Friday, August 10, 2012

Measure twice.

We live in an age of penury. An impecunious era. In which every penny spent is examined and worried about and mourned as a loss.

Clients and agencies are constantly moaning about budgets, scope creep, allocations, SOWs and the like. Thousands of dollars are spent trying to save hundreds of dollars. When, truth be told, we can make this really simple.

If you've ever done a home-improvement project, you quickly learn the adage "Measure twice, cut once." That is, if you do your home work upfront, you have, ultimately, less work to do.

Virtually every assignment I get, from the largest to the smallest, is devoid of accurate "measurement," that is a proper, thoughtful, and approved brief. So, of course, what happens is we, as creators, flail about trying to make sense of the senseless. And then when we do, we often find out from the clients, that their objective of what they want from their communication has changed.

So, we go back to square one. We start "cutting" again.

And again.

And that's how costs get over-run. And agencies and creatives get the "rap" of being expensive.

4 comments:

  1. Same thing - different slant. The only times I've truly been stuck, to the desperate point when I've feared writer's block had me in its quicksand, were times when I later realised I did not have enough information to feel confident in what I was trying to do. In agencies there's always resistance to going back to a client and asking the questions that should have been asked when being briefed. As a freelancer, no problem - I think clients respect you for it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like your "pen-name" Afferbeck. Very classy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afferbeck_Lauder

    ... nothing's original.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Stop George.
    Agency inefficiency/stupidity/wasteful hierarchical structure are my bread and butter.

    ReplyDelete