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They’re almost always bought when they’re the only ideas in the room. Can’t leave the client with an escape hatch. At least not for the first few go arounds.
Don’t bring a safe idea in the room. Ever.
1. Clients can’t buy what they aren’t presented.
2. Only a very confident client will buy the wild card route that’s presented to them as such. Be very careful with leading the witness.
3. Remember that clients are typically rewarded for not rocking the boat vs drastic improvements. And they usually move jobs before the results of a bold decision anyway. Little incentive to buy more than safe.
It’s the agency’s job to make a “crazy” option feel safe.
This is done by having a stellar strategic planning department to collaborate with the client to make a sound, insightful strategy in the first place. The client doesn’t know how to do this. The client doesn’t even know this discipline exists. We know.
Many agencies have crappy strategists, or even worse, no strategists at all. This means the strategic role is spread out and dithered amongst everyone and their mother … so now everyone puts in their two cents, from junior clients to graphic designers. Nobody knows what they are doing and they don’t have a reason for presenting wacky creative other than “it’s great, trust me.”
The client has their head on a chopping block if the marketing fails, because they are spending millions on an agency due to their in-house marketing that failed about a dozen times on this same initiative.
Invest in good account planners, folks. It will help your creatives and make your agency more profitable.
PS: AI can’t do it, because AI doesn’t know what an insight is.
Maybe the swing for the fences idea was communicated properly as one that could also drive biz results. That’s usually why they don’t get bought.
wasn’t*
Yes, I have. So it’s possible.