Dec 4, 2007

May I rip you a new one for Christmas?

True story, happened today.

So I'm working on a massive piece for a client. This piece is huge, has given me more headaches than watching the O'Reilly Factor while trying to get laid... and has been, in a word, well, two... a turd. It's the kind of job that makes me a whore. I do it for the money. So... Here I am, thinking... I have this shit down. Now I can go home, scratch my left ass cheek and watch Heroes in time. Butt naked and with a can of whipped cream in hand. Great!

Phone rings. 6:30 p.m. The phone should not ring at that hour...

In what I can only describe as ANNOYING, I hear a voice that tells me... I need to add one more piece.

(Sigh)

Ok. I need to quote you that piece as well. Do you need a separate quote?

Oh. Really? (Long pause, which tells me already I'm an asshole for pointing that out) How much will it be?

(Insert here an appropiate amount, because you know how long it will take to deal with another shitty piece ridden with changes that have NO logic)

THAT MUCH? But... I just send you the copy and the photos and you just design the piece.

Um. What?

Let me ask you this. If you go to the fucking dentist to get your damn tooth removed... Do you tell the doctor it's too much for just pulling? Do you go to your lawyer and tell him that since he's just talking, that you shouldn't pay that much?

WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH CLIENTS?

Oh sure. I just need to charge you 50 fucking bucks. You see, since I consider my years of design and advertising study just a joke, an excuse to go have drinks at the local bar near the university, so I don't have any right to properly charge you. Yeah. Oh. And all my years of experience, my reputation... well, in all honesty, I can cram that up my butthole as well, with no Astro Glide, mind you, because there isn't any difference between years of experience and a dude who got out of college with a Mac. You are absolutely right. Designing is like Geico. Sooo easy, a caveman can do it!

Hey! Let's do this. I will gladly retire and go wipe Paris Hilton's ass with no gloves whatsoever, while you design all the bullshit you want on your own. It's easy! Just crank open Microsoft Word and get cracking, you "Ogilvish" talented client. That way, you can put the logo as biiiiiiig as your ballsack, fill the ads with bursts and extremely large headers! What do you think? You can also put all the damn colors you want, so that people SURE take notice of that Romper-Room ad. OH! That way, if you make a typo... well, it's just a mistake, right? You're human. Nah... don't worry. I know if I do it, I'm the asshole who didn't do her job right.

The balls on some people are priceless. Sometimes I think that advertising doesn't suck. It's just clients.

And their larger than life shitty balls.

8 comments:

Jeff said...

It is odd that in the end you have to listen to someone who went to school most likely for business, as to what you should do with design.

Me said...

That's the part that kills me... you are so right.

Anonymous said...

ha ha. I just stumbled across this blog. Great stuff.
It's always good to know there are so many others out there that suffer the way I do.

It is true, advertising, or at least design and copywriting can actually be rewarding, but most clients are disrespectful morons who will spend $50K on their new car, but cannot imagine spending more than $1,000 on a new website for their business. Fuck them indeed.

It is not us, it is them. And so it has been confirmed.

ha ha. Struggle on sister!

Ad Broad, oldest working writer in advertising said...

Hilarious blog, terrific post confirming some things in this business haven't changed since the days copywriters slid headlines under art directors' doors to be "illustrated."

Anonymous said...

Agreed with the others. This is a fantastic blog - I totally feel your pain!

My client has a lack of direction, planning, clue...

Everything is; "this project needs to done asap" and "oh yes, by the way we're doing a online and mag campaign. Artwork deadline is tomorrow."

Sheesh!

Anonymous said...

Customers are, were, and -- regrettably -- shall always be the bane of any employee's existence.

Only when one is struggling to contain the seething murderous urges inspired by fellow man's rudeness, ignorance, and incompetence can one fully sympathize with the hard-as-cock truth posited by renowned modern-day philosophers, Slipknot:

"PEOPLE = SHIT"

Anonymous said...

Okay, I'm just reading your blog to understand what the hell motivates the agency. Clients think agency ppl are a bunch of prima donna artistes. Creatives think clients are a bunch of boorish visigoths.

We should have just hired a graphic artist, but nooooooo, the board wanted an advertising/marketing agency/consultant, and that's what we got, steadfastly telling us to overhaul our logo and slogan and "brand essence," none of which the board has the slightest interest in doing. So we have an agency "brain trust" spending a lot of time thinking great thoughts that we are not going to implement, all of which is being paid for out of my meager budget, meanwhile, they won't work with what we have and who we already are, because that's not what they do ... regurg somebody else's concepts.

And I'm supposed to manage the budget for this HOW? What deliverables am I going to get here?

AAAARRGH! Boards suck. Agencies suck. What I wouldn't give for a humble little PR firm right now, AND the right to pay their damn retainer. But, noooooo...

Joker said...

In regards to the last comment, you're totally right. Agencies DO suck and clients suck as well. I understand wholeheartedly when you say creatives are primma donnas and whatnot because in general terms, there's a lot of that going around. But I along with Me, come from a branch of creatives that give two fucks about a prize and just want you to sell more shit. Does this mean we'll sacrifice creativity to satisfy a client. No, it means we'll satisfy creativity if the task at hand demands it. Not every copy has to be sheer genius. Not every design has to wow every one. But every piece should have a purpose and should not be a waste of time or money. The myriad of bullshit advert lingo is merely euphemistic language designed to make clients think they need shit that really is the agency squeezing the money out of the client. True, we need to make a profit, but when everything an agency does is done so thinking about dollar signs for their pocket rather than the joint venture that in idealistic universes a client agency relationship should be, then there's a problem. Boards are a whole other branch of problems and I use branch loosely since it can also mean a piece of wood to be used as kindle... something much more useful than the bullshit bureacratic majesty that is a board. You'll see power plays, dumb decisions and whims and caprices dominating the floor more often than rational thought and well planned business decisions. As for the individual needs of different businesses, agencies can sometimes make miracles and can other times waste thousands of dollars on shit that won't make a difference. The trick is knowing when to say enough is enough and take the penis out of the bear trap since the gloriuos blowjob you were promised has turned to some sad, sordid, bloody affair. If you are a decision maker, truly invite the board to consider using other resources if you understand and can back up that the agency in question is a waste of space and a hindrance rather than an aide. The other side of the coin is that no matter what, most times clients will look at a bill and say they're getting screwed. It's like when some people complain about the price of that pretty decent piece of steak they ate and scraped the plate to get the final juice. If it wasn't that good to begin with, why did you eat it? And if you ate it, do you have the right to complain about the prices when you were given an estimate? Obviously there's thousands of variables that can change that story in a snap, but in general, I agree that many agencies suck, that they don't deliver what they promise, and that a client should get better service. I also need to say that an overwhelmingly large percentage of clients are minutea masturbating cheap skates who don't value creativity, don't trust what they're recommended and who swear they know how to do advertising better than an agency. Who's right? Who's wrong? It all depends on the situation. Ideally there should just be one person wrong, the client that chose the other brand :D

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