Time is a bitch in advertising. I've met CEO's who tell their crew that, in order to make more money, they should haul ass and work faster. WROOOONG. Do as many as you can in one day? Are you stupid or what?
Even if you are the greatest designer or copy, traffic girl or AE, if you work fast, you will Doo-Doo anything you touch:
• you will forget a logo
• the phone number will go out wrong
• the ad will publish late and at the back of the newspaper
• do I have to go on???
Jobs should be given the time they need. Stupid changes should be done in no time. But ads that get worked in a fast than hell fashion have the curse of printing out wrong. Dead wrong. Get fired wrong.
Over time I have learned to speak up. I scream and fight about deadlines. Hey, if you want a shitty ad, give me a shitty deadline. If you want me to do my job and do it well (doing it and doing it and doing it well... Ha. Go LL Cool J) you must allow me to understand the changes or brief so that I don't fuck it up for me and you. I truly believe in making a time table for working at an ad agency. Set time limits, but set them well. Figure out how many days it gets to do minor changes, big revisions or to rework any campaign. Then, stick to it. Tell everybody at the agency: this is the plan, tell your clients.
And don't come whining that clients don't understand this. They will, if you teach them. They too have to understand that not everything is done when they want to. They are not babies. Some of them act that way, granted. But still, give them a nice spanking once in a while. Just tell them you did it for their sakes afterward.
So; please. Don't want your client to eat your butt with fava beans and a nice chianti because you made a stupid mistake? Then, please, give me more time, Dr. Lecter.
1 comments:
I once had a client threaten to call another agency and give them the business when I asked for a few days to get together a 6-market media buy that included radio, print and TV. Instead, she gave me ONE DAY to do it. ONE DAY! It was a most unpleasant experience. I think it was the only time I actually used the "c" word out loud in reference to another female. (not to her, of course - but to a co-worker of mine.) I think I actually also shed tears over the whole situation. We also have clients that expect us to concept, write and PRODUCE TV commercials in 24 hours. Problem is, we do it. So it becomes the expected norm. Luckily, we haven't had many mistakes happen. Luckily...
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