The Rant: Don’t Be Afraid to Shoot the Sick Dog
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Volume 17 In a Series By Felix
So many chapters of Luke Sullivan’s classic book “Hey Whipple, Squeeze This” struck a chord with me, but none so much as the one entitled “Only The Good Die Young.” In it, he refers to a job that comes back to the copywriter/art director team weighed down with client comments. What follows is all too familiar:
Idea number 30 limped into the writer’s mind like a sick dog with its ribs showing, and the writer said “okay, what if we did this?” The art director looked at the dog. The dog looked up at the art director.
“Fine.”
And of course, the client loved this now emaciated idea. They embraced the dying mutt. Until, of course, it aired and the reactions to it were less than enthusiastic. Who got the blame? We all know the answer to that one.
This is a situation I’ve found myself in all too often. I’ve often heard creatives say that “this would be a great industry if it wasn’t for the damned client.” Ahh, you have to love the irony. But the kind of design-by-committee garbage we all have to put up with is not just reserved for clients. It can often come from your own advertising or marketing team, whether you’re working at an agency or in-house department.
Here’s an example of a process I went through on a recent project. A big project. One of those jobs that has the huge budget you love, but comes with an equally huge number of people to mess it all up.
Get the brief
Scratch head at the vagueness of it all
Get told that it’s the best you’ll get
Scream at the stupid deadline
Grab your partner(s)
Create like Dennis Leary on speed
Have internal review with CD
Discover brief was slightly “off”
Repeat first eight steps three more times
Finally have work to show client
Get a brand new brief
Retro-fit ideas to fit new brief
Present to client
Client wants three ideas merged together
Account director agrees
Creative team dies inside
Drink alcohol
Argue
Lose sleep
Finally merge the ideas at the CD’s insistence
Try to make the Frankenstein’s monster work
Re-present to client
Client makes more changes
Account team says yes
Cry
Rework “ideas” into something that now just doesn’t totally suck
Show CD and account team
Feedback – still too creative
Remove last traces of original idea
Show final aberrations to client
See their happy faces as you die inside
Go back to desk stained with shame
Reassure yourself that next time, things will be different
There were many problems with this job. The main one was a complete lack of direction at the beginning due to several different departments all having the same “valuable” input for the brief. That started a snowball effect as neither the internal team nor the client could really agree on strategy. Even when they came close, it was a thousand miles away from where the work started. And at the end of the day, the sickest of sick dogs was eventually re-presented to the client. And printed. Waste of time, waste of money, waste of space.
The ads didn’t work. They didn’t capture the attention of the consumer. They didn’t push the main benefits of the product. They were a complex mish-mash of ideas that came from everyone from the CEO to the account manager. And yet, no-one would stand up and prevent this dog of a project from limping out the door. People from all sides had become so involved in the process, and taking the next step, that they failed to step back and look at what the actual purpose of the ad campaign was. And me, I let it go because I just didn’t care about it any more. That was my mistake. I’m the biggest asshole for not standing and saying that we must go back to the drawing board. I’ve done it before, but it’s easy to lose your passion, and let your standards slip, when a job gets so messed up.
It takes real strength to be the voice of dissent when all around you are trying to move something forward. As creatives, we’re often labeled as difficult or argumentative. That’s usually because we create the work, have a greater understanding of the end goal and can see the work becoming bastardized before our very eyes.
Not wanting to make waves is a poor excuse. Just wanting to get the job out of the way and get on with the next one is even worse. We have to take a stand every time we see work going off strategy or out of control. We are guardians of our work and we are ultimately held accountable for it. We cannot afford to let our standards drop.
Of course, when push comes to shove, we rarely have the final say. But letting that sick dog drag its twisted, crippled feet out of the door as we say nothing, well, that’s not acceptable. We may not always get a good result, but then again, we may just be able to shoot that dog in the head and start afresh. Stepping back and re-evaluating is tough. It can mean many extra hours at work when letting the job slide would ensure an early night and a few beers at your local bar. The question is, would you really enjoy them?
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