I admire the writing from Richard in adliterate. I have hundreds of blogs in my Google Reader but generally see what he, Dave Trott and a few other smart folk have to say first.
He posted a short article (also for Campaign magazine) suggesting that creative coming from UK is not as good as international work - because of the client.
Perhaps he is right, but I was a bit surprised. My view (from the bubble I work in) is that clients were more progressive than before. Sure, we rely on metrics and like our occasional focus group, but we're not looking for 'safe' work. In fact, we hate safe.
Am I wrong?
2 comments:
Unfortunately you are. Not all clients are progressive. In Ireland there is not half enough (and the ones that exist are great to work with).
Clients generally want to tick all the boxes (note the amount of messages in each ad the next time you watch a commerical break)
They are afraid of being different to the rest of the category (they place such an emphasis on competitive reviews and very often try and match what other brands are doing and saying. Examples of this are apparent as we speak in the Irish market)
Don't get me wrong, it is not all the client's fault.
Creative agencies are very poor at arguing their case as to why a positioning/strategy/advert should be different and critically why they should have only one key message.
We are not seeing enough honest conversations around the table. Don't get me wrong, I'm guilty of this too.
Why are we all so afraid to do what is right?
thanks anon. It might be a case of too many chiefs on the client side sometimes.
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