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I wouldn't say our experience with all our clients are like this but we surely have some annoying ones of this sort. We just badger them with questions and footnote it with 'we cannot proceed with our efforts without clear direction about this' and pretty much tell them that our work will only resume once the email is responded to. It works, and they realise how much it slows them down to not be proactive, and eventually they prioritize talking to the creative team with more intent. At least, that's what has worked for our team!
You’re not the only one. If it wasn’t a common occurrence, they wouldn’t have made a comic out of it.
Personally I try to push account services on this as much as possible. But there’s only so much they can do. Some clients genuinely don’t know what they want until they see it. And sometimes it’s only when they see it in their competitors after they’re getting their ass kicked.
I tend to ask more probing questions to account management about he client. And when I say “about the client” I don’t mean about the company. I mean about Sally, the mid level marketing executive asking us to do this . What does Sally want out of this? Don’t give me this bullshit about the consumer. Sally doesn’t give a fuck about the consumer. Is Sally trying to impress her boss? Is she scared for her job and just trying to not make waves? Is she trying to rock the boat and change things? Like… get to the bottom of the personal issues that drive their decisions. That will tell you so much more than the brief. Because you can hit a brief in the bullseye and have the client still reject the work, if you don’t take into consideration the actual person making the decisions and their motives.
This is actually brilliant advice, and was hoping someone would talk about a novel approach to things when I posted this. Thanks for sharing this!