Monday, June 9, 2008

Client Weakend

I’m hard at work on Ad World 2.0.

Some of you mentioned that I didn’t include any weaknesses for the Client. So in an effort to be fair, I contacted a former client and asked him to give me some suggestions.

Here is the response:

From: mdunlap
Subject: Re: List of client weaknesses
To: sadcw462@cosmodemoads.com
Date: Sunday, June 8, 2008 11:31PM

I got your request for a list of client weaknesses. I was going to get right back to you, but the whole thing slipped my mind until Friday evening. In a panic, I called my ad agency and asked them to come up with a list of 30 or 40 items by Monday morning.

You will not believe how unreasonable they were. They kept going on about “weekends’ and “family.” In the end, I gave in and changed the due date to 11am Monday.

On Saturday, I was playing golf with a friend when he mentioned that client weaknesses usually have something to due with their staff. I immediately called the agency and told them to focus on staff related items. In fact, most of the items on their list should have the word, “staff” in them. There was a silence on the other end of the phone that I assume was their shock at my insight.

Everything was fine until Sunday morning. I was having breakfast (my deck has a fantastic view of the Pacific) when I suddenly remembered that our District Manager was arriving on Tuesday. I immediately called the agency and told them prepare a creative presentation. They started whining again. I said that since they were already working the weekend, adding a second project was no big deal. More whining. Finally, I told them that they could forget about the “weakness” project.

So thanks to my lazy agency, I will be unable to provide you with the info you requested.

Mark

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Client weakness:

- the consumer
- the internet
- an act of god ie: natural disaster

jean grey said...

I was once a corporate marketing brand assistant for a relatively big fastfood company in another country. Then I became a writer for an events/ad agency. And one weakness clients have? Pissed-off assistants. :D

Joker said...

Kudos to Mark... some weaknesses

- Sexy agency creatives
- knowledge
- current events
- Rebel worker bees
- The Voice of Reason
- Divorce lawyers
- Palimony suits
- Strippers
- Frustrated marriages
- Thinning hair