Speaking about the perception of advertising we are most likely to think of the consumers and how they react to the message. In the meantime, one significant thing is often left out of scope – the client.
Before the message gets from its creative cradle right into the hands of the final recipient – the consumer, it goes through the greatest (or maybe third greatest after highly self-deprecating creatives and highly creatives-deprecative account planners) censcorship – the client’s judgement.
And this is definitely not the way your clients usually look at the advertising campaign.
We as educated professionals are used to treat our clients in the same way, however objective professional critique is not always what we get.
Clients are only humans, indeed. Means no matter how aware they are of what drives the sales, personal opinions, biases and predispositions still matter.
During my almost a year of working as a Media Planner Assistant in Vizeum (Aegis Group Plc.), Moscow-based advertising agency, I had to encounter with different clients and had a chance to observe how differently treat their agencies and spend their advertising budgets. I am going to share the most remarkable thoughts with you.
As I said, don’t think your client is a machine. Just as everyone else he struggles through morning traffic listening to repetitious commercials in his car, gets annoyed by the garish billboards, and zaps through TV commercials. One of our major accounts would redistribute a quarterly media budget every other week based upon whether he saw or didn’t see his advertisement during the morning news. Whether his 13-year old daughter liked the commercial was also a crucial factor. Should it be mentioned that the product had nothing to do with teenager girls?
Clients lack objectivity because they are attached to their product. Indeed, it is hard to make something you despise to become your life-work. And if you are forced to think about electric kettles for 40 hours per week, it is really hard to imagine yourself in the shoes of a regular consumer who doesn’t dream about kettles for more than 0.30 seconds a day. They are really proud of their kettles. Still unclear?
Never underestimate the power of the moment. A creative agency I used to work at once lost a huge client just because the important meeting was scheduled for 8p.m, and the reception girl was sick that day, and there as no one around the entrance to open the door for him after the working hours were over.
And the last, but not the least. Clients have their tastes and likes. They might as well have a bias agains certain media and/or channels. One of our clients, for example insisted that his ads would never be places in a top-rating reality show. That was a must, and the managers would be extremely concerned with that all the time for the only reason the owner of the company personally didn't liked the show.
All I am saying – targeting consumers is very important, but they might never see the commercial if the client doen't let it go through. It seems like speaking of advertising we many times leave out the significant part of dealing with the client.
And the client is always right.
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