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Maybe the ideas are Agency Cool but not Client-Approvable?
Too often creatives somehow think that clients are there to pay for the agency’s creative wankery, rather than for a creative solution to a business problem.
I honestly hate working with partners who try to play it safe with the work.
Like man...let the client water down our work, our job is to push the creative and find solutions.
Depends. If it’s diluting the idea a bit but keeping its core and making it plausible ( vs some ideal of it that they know can’t and won’t be bought) then listen and understand why. It will help you later on.
If it’s editing it down too much with the only goal of having “a good meeting “ and losing the idea along the way, then no. Not sure how much you can do about it but make a mental note of not becoming that person later on.
I’ve worked with creatives who never gave an inch and always presented audacious ideas… and didn’t actually make anything for years.
Do what you need to do to get great ideas sold, but without sacrificing what makes them great. You need to understand which concessions are ok and which ones are non-negotiable. Then when a concept is sold, keep pushing to make it as amazing as possible.
Some of our industry’s most celebrated creatives never learn how to do this. So their paid client work ends up being nothing special and they earn all their acclaim for agency pro-active and scam work. Or they make amazing case studies out of meh campaigns.
Figure out how to win awards for your actual client work and your career with be much longer, lucrative, and your work life balance will be better.
Tell the clients “The riskiest thing you can do is make boring, forgettable work that at best maintains the status quo and at worse will make people not like your brand.”
The clients problems are your problems. Some need more teaching than others.
Big temptation to be a worse client than the client — particularly for those bitten by the responsibility bug. The DIY remedy is to say, “they can’t fall in love with what they haven’t seen — and, if there’s really a reason to worry, then make the fallback the 2nd version. BUT…you really want to pressure test before you trot out the more in-bounds version…human beings, and, yes clients are part of the species, are full of surprises.
It's a fine balance
You want the idea to be in it's best form and not anticipate too much...
...but also if you don't anticipate at all, then you might have a cool idea that never sees the light of day
Try to find a way to get them to stop thinking about whats client safe, and instead about how to display creative bravery in a way that feels authentic to who the client is. Protectively self-editing is a bad habit, it happens when people burned by a client note react by approaching the work fearfully. Clients can sense fear-based creative, they never have confidence in it.
The best creative “reads the room” while still telling a compelling story. Being client-safe means developing work that is appropriate for the client, it doesn’t mean shrinking back or diluting the work. If they can’t get past the fear they shouldn’t be a creative.