I was placed on a really busy team, working on unbranded concepting. The brand is so hectic that it’s hard for us to give it proper focus, and the feedback we get is vague—making it tough to flesh out activations or a spot. Timing is tight, and everyone’s fried. Any advice on pushing through? I’m a freelancer and don’t want to look like I can’t handle it. It just feels like we are circling the drain.

likesmart
Posting as :
works at
You are currently posting as works at

That is par for the course, in my experience. "We want to do something totally fresh in this space! Don't use 'more time, more moments, anything like that!'" (I work on oncology brands). We come with stuff. We get back, "No, not like that." The top CD and AD have ideas in the mix, too. They're explicitly concepts we were briefed to avoid. Those concepts are chosen. Rinse and repeat.

I sort of feel like just putting ingredients in the soup is the point. I've never seen a concept reach market that isn't many steps away from all the original ideas.

likehelpful

1000000%

You’re freelance getting paid correct? Including overtime? What’s the issue?

like

Yes. But the concern is not being able to deliver on these concepts. It’s not the only work I am
Doing at the agency but it’s the most high profile.

Happy to take a look if you want some more constructive feedback. I believe you can DM me from here. If not let me know. Other than that, if you feel the feedback is vague you can ask questions and potentially ask about examples of what they mean, or past campaigns they liked.

smart

Sounds about right.

like

Often this kind of thing happens because someone is afraid to ask the client for clear direction or push back on flip flopping and waffling. One of the reasons I loved when media (my profession) separated from creative agencies. I had too many account people who prioritized their relationship with a specific client over hours of wasted time playing “am I getting warmer? Warmer? Warmer?? Ice cold?!?” It’s a void in leadership and nature abhors a vacuum. So jump into a leadership position. Propose a more thorough briefing process. Perhaps even joint agency/client discovery sessions to lead to the brief (TWBA Disruption Days were brilliant…anyone? Anyone?). A collaborative process will improve the relationship, clients will feel some ownership and pride that comes from it, feel like they have real collaborators not servants. It builds mutual respect. And most importantly, reduces wasted work shifting your time to iterating on already great work to make it excellent. It always seems counter intuitive to add layers of process to the creative process. But you need an agreed-upon framework with the clients’ fingerprints on it.

helpful

Say lets have a reset and get this ship back on course. Don’t need to beat around the bush.

I should Add this is mostly HCP work If that means anything.

Are you working in the same account I am?

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