I have something in common with Tom Brady

Think him an asshole, a prick or whatever, Tom Brady is a hell of a quarter back. He got shown the losing bracket of the Super Bowl mainly thanks to The Giants’ relentless defense (Seriously I’m not a big football fan but if anyone deserves an MVP it’s the whole defensive line for taking the Pats out of their comfort zone).

So That gets me thinking, I have something unquestionably in common with Tom, I have no coverage, no backup, and though my skills as a creative copywriter probably don’t merit the comparison to Brady, I can get my shit done and I don’t ask for much, just back me up.

Apparently I’m asking for a small miracle here since I obviously am in the wrong business if I expect execs to back creative up. Trust me, this is a never ending battle because us creative diva’s take our work seriously and sometimes way too seriously for what it is, some single serving piece of communication that gets us a pat on the back for being clever and sometimes engaging a target audience way beyond what a client limits us. But recently I had a disgusting put down courtesy of a client who is as much of a penny pincher as they are antiquated, boring, hackneyed, dull, lame, annoying and pro-bursts.

It was the duty of an artist and your not so friendly neighborhood joker to put up a memorable sales event that could really turn around sales for this particular client since they have some bold goals before the end of their fiscal year. Props and kudos to my artist for carrying most of the burden and honestly putting forth a promotional effort I can sincerely believe in. But obviously, this is reality and happy endings are for cliché Hollywood cannon fodder so there are going to be some changes done to the campaign. By changes you can look through our back-log to see how many times we’ve written about the de-evolution of a concept and of how clients kill good ideas because they know better and your exec in question is only so eager to agree with them so they sign off on an estimate.

So there you are, you got the skills, you got the ideas of what you want to do, but after you get tossed the job you have little time to execute and the client just itching to sack your ass and tell you who’s house this is, because please don’t ever forget this, 4 out of 5 clients shall forever suspect you of being some vicious scumbag trying to win prizes and steal their money while they end up bankrupt.

Hut-hut… you haven’t finished reading the job and you have two changes… wtf… SACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK…

You get up, dust your pants off, look at your execs, that in theory are your defensive line, and go “What the fuck was that?”… Oh sorry I was busy doing something else but I’ll cover you next time.

“Ok” you say. “Hut-hut!! Ok I have to do a promotion for….. SACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK……

Your vision is blurry and you hear a slurred version of your exec saying something on the lines of: “I had to leave early, I couldn’t make it to the meeting so I sent the artwork via email with no explanation whatsoever.”

You dust your pants off again and pick off the grass dibit from your facemask. “Hut-hut!!! Ok I have to do a 15 second integration? Wait a minute? This is for tomorrow?” SACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

So just remember children, it doesn’t matter how good you are or could be, if you have no one covering your ass, you ARE going to take a beating.