.

Great work, like good work, is on strategy. But it's beyond smart; it's something else. Something rare and special. It doesn't just respect the viewer, it connects with the viewer.

Great work might make you uncomfortable. It might be something startlingly new. It might take risks. You might not be able to produce it on time or within budget, and your client might not readily say yes to it.

If the work is truly great, and right for your client, your job is to support it and to help your client see its potential and choose to buy it.

The idea my colleagues and I were fighting for was great, not merely good. It was visually stunning. It spoke the language of the target audience. More than anything else, it was hilariously funny, and humor was the right way to go in this instance.

You might be wondering what happened in the client presentation. The client laughed when we showed the idea to her. She got it, she knew the target would get it. In the end, she didn't love it enough to take a risk on it. The very thing that made the work great-the humor-is the thing that worried her. So she went with a safer choice.

The fault was ours, not hers. We knew the idea was right. We did our best to be persuasive, without applying undue pressure. We wanted her to own the idea with us. We didn't succeed.

We wound up executing a different concept, which made perfectly good advertising. We liked it, and so did the client. But it wasn't great, and we didn't love it.

CHAPTER 14.

Don't Fall for Bad Work What pa.s.ses for great work these days is often little more than a clever execution or an unusual production technique.

Work like this can be insidious; it masquerades as great advertising, but it is not. Instead it sacrifices the client's advertising objective on an altar of creative self-indulgence. Okay, I admit the metaphor is a little overwrought, but you get the picture. This kind of advertising is bad, and to see it for what it is requires judgment, dispa.s.sion, and discipline.

It's a much happier task to stand up for work you believe in than it is to speak out against work you know is wrong. But your colleagues will listen to you if you've established yourself as a credible source of input, if you speak with conviction, and if your a.s.sessment is well reasoned.

It's not enough to simply say, "I don't know why, but I just don't like it," or "The client won't buy it." You need to explain why the work doesn't deliver on the strategy, why it will fail to engage viewers, why it doesn't deliver the message clearly, or whatever else might be wrong with it.

The easiest way to spot work like this is to ask, "What's the idea driving this advertising?" If there's no idea in what you're seeing, then there isn't anything for the client to buy, and the agency shouldn't be trying to sell it.

CHAPTER 15.

Choice Is Good I 've heard of agencies that present just one creative concept to their clients. I've never worked at such an agency, so I can only guess at the motivation behind this approach. Perhaps it's to show confidence that the agency has arrived at 've heard of agencies that present just one creative concept to their clients. I've never worked at such an agency, so I can only guess at the motivation behind this approach. Perhaps it's to show confidence that the agency has arrived at the the solution. Perhaps it's that the agency doesn't have any other ideas. solution. Perhaps it's that the agency doesn't have any other ideas.

The agencies I worked at, and most of the other agencies I'm familiar with, have lots of ideas. They know there's more than one way to execute a strategy.

Always bring your client more than one concept. What's the right number? It depends on the client.

Some clients love to see the conference room walls papered with a dozen or more ideas. But that takes time and costs money. It's not always possible, practical, or even desirable. With many clients, showing more than five concepts can be confusing. It also can imply you are surrounding the strategic challenge, rather than solving it.

Generally, the right number of concepts to present is three. It's large enough to provide the client meaningful choice, yet small enough to compel the agency to select only the very best ideas to present.

What do you do if your creative team only comes up with one or two ideas? Do you go to the client with just that one or two? With rare exceptions, I would say no. The best creative people usually have lots of ideas to show you, and if one thing isn't working, they always have something else, or are comfortable going back and concepting some additional ideas. Less talented creative people often have just a single idea to offer, so they will fight fiercely for that idea, regardless of its merit, because they are not confident they can produce more.

It's a matter of knowing your creative team. If you know it will fall short in generating ideas, you need to encourage the creative director to add a second or even a third team to the creative development process. This is not an easy conversation to have, but it's better to deal with this issue at the agency, well before the client presentation, than to go to the client with only the thinnest of presentations. If you do that, you usually wind up going back to the agency anyway to develop more ideas, which costs you time and client goodwill.

Here are three other things to keep in mind when deciding which work to present to the client.

1. Before you present to the client, agree among yourselves what the agency recommendation is among the options, why it is the recommendation, and why the others are not. Before you present to the client, agree among yourselves what the agency recommendation is among the options, why it is the recommendation, and why the others are not. 2. 2. Decide who will speak for the agency on the recommendation. Decide who will speak for the agency on the recommendation. 3. 3. Make sure you would be proud to execute any of the concepts you show. Eliminate any straw men before the presentation. If it isn't good enough to execute, it isn't good enough to present. Make sure you would be proud to execute any of the concepts you show. Eliminate any straw men before the presentation. If it isn't good enough to execute, it isn't good enough to present.

CHAPTER 16.

Fight about the Work with Colleagues;the Work with Colleagues; Fight for It with ClientsIt with Clients Years ago, when I was running a major financial services account, I worked with one of my creative director colleagues on a print ad campaign. I'll call him Mel. Mel was a very senior, veteran guy. It was a day or two before we were scheduled to present to the client, and he was walking me through the concepts he was going to show.

Mel was the type of writer who liked to crowd the walls with ideas. It was typical of him to show a dozen or more approaches. For some clients, that many choices would be paralyzing. Not this client. This client loved the theater of it. He loved to debate the ads. He really took ownership of the work, and that was great for us. He welcomed a room full of ideas.

So there I was, looking with Mel at maybe 15 ideas slapped up on the walls of the agency conference room. I liked maybe five of them. Another five or six were serviceable. The rest, I thought, were losers.

Overall I felt great about what I was looking at and said so. I made some suggestions on a couple of the executions. Then I said, "There are a few ads that aren't working." I explained why. In two instances, Mel agreed, and decided to kill the ideas. We disagreed about two or three others. I made my case: The weaker executions would dilute the whole presentation. Besides, we didn't need that many options.

The problem was, Mel thought a couple of the ads I didn't like were among the strongest on the wall. So we went back and forth for a while. Our disagreement never reached the knock-down-drag-out variety, but let's just say it got pretty spirited. Mel put an end to the debate by saying he'd think about it. That's all I could ask for. If I couldn't persuade him, then the trouble was with me, not him.

Two days later we met with the client. Mel took the client through the work. The client liked much of it, but there were two ideas he gravitated to. One was a favorite of mine, the other was one of the ads I wanted to kill, but Mel kept in.

The client turned to me and asked, "So which one would you go with?"

It would have been easy for me to support my choice, trash the one I didn't like. Easy, but wrong.

You owe your colleagues an insightful, expert, candid, and sensitive a.s.sessment of their work. (By work work I don't just mean creative; it could be a strategy recommendation, or a media plan, or something else.) You should base this a.s.sessment on your knowledge of the market, your grasp of the consumer's needs and inter ests, and your understanding of client expectations and culture. I don't just mean creative; it could be a strategy recommendation, or a media plan, or something else.) You should base this a.s.sessment on your knowledge of the market, your grasp of the consumer's needs and inter ests, and your understanding of client expectations and culture.

You and your colleagues won't always agree. You will argue; this often is part of arriving at the right solution.

It's fine to fight about the work in private, but once you've agreed on what to present to the client, get on the bus. When you are in front of the client, never throw the work, or your colleagues, under the bus.

I didn't throw the ad I didn't like under the bus. I supported it, and I also supported my choice. But the client wanted a definitive recommendation. Of course, Mel and I were prepared to make one. Prior to the meeting we agreed which one we would go with. So I turned to Mel and said, "Why don't you talk about the choice we arrived at."

Mel did. You probably want to know which one we recommended. The funny thing is, I can't remember. What I do remember is that I fought about about the work with my colleague, but fought the work with my colleague, but fought for for it with my client. it with my client.

CHAPTER 17.

Do Not Sell W. David Vining, the former director of U.S. advertising and direct marketing at Compaq Computer (now HP) and now a marketing executive at AIMCO, once said, "Too often, a creative-driven agency will try to force their own ideas on a client, rather than working in a spirit of collaboration. It takes a very strong account person to maintain the client's interest, and not take the easy way out by simply selling the work." David Vining, the former director of U.S. advertising and direct marketing at Compaq Computer (now HP) and now a marketing executive at AIMCO, once said, "Too often, a creative-driven agency will try to force their own ideas on a client, rather than working in a spirit of collaboration. It takes a very strong account person to maintain the client's interest, and not take the easy way out by simply selling the work."

David is certainly not alone in this view; I know other clients who share a similar belief.

The problem with selling is that it's about applying pressure on a buyer to do what you want-what is best for you, your colleagues, your agency. Account people often are tempted to be salespeople. By selling the client on the agency's recommendation, you prove your worth to your colleagues. But you do much more damage than good if you take this approach.

You want your client to buy buy great work. Great work almost always entails an element of risk, because there inevitably is something new or unexpected about it. Clients generally will take risks with people they trust. An account person who is busy selling a client is not likely to build trust with that client. great work. Great work almost always entails an element of risk, because there inevitably is something new or unexpected about it. Clients generally will take risks with people they trust. An account person who is busy selling a client is not likely to build trust with that client.

Conversely, an account person who understands that the client's interests are the agency's top priority is going to be viewed as a trusted partner, not as a salesperson for the agency's interests. That kind of account person is in a much better position to credibly recommend that the client take the risk on great work. In the end, that account person is the creative team's greatest ally.

I should be clear about one thing: When I say an account person should make the client's interests the agency's top priority, I am not not suggesting that the account person is there to simply do the client's bidding or to merely follow the client's commands. Quite the opposite is true. The account person who has established credibility with a client is in the best position to challenge, when necessary, that client's a.s.sumptions, demands, and opinions. suggesting that the account person is there to simply do the client's bidding or to merely follow the client's commands. Quite the opposite is true. The account person who has established credibility with a client is in the best position to challenge, when necessary, that client's a.s.sumptions, demands, and opinions.

Great account people do not sell. Instead, they serve as partners to both their colleagues and to their clients, with a responsibility to facilitate the creation of great work, and a goal of helping clients make the right decisions about that work.

CHAPTER 18.

Bring Your Clients into the Process Early Advertising isn't just about collaboration within the walls of the agency; it's about collaborating with the client.