What’s your problem?

Yeah. What’s your number one problem? On the job that is.

And how do plan to solve it?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Eugen Suman on July 20, 2007 at 11:22am

Thousands of illogical revisions ordered by the client? And no, there's nothing I can do about it.

Permalink Reply by Robert VASILE on July 31, 2007 at 11:40am

Actually there is something to do, but it only depends on the executives: hire ONLY quality people as accounts. This will do it.
If your account has no arguments or cannot "read" the client (and there are kind of very few clients that know what they want and even less that don't enforce HOW they want it), then the creatives get to work over and over changing commas with dots back and forth.
.
When i started being my own account (as i was only doing design) a lot of things changed.

Permalink Reply by Dramacidal on April 22, 2008 at 8:15am

I believe the executives or account handlers contribute to at least half the problems that any creative team will suffer. Poor "reading" of client reactions lead to endless hours of revisions that bring us back to the same place.

Having the quality to "read" a reaction and therefore know whether or not revisions are required is key. A lot of account handlers spend there time offering solutions that client does not necessarily need. Passing the buck as it were because once it's off their hands and onto the creative, then the blame game can commence.

Permalink Reply by Ken Church on May 13, 2009 at 5:42pm

How many times have I listened to an AE tell me the client hates something and the clients want it this way. And then I have occasion to speak with the client direct and the client has no recollection of any such discussion. And in fact after a little more discussion buys the work as I sent it. OR, how about this. The client won't like it, the design is wrong for this market, we told you not to use that photo they will reject it.
I'm older now and have more power, I send stuff How I see it and so often all the mandatories thrown up during the concept phase are bogus. I just wonder about all the work rejected when I was younger. Sorry, caught me on a bad day. I could go on

Permalink Reply by Michael Durwin on February 21, 2009 at 4:43pm

I agree with Robert and Dramacidal. Alot of it is about managing client expectations and having the AEs know when to push back and when not to.
If you've got a tight statement of work (limited revisions, knowing the ultimate decision maker, etc.), have really sold the concept, and have given your client a reason to trust your decisions, then the only thing left to look at is the client. I've had more than my share of clients who tried to be CDs or ADs over my shoulder. Ultimately they don't get something that works and they never hire you again. After all, if they knew how to direct creative, they wouldn't have hired you.

Permalink Reply by Carla Portillo on March 3, 2009 at 12:19pm

I've been on both sides of the coin. I worked as a Creative Director for Warner, Warner Music Group and Universal; I also have worked and own an Ad agency. One issue a lot of agency people don't know about is that for the most part, the Creative Director your Account person deals with aren't the ones running the show. It has nothing to do with "reading" the client...In my experience, the endless comp after comp revisions come from the Marketing Execs. They don't care about the aesthetics of the project all what they care about is the statistics of what has worked in the past. Creative Directors work based on new and exciting ways to attract customers, Marketing works based on old ways that has proven to attract customers. This is where the tug of war starts and ends. They are both right! Have you noticed that at the end of the day the studios always go back to comp 3 of 300. Which means Creative and Marketing went around in circles and when they ran out of ideas they went back to the beginning and just picked one. Sad but true. Because of these reasons, I don't think things will change we just have to adapt. Oh, and if you get a client with less "Chefs in the kitchen" the process works much smoother.

Permalink Reply by doland ruiz on March 3, 2009 at 1:38pm

"Creative Directors work based on new and exciting ways to attract customers, Marketing works based on old ways that has proven to attract customers."

Interesting, seems true! The easiest way to kill morale in a creative department is to have what you mentioned; too many g*ddamn chefs in the kitchen. haha

Permalink Reply by Steve McNamara on July 21, 2007 at 6:36am

Hi Eugen -

You might try limiting the number of revisions you provide.

You tell the client, "Here's the copy. Please respond with your written comments and we will use our best judgment about how to blend your comment into this first revision. Same with the second revision. But after that, any change you suggest will go directly into the document."

I've used this approach successfully when dealing with clients who want to be copywriters.

Permalink Reply by Steve McNamara on September 12, 2007 at 11:36am

Hi Dick - The most difficult problem I’ve ever had was with Citibank in Hong Kong. The copy would first go to a junior marketing coordinator who would edit it, then send it back. Then it would go to the marketing manager who would edit it and send it back - and so on through about six rounds of different people reworking the copy, It was driving the copywriters crazy. And wasting a lot of time.

In that case we asked for a high-level meeting with the VP of regional marketing and agreed on guidelines that, among other things, stipulated two rounds of copy revisions. And it worked out very well.

I had a client in San Diego on the other end of the spectrum. They had three people work on my copy, but they were all pretty good writers. I put a lot of effort into the first draft. They didn’t make a lot of changes. And I never felt that any “crap” went out the door.

I’ve had good luck. Part of it due to good clients.

Permalink Reply by Ken Church on May 13, 2009 at 5:50pm

Everybody wants to be a copy writer. I mean how hard can it be. You just expand on a list of benefits, ad a few, "for all your needs" and bingo, cheap copy. Make sure you ad a call to action.
You can't just drop a phone number at the bottom of the ad. You must explain that you must call now or at leat say call, just in case the reader won't know what to do with a phone number.

Permalink Reply by doland ruiz on May 5, 2010 at 12:52am

lmao @ the "call to action". I particularly love the Click Here! on a button that basically (and sometimes literally) points to itself.

Permalink Reply by Sunny Cervantes on August 9, 2007 at 10:37pm

I smiled at Eugen Suman's comment. Because I was just about to comment something from a client's point of view. Mine is getting my creative team to produce the design I need. Solution? Better creative brief. Or, a new artist. :)