Experience: If you ever assume that you have it you are guaranteed to get it.
With that in mind, I present to you
LifeLock the current case and point for better client/agency communications.
As professionals in the advertising and marketing world we are expected to guide our clients away from making costly mistakes but as is often the case, some clients or business leaders misunderstand the relationship or they assume that they know more than their advertising agency. These "know exactly what they want" types force their personal bias on a project molding it to their wants and desires without regard to the seasoned advice they are ignoring.
In their defense, these "bold business leaders" often think this is simply good business leadership. Often these same brash people are likely to be proven leaders in many other areas. However in this case they are not taking the advice of experienced professionals.
When I see this happen I wonder if these same clients would tell their doctor "Thats a great diagnosis. Really it is. But since I don't want you to cut open my chest to fix to my blocked artery, we are going to go with my concept and you can just take out my tonsils."
I am not saying that is exactly what happened in the LifeLock example but as a rule most agencies do not try to hang their client out to dry. So I'll wager this was not their first concept. As a matter of fact, based on the nice looking revised materials, I will guess that the agency offered up some pretty solid creative campaign options and the client came back with "Thats great, but lets crank it up a notch. I'll put my name and face on the line."
The fact that inexperienced or shortsighted clients become fixated on their own idea like this often negates everything an advertising or creative partner can then do. In other words, every penny that client spent from that point on was wasted because they focused on their own concept and never let the professionals do their jobs.
I am not trying to put blame on client or agency in this – just prove a point. Experience and trusting professionals to do what you hire them to do is not always easy. Without good communication and most important of all a real trust between client and creative firm, someone is not going to be happy with the end results.
Come tell us your needs. No matter what your project is, we can put our experience to work creating a solution that will work for you.
Posted on Wednesday, June 18, 2008
by Shawn Graham