You won't believe this. I promise it's true.

I think this is a sort of advertising miracle. You be the judge.

This past week we got a call to do a campaign. As always, the brief was the same: this client wants something different. Completely (I hate to even utter this following line) out of the box. Ok. Sure. How out of the box do you want it. Damn fucking far away from it. Well, we thought... let's give them exactly that.

To tell you that I truly don't know what day it is will make you understand one thing: we worked all weekend long. Long hours. The usual give and take between creatives took hours. What about this? What about that? Yada... Yada... Yada... Then... it happened. We got a great idea. Out there. In fact, in your face out there. The kind of idea that you think... this is not going to pass the approval state. But hey, let's give this a try. Let's hope that we don't get shut down. Let's hope that the AE gets it and wants to present it to the client.

We pitch the idea. The AE loves it. This is exactly what I wanted. Great, we thought.

The AE presented the idea to his bosses. They said... No way. It's too risky. Do another thing.

What happened next is a pure miracle: the guy presented it, period. Yes. He believed in the idea so much that he went all the way, even when the bosses were against it. I was astonished at his balls. Honestly, I was. In any ad agency, if your boss tells you no way, you go back to the drawing board. It's like a secret rule. If someone doesn't "get it", it is totally killed. No matter if the boss is not the target, the campaign always must talk to the bosses first, then the client.

What this man did was full on guts. He said: you are mistaken, this is a great concept, the client needs to see it. Let the client kill it, not you. Amazing.

I don't care that the client DID kill it. They have all the power to do so. It's their product. But the fact that this man fought over it and didn't shove it somewhere dark, makes me happy as a pig in shit. Sometimes you have to gamble it all. At least you presented something you believed in. If the client wants something else, let the client tell you.

In fact. I've never had to start again feeling this much happiness. The client didn't want it because it was too risky? Ok, perfect. But at least you showed it. You didn't back down. You didn't pussy on us.

Kudos to the ballsy man. You made us proud.