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You too, can be a good client

Let's start by acknowledging first that two million dollars worth of effective advertising can outsell ten
million dollars worth of ineffective advertising.  Good advertising can push a product beyond its limits
and bad advertising can push a product beyond its limits and bad advertising can unsell a product.  
Sometimes the responsibility of such catastrophes rests on the agency, but often it is the Client who is
to blame.

In today's society, advertisements inadvertently become or are forcefully created as an extension of the
Client's personality.  Hence, Clients get the advertising they deserve.  Having worked for so many of
these Clients, I have had the unique opportunities of comparing their attitudes and procedures.  A few
behave so badly that no agency can produce effective advertising for them, whereas others behave so
well that no agency can fail to do so.  Here are a few of my observations that will help mould good
clients into great ones.

1) Allow your agency to work on your account, free from fear

Most agencies run scared, most of the time.  This is partly because people who gravitate the agency
business are naturally insecure, and partly because many Clients make it unmistakably plain that they are
always on the lookout for a new agency.

Frightened people are powerless to produce good advertising.  Over and above that, advertising
agencies make convenient scapegoats.  It is easier to fire your agency than to admit to the Board of
Directors that there is something wrong with your product or with your management.  However, before
you fire your agency ask yourself these questions:

  • Will the appointment of a new agency solve your  problem or merely sweep it under the rug?  What is
    the root of your problem?
  • Has your product reached saturation point or become obsolete?
  • Did you dictate the advertising for which you now blame your agency?
  • Is your Advertising Manager such a jackass that he would negate the best brains in any agency?
  • How would you feel if one of your competitors inherited the secrets which your agency had
    acquired in your service?
  • Do you realise that a change in agency may disrupt your marketing operations for a good few
    months?
  • Have you had a heart-to-heart with the head of your agency?  If you told him your
    dissatisfaction, he might have been able to wheel up guns with greater fire power than you could
    ever find in a new agency.
  • Are you aware of the fact that when you dismiss an agency, you cause most of the men and
    women on the account to lose their jobs?  Is there no way to avoid this inhumane tragedy?

2) Select the right agency in the first place

When you spend considerable sums on advertising, and if your are dependant on the response from
your advertising, its is your duty to take great pains to find the best possible agency.  Meet casually
with the head-honchos of the agencies you are interested in.  Loosen their tongues.  Find out if they are
discreet about the secrets of their present Clients.  Find out if they have the spine to disagree when you
are wrong.  Observe their relationship with one another; are they professional colleagues or quarrelsome
politicians?  Do they promise you results which are obviously exaggerated?  Do they sound like extinct
volcanoes or are they alive?  Are they good listeners?  Are they intellectually honest?  

Don't make the mistake of assuming that your account will be neglected in a big agency.   On the other
hand, don't assume that a big agency can give you more service than a small one.  The number of
people deployed for your account will be about the same in a small agency as in a big one.

3) Brief your agency thoroughly

The more your agency knows about your company and your product, the better equipped they will be.  
A few Advertising Managers are too lazy or too ignorant to brief their agencies properly.  In such cases,
agencies have to dig out the facts themselves.  The resulting delay in producing the campaign makes it
tedious and demoralising for all concerned.

4) Make sure your agency makes a profit

Your account competes with all other accounts in your agency.  If it is unprofitable, it is unlikely that
the management of the agency will assign their best people to work on it.  And sooner or later they will
cast about for a profitable account to replace yours.

5) Set high standards

Make it plain that you expect your agency to hit home runs and pour on the praise when they do.  Many
Clients find it easy to blame their agency when sales go down, but they are a Scrooge in giving credit to
their agency when sales go up.  Never let your agency rest on its laurels.  Keep urging them to greater
heights.

6) Test everything

The most important words in the vocabulary of advertising are those that will do well in the marketplace.

7) Don't waste time

Most advertisers and their agencies spend too much time worrying about how to revive products which
are in trouble, and too little time worrying about how to make successful products even more
successful.  Concentrate your time, your brains, and you advertising money on success.

8) Be tolerant

There are very few geniuses in advertising agencies.  But we need all we can.  Almost without
exception, they can be real pains.  Don't destroy them.  They lay golden eggs.

9) Don't underspend

The surest way to underspend on advertising is not to spend enough to do a job properly.  
Underspending only results in under achieving.  But that choice, I believe lies with you.



Copyright: Jude Mohaan, General Manager / Creative Director of Inter-Pac Communications
GOW
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