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Hi fishes! I volunteer with The Art of Good, a creative collective helping small businesses affected by the pandemic. They are seeking a little help from a media professional. Need an SEM POV for a small business looking to change their name and relaunch their brand. This is non-paid. More about giving back while in-between gigs. :) If you can help out or want to learn more, please reach out to me via LinkedIN. Thank you!! www.linkedin.com/in/karenkohn/
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Rising Star
Client brand marketing lead all signed off on an idea. IAT was aligned with no drama. Commercial was shot overseas and media was bought. Post-production wrapped and we had 3 final versions. Spot was tested etc.
CEO previewed it and loved it. Three days before it was supposed to air he showed it to his wife who to my understanding has never worked.
She thought it was boring. Entire big idea and commercial died.
Also, super harsh on tradwife.
Client after seeing board: “love the idea.”
Me: “great.”
Client: “ but I hate this guy” (points at an illustrated character in a frame of the illustrated 12-frame board).
Me: “no problem, you’ll see the casting and we can find someone who works for you.”
Client: “you don’t understand, this idea is dead.”
Baller🤣
Sounds like a sociopath
We had a TV idea with a mime in it. I can’t even remember the brand anymore. But I do remember that the client killed the idea because they said, “we don’t want to piss off mimes.” I didn’t have any demographic data on the number of mimes in our target audience and we had other good ideas so we let it go.
Maybe they were protecting your ego and didn’t want to tell you why they really hated it.
The first person to speak in a focus group after the boards were gone through while giggling says “I’m sorry, they just all look like penises!” Client immediately rips it up.
The boards were illustrated and the spot was using sock puppets, which apparently don’t translate well to doodles. Didn’t matter that actual sock puppets wouldn’t look like penises. Didn’t even matter that the drawings in the story boards didn’t actually look like penises! It was dead.
You can’t unsee it man.
We had spot that took place in/around planes die because the day-to-day client was afraid of airplanes. Please note - she didn’t need to be on or around the planes. She just didn’t want to think about them.
Rising Star
Had an campaign die once because the shade of blue in the deck was the cmyk, not the rgb, and the client team (composed of a few designers) derailed the meeting and it was never rescheduled
Had a client at a well known coffee brand kill a social post because it was for a pumpkin spice promotion and she found out the actual coffee used was not pumpkin spice. All coffee is the same color queen!
CEO saw the 1st wip of the offline. Then called an emergency meeting at 6:30p on a Fri on a holiday weekend. During this meeting he demanded a reshoot bc the actress he approved “looked like a bitch” and elaborated on how much he hated her glasses for 20 min.
BRUTAL
I once had a client say he wanted the TV commercial to be quieter because his wife didn’t like to be disturbed by the noise in commercials.
Couple of the top of my head:
Pest control company killed a social post that was basically “who do you think would win in a fight? One rat vs 100 roaches?” because they didn’t want people to think “we’re going to bring new pests to their home to kill the pests they have.”
NBA sponsorship idea got killed because “LeBron James likes it too much.”
I think they didn’t want to do your rat vs roaches idea is because most people don’t want to think about 100 roaches fighting a rat. And this concept coming from a pest control company makes them think about it happening in their home.
That’s not pleasant. You client wants people to think about their brand as protecting people from living free from pest intruders. So I get what and why your clients said what they said. It isn’t a crazy point it sounds completely reasonable..
The association of one pest victorious over another doesn’t help their brand at all. They want people to think of a pest control as wiping out both those things not rooting for one of them.
You missed the point of their message, or their ambition as a brand. instead, you only thought about ad engagement or what would be the best clickbait. That why it’s important to have a strategy. Even for your dumb social posts.
A client refused to move forward with some print concepts because they weren’t presented on an easel
Because a CMO couldn’t cast his daughter in the campaign.
The dog was too “white”.
Credit card company’s major search for new celebrity talent. Q score analysis, social profile impact, talent contract negotiations, the whole thing for several months. Final selection made. CEO requested a DVD of film highlights. Watched with his family and was embarrassed he didn’t know the actor or recognize movies. Family brainstorms and sends several other actor recommendations based on nothing more than their film rentals or grocery store magazine covers. One of their recommendations ultimately selected.
A famous convenience store passed on an e-sports deal because "they didn't think it was going to take off" 😞
At my first real job, I presented a print ad concept to a Toshiba color copier client. It was some awful ad about changing color with just a touch, and it showed a chameleon. The Toshiba guy said something like, “Chameleon is the symbol of infidelity…show lion.” And walked out of the room. So the ad ran with a pic of a lion, and the headline, “Change color with just a touch.”
I think I remember that one. I think someone brought it into my class and we discussed it.
I had a great TV idea that everyone loved, including the client, that just happened to have a pregnant woman in it as one of the characters. For some reason, the Account Director hated it and did everything she could behind the scenes to unsell the idea, and ultimately managed to get it killed. It later turned out that the reason she disliked the spot was that she was personally unable to have children, and thought that showing a pregnant woman was insensitive to other women with the same issue…