Long before I was in advertising, back when I thought I might want to be a print journalist (that was when I was 17, when journalism was a paid profession) I always figured I wouldn't be good enough to make it to The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. So I set my sights elsewhere.
I assumed I'd find my place at something like The Des Moines Register. A small but prestigious paper in a city where even on a lowly journalist's salary I could afford an apartment without too many cockroaches.
Since I set my sights at that fairly moderate-level, I've had the same goal for this blog. To get the kind of readership I'd get if I was walking the "cat-stuck-in-tree" beat out in Ioway. I'd be ok with what I estimate would be my readership if I were working for the Des Moines Register.
There are no longer any advertising trade journals that do anything more than reprint press-releases from private equity companies that own the holding companies and the associated award shows that dominate our industry. As a consequence, most of my readers are from the ad industry. They're looking for something that regurgitation of holding-company press-releases can't deliver, or won't. As an industry organ, I'm about the only show--and the most-read show--in town. In short, many ad people read me. Mostly creative people. But people who wear proper clothing, too and who aren't the first to be fired because they're contrary.
All that being said, considering the size of my readership and their closeness to the advertising industry, I wonder how many of my readers have seen, read and, finally, thought about the ad below. I think about it with some regularity. It's profound, but also simple and obvious, like the statement "teenagers enjoy sex."
(Today, we call that an "insight.")
(Today, we call that an "insight.")
Not too terribly long ago, I was working with a prospective new client trying to zero-in on a set of deliverables and a fee for the help the client was coming to me for.
Admittedly, I was a bit pissed about the whole wrangle, because the client found me through a client they knew and whom I had worked with for over five years. Nonetheless, if you say "f-them" every time you feel like saying "f-them," you'll have a whole lot of principles and a whole lot more of poverty.
Finally, the client said to me, "Do you have anything that proves what you do works?"
Of course I don't.
I have Effie Awards, naturally, for what they're worth. And reams of client quotations, and the same ginned-up case-studies virtually everyone else has. But that kind of "proof" really only convinces people who are willing to be convinced.
I have Effie Awards, naturally, for what they're worth. And reams of client quotations, and the same ginned-up case-studies virtually everyone else has. But that kind of "proof" really only convinces people who are willing to be convinced.
I even thought of calling industry friends who have run agencies and I went to various "trade organization" sites and pulled veritable nonsense like the item below to bludgeon the client over the head with.
Along the way, I remembered a quotation by a World War II German tank general whose adjutants had urged him to proclaim victory after he had suffered catastrophic losses. He said something about "not wanting to victory himself to death."
I pulled a bunch of items and neatened them up into something prettified and presentable when you're trying to sign a deal. I kept all this a secret from H, my business director and L, my wife. I didn't want them to know the depths to which I would sink to get a couple dozen days at my day-rate.
In the end however, I sent none of the so-called evidence (or evidentiary-material) I found.
Instead, I sent my client this note.
It appears it did the trick.
I'll let you know when the check clears.
