BAD CLIENTS

Your creative kicked sales into high gear and totally revitalized our brand! Amazing completion rates etc! It’s our policy is to pitch out the work every year...cause we are fucktard assholes.

“I don’t want our commercial to look like a commercial”

Build a Bear

Sprint is still the absolute worst. Never before have I wished incurable gonorrhea on such a lousy lot

"It doesn't look designed enough"

“How much am I paying to have you in this meeting?” Umm...

"I don't love it. But I don't hate it."

C: This noun and that verb don’t agree. I know what I’m talking about. I’m a grammarian.
Me: That noun is in the prepositional phrase. The verb agrees w/ the subject.
C: Let’s not split hairs.

🤬

When asked “what are your key brand values?” Client answers “want to be known as thought starts in the space, innovators”

Can’t even get a proper sentence, but expected to deliver a holiday pitch

Client: So, you mentioned this campaign messaging would be less about Ethos, and more Pathos (emotions-driven).

Me: Yes

Client: What’s your recommendation on a percentage between the two styles?

“Please provide rationale for why “year-round” is hyphenated”

For the love of god. 😑

Account Manager: Congrats! Where are you going on your honeymoon?
Client: Probably Hawaii, but I told my fiancé I want something better.
Me: Of course you did!

"Can you redesign the logo for our entire national brand that has 7000+ stores by tomorrow?"

Client says they want a diverse cast.

Then picks the whiter ALT option for every PoC in the ad. 🤦

Client: I want to pay the same as LY for this project

Me: K

Client: But I want it perfect bound not saddle-stitched, here's 4 more pages of content, I want a web version with active links (cont)

Client: Hey, we need to color correct these product images

*retouch, along with 8-9 rounds of feedback*

*approves, goes “live”*

2 days later

(Cont)

I have a client that always requests we fully justify type (when absolutely unnecessary) and it drives me literally insane. What’s your pet peeve type crime??

“We want push boundaries with this rebrand”

* Pushes boundaries *

“We actually want to take a more minimalist route”

* Presents clean and simple lockups*

“Ya I could have made these in Word”

"I never approved that”

After definitely seeing creative 4 previous times

Client approves overages on set then changes their mind after the session and refuses to pay the overages. Agency had to pay for the overages....

I work on a global brand and have to deal with seven regional Marketing Directors as one client. One European MD started calling me directly to discuss her input. I tried to politely switch her (c)

New Client doesn’t understand the need for the knock out logo and wants us to switch it to the colored one for more “brand recognition”.

No one cares about your color logo besides you and me

Agency: Can we have some design guidelines?
Client: You send us ideas and we tell you if you’re on brand or not.
Agency: ...

“So this scope gives us 10 days of shooting time in the three markets... but can’t we just have 16?”
🙅🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

Client doesn't like the font we used in an ad. I ask for preferred font name outright. Client says I should look at jpg ad files from last year done by another agency n figure it out. 🤯

Sometimes the partner agency is worse than the client. Am I right?

Client calls/texts my cell all of the time. During the work day it's annoying but whatever. Now she has texted me as early as 6am and as late as 10pm for stupid shit and expecting immediate respon… more

Clients hires new internal team. Reduces agency scope but all new internal hires come straight to the agnecy to do their work.

It's a beautiful cycle.

I want the deck to be strategic (said in 3 separate emails). During the presentation “why don’t you have any executional information with costs?” That ‘s what I was looking for. 🙄😳

Client: why did you put that in the brief? It’s wrong, you don’t understand our business. Go talk to these people on my team.

So we do exactly that (again.) the people we had to talk to said that...

Microsoft Retail Team in Seattle. RUN. Fast.

You need to give things like this to us in advance to digest it before we meet to go through it.
5 min later-
We need to meet face to face every time you are presenting something for the first time.

9 months ago my client tried to hire me in-house. This afternoon they asked me off their business. Talk about bipolar

Client: [frustrated and short tempered] “I don’t understand why there are brunettes in the castling selects because the hero woman is blonde in the animatic."

Client to film director (in front of actor) “Can’t we just put him in Spanx? He’s looking a bit too chubby on screen.”

“Wouldn’t it be fun to be funnier here?"