If you think hard enough, long-enough and convolutedly enough, you can talk yourself out of anything.
You can take the timeliest idea and kill it.
You can take simple and find it muddy.
You can take enthusiasm and blow it to bits.
This is what the worst of clients can do to the best of ideas.
I've dealt with this sort of thing a lot.
You belly-up, you face the music. You move on.
But after almost 30 years in the business, it never gets easy.
It never gets easy to realize, "Fly low, fly slow and try not to crash" is a prevailing philosophy.
When was the last time you saw work that featured a big idea? In fact, when was the last time you saw work that featured an idea at all?
ReplyDeleteThe other day, I saw the winners from the Print division at Cannes. Most of the ads had no headline or copy; just a photo with a pint-sized logo in the bottom right hand corner.
How do people in this business expect to sell anything other than their own careers?