Time to bury the attitude

In principle, advertising agencies exist because companies that hire them are unable to be creative or think differently when it comes to communications. A common mistake is that this package comes with attitudes of superiority and arrogance. 

And isn’t it part of the agency lifestyle to wear sunglasses, arriving late and chew gum at meetings? And being a rock n roll rebel? 

If it means losing pitches and accounts then yes. 

But winning awards and earning $$$ is hard without actual clients to work on. 

Too many clients I’ve talked to have said they chose another agency because of their arrogance rather than their creative skills. Not surprisingly, these agencies are often the well-established-but-not-so-great ones.

So, if you’re agency is losing clients, revenue and firing people it’s probably you I’m talking about. 

Having an attitude is probably THE easiest thing to achieve in the advertising business. 

Comments

[Art Aiello]

This is a really great post, Leon. It's easy to get arrogant in this business. And I think that some of that arrogance comes from wanting to have "fun" on the job, which often means doing things differently. But one can still have fun while be professional.

[Nguyen Duong]

had a convo with a former client and now good friend about the agency "attitude" recently. what bothered him the most about ad shops was the total lack of respect for the client's money. the client's perception is our reality. so when clients see "frivolous" spending on shoots and post-production trickery, it's hard for clients to develop a trust of agencies with their money. perhaps with these tougher economic times, agency folks will be more respectful and accountable for their clients $.

[Olle]

You have to click by (swing by 2.0...) psfk and see the PSFK conference panel on IP. Carl Johnson of Anomaly talks about agencies not knowing enough about selling, and they all talk about not understanding the value of clients money. Great talk and worth a think. Me not including a link is lazy, forgive me, but I've got money that needs spending ;)