March 1, 2005 4:06 PM
Read All About It
Copywriters: You know that book about advertising you always wanted to write? The one that takes all the things you hate about the way most big ad agencies operate and exposes them for the waste of client money that they are, then offers up sound business solutions that would fix nearly all of it?
Well, you're too late. Mark Silveira beat you to it.
Read this excerpt, then buy a copy and send it to a Brand Manager you love.
From Ordinary Advertising:
Over on the agency side, you’ll find more than enough people happy to sign on to performance metrics commonly referred to as “moving the peanut”. In many cases, they’re equally clueless when it comes to turning out great advertising. Besides, there’s plenty of money to be made in doing campaign after campaign, backup after backup, concept boards and test campaigns. Who needs to mess with that golden goose? Thus the prevailing agency philosophy of “you’re happy, we’re happy”. And lest you think I’m being unduly harsh, here’s how John Hancock CEO (and former ad guy), John D’Allesandro characterized agencies in his book Brand Warfare:
“One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a brand builder is to assume that advertising agencies want to help you build your brand and sell your products. Don’t be silly; what they really want is to keep you as a fee-paying client for as long as possible. The general character of the advertising business is sycophancy. A lot of agencies will produce any nonsense you want, so long as it keeps you happy and you can pay for it.”
Posted by Wade Sturdivant
Comments (2) | View blog reactions
"I know! Let's make advertising that doesn't suck!"
Another lamb to the slaughter....
The irony of exposing ad agencies as money mongers is that clients often light the fuse to this lethal bomb. I had a client a few years back who had a good business model and plenty of benefits for their service. Too many benefits. They couldn't decide which was the best way to go. So they gave us an assignment to explore all of these angles, which was wasteful to begin with. But then once we produced these versions, the company bickered with one another about which was the smartest approach. In the end, they produced nothing. And they paid a pretty penny for that nothing.
It's sad how this disgruntled copywriter-turned author seems himself to want to turn a fast buck by feeding anger to an already frustrated system. While I have yet (and doubtfully will) to read his banter, I pray his book provides solutions that are more effective on both the client and the agency side.