Wed 19 Aug 2009
Garbage in … garbage out.
Posted by Mike Bawden under Account Service, Advertising, Marketing
1 Comment
I’m not sure why clients never understood this … but when it comes to getting the best out of their ad agency or PR firm for the least amount of money, clients turn from being “marketing partners” into “general contractors from hell.”
I an’t tell you how many times I’ve received RFP’s from clients that read more like a purchase order for gravel than a request for our best thinking on a tough marketing assignment. I’ve always wanted to respond: “Thanks for the bid request – we have a sale on four-color ads this week but we’re a little short on brochure ideas, can we arrange for a two-for-one swap?”
Now comes a study commissioned by Jones & Bonevac that reports at least 30% of marketing agency staff time is ineffective or wasted due to poor communications from their clients.
See, it was just as we suspected … it’s all the clients’ fault.
No, it’s not the latest iteration of Mad’s classic “Spy vs Spy” comic drama.
If you’re like me, nearly every e-card you receive this year will either end up in your Spam folder or all of the images will be blocked by your email client (I use Outlook). Instead of downloading images and dealing with the various “cyber-security” issues associated with these emails, I usually just note who sent the mail and then send it to the trash.
My business partner and I have a meeting with a client today. We’re going over marketing and media plans for 2009 and talking about a whole host of issues related to what we accomplished this past year and where we’re going in the next.
On-going education is a vital part of any professional growth plan – and that’s especially true for marketers, PR flacks and ad folks. After all, aren’t we supposed to be setting the cultural bar for the rest of society?



