Children of the scorn

Agency types love to complain about “The Client”.

They won’t let us doing anything good. They suck the life out of everything. They make every project so difficult.

True. True. And true. But have you ever stopped to wonder why?

Business is tough. It’s competitive. And it is pressure-packed.

So it’s not entirely surprising that clients take out some of their frustrations on us. From their perspective, we get to have fun all day creating shit while they slave away trying to make their numbers.

They muddle through spreadheets on PCs. We play with Photoshop on MACs. They attend draining weekly budget meetings. We play foosball. They wear tight slacks and tucked in shirts from Men’s Wearhouse. We have tattoos and wear fedoras. 

In short, they are the parents and we are the children.

So when we come to them with new work, they are already poised to strike it down.

“C’mon kids, we need a serious campaign. Stop trying to be so damned funny all the time!” 

And we’re forced to defend ourselves.

“But Dad, it is serious. Seriously hilarious!” 

And so it goes. Both sides playing their roles to T. They critique and we defend. They rant and we recoil. They chastise and we whine. 

So how do we stop this cycle of stupidity?

It has to start with us. The client is not going to change. It’s their business, why should they? 

We need to start acting like adults. And I don’t mean getting rid of the foos table and putting on a suit. People need room to create and we shouldn’t stifle that in any way.

But what we don’t need are prima donnas and wannabes trying to create work that only makes them happy and doesn’t do the client a lick of good. We don’t need self-loathing hacks who think that what we do for a living is a joke. We don’t need weak leadership that isn’t willing to have a point of view. 

We need people who are willing to whatever it takes to help their clients succeed. We need creatives who actually give a shit that a spot helped their client sell things. We need strategists who genuinely believe that we’re adding value to the businesses we serve. We need account managers who realize that pushing back is ultimately better for the client than rolling over.

In short, we need adults.

With tattoos, preferably.