The World’s Toughest Client
Successful brands must be famous for something. But when the agency is also the client, nobody can agree on what it is.

Doing a house campaign should be fun, but it’s not. As soon as you get to the meeting, the light begins to fade. In fact, while you present your best ideas to the expectant group, the faces around the table slowly morph to stone. I know. I’ve been there.

Over the years, I’ve been on at least a dozen task forces to create house campaigns. Not one of them was ever produced.

The meetings are adrift in agent orange. As they review the work, the wise counselors find reasons why this can’t be done, that can’t be said, and which client would faint if he saw what. Before long, no one in the room is willing to stand behind any single statement about what the agency is supposed to stand for in the first place.

Agencies simply can’t say "Yes" to themselves.

Advertising agencies are staffed by people who like to say "Yes". But when they have to be their own clients, the word fails them. No matter how the creative material is served up, every person in the room finds something to hate.

What the creatives like seems arrogant. What the account management people like is mealy-mouthed. And every ad that shows the media folks to be astute buyers comes off like they spend their days burning rate cards. So what happens? Everybody agrees to make some fixes, and they file out of the meeting in silent prayer that it will all go away. And of course, it does.

But one agency in Lexington seems to have found a neat solution to the problem of looking smart without drenching their strategy in compromise. That agency is Ad Success. Their solution is to show their skills with a TV demonstration of how advertising works.

Tasteful, cool, and just plain nice.

They have a single 30-second spot that’s quick, bright, light and meaty, all at once. It speaks with the tasteful, laid-back tonality that agency producer John Campbell makes his stock in trade. And, amazing as this may seem, the spot also happens to be interesting.

It’s about the most basic of truths, that advertising is how brands appear in public. The voice over likens ads to the clothes and behaviors that people unconsciously choose for themselves. The shot progression is right on cue with the V/O, which quickens the pace as it makes the point.

"The image your company presents through advertising, marketing and PR is like the clothes you wear …your way of showing what your company is. Traditional, or cool, or really cool. Formal, informal, playful, or really playful... Ad Success is your communications partner for advertising, marketing and PR. All we do, is add... success."

The spot works well because it explains how advertising works. It doesn’t steep itself in praise. It doesn’t bore us with share of market data. And it stands as a beacon to all those home-grown, self-appointed advertising experts who don’t take the time to consider that advertising is above all, a public appearance.

When I was Creative Director of D’Arcy in New York, we had a video that was almost a feature film called, "Everybody Does It." The film was used to introduce the agency, and it included clips of all our work for Budweiser, Cadillac, Colgate and a dozen or so other clients around the world. And the lesson it taught was exactly the same.

Dennis Altman is an advertising consultant and a UK Professor of Advertising and Public Relations

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