Where never is heard an encouraging word

Work in advertising long enough, and you realize despite all the books, effective management style classes and lists on the subject, there really are only two kinds of bosses in the agency world.

Command and control. And nurture and inspire.

Unfortunately, agencies are usually lousy with the first kind and scarce on the second.

There isn't a creative working that hasn't felt the clumsy, heavy-handed thumbprints of an overbearing creative director on their work.

For some reason (cough "ego" cough "insecurity" cough cough "douchecentric personality disorder" cough), they feel the need to "make the work their own," agency code for "Just put my name on the award show entry form." and "I think I'll stay at the International Carlton at Cannes this year."

Having been a creative director, I always made it a point never to forget what it's like to present work. And being a copywriter, I never forget what goes into coming up with those ideas. So I always went the nurture and inspire route.

Here's the dirty secret about being a creative director: it's a lot easier than some of them make it look. The trick is to hire great people, make sure they don't run off the rails, clear the path by running interference for them, then get out of their way and let them do what you hired them to do.

Their success is your success. Bask in the glow. Repeat.

I'd like to suggest not only creative directors, but everyone in agencies—and in life for that matter—try to be more encouraging, supportive and inspiring to their colleagues. It's not a lot to ask, and it is the golden rule after all—or at least golden rule adjacent. Be the kind of person people want to work for - it's how you'll get the best work out of them.

After all, you've already got the job.

Off the clock. Again.

The reason the title has the word "again" in it is because I've used this title before here. Feel free to compare and contrast the posts. They're both equally entertaining, humorous and a fun read in their own way. And of course, they both reflect my world-renowned humility.

Anyone working in an ad agency will tell you it's not exactly a 9 to 5 job. An account goes into review, the creative director changes his mind, a deadline gets moved up, the creative director changes his mind, a new business pitch walks in the door, the creative director changes his mind, and the battle cry goes out: all hands on deck.

If you're following along with your Advertising-to-English Dictionary, that means don't buy any concert or airline tickets, make any dinner dates or plan on getting a lot of sleep for the next several nights or weekends.

Not that I'm not a team player (a term I hate, don't get me started), but here's the thing: when I'm done for the day, I'm done for the day. The nanosecond my feet are out of the building, I don't think about it until they're back in the building the following day. I have no problem flipping the switch.

Or flipping anything else for that matter.

I've written about how seriously some people in advertising take it. Fortunately I'm not one of those. Oh, I know, advertising helps the economy, gets information to the consumer they wouldn't otherwise have (want), builds brands. Whatever. I hate for you to have to hear it this way, but we're not doing God's work here. A grateful nation is never going to thank us for the latest banner ad or social post promoting "engagement" with your laundry detergent.

A close friend who owns an agency in San Francisco told me years ago it's better to work smarter than later. Can I get an amen to that?

Don't get me wrong: when I'm on the job, you have me 110%. I'm focused, I'm a concept generating machine. I'm on it. And contrary to how it may sound, I do recognize there are occasionally times when late hours and weekends can't be avoided. The problem is a lot of agencies confuse "can't be avoided" with "that's just how we do it."

You know when you call a doctor after hours you get that recording that says "If this is a medical emergency, hang up and call 911."

Mine would be "If this is an advertising emergency, you should've planned better. See you Monday."

The first idea

When it’s not a business about fiscal quarters, increasing shareholder value, holding-company leadership bonuses, revenue increasing, maximizing efficiencies (euphemism for cleaning house), and cutting freelancer day rates (cause that’s where the real expense is), advertising is occasionally a business of ideas.

Ideas come at a variety of speeds, and the first one always gets there the fastest. That’s why it’s first, hello?

There are two schools of thought about the first idea. One is that it’s never the right one. The other is that it’s always the right one.

I can’t answer definitively. What I will say is more often than not in my career (pauses to laugh hysterically for using the word "career"), the first idea has been the right one. And if not the right one, then the best one.

The problem is, in advertising the first idea gets a bad rap. People say things like “It’s too obvious.” “You didn’t put any time against it.” “It doesn’t address all 350 bullet points on the brief.” All true at one time or another. Still doesn’t mean it’s not right.

Almost universally in ad agency culture, management likes to put on a show. Or at least watch one.

They like you to work late into the night, fueled on nothing but bad pizza and micro-brewed beer that almost tastes as good as cat pee and smells twice as bad, to show how dedicated and loyal you are to the agency, the client and, most importantly, the creative director.

Hallways are lined with dozens of 4’x8’ foam core boards plastered (just like the creatives) with hundreds of ideas and drawings, none of them as good as the first idea.

Meetings are called to kick around even more ideas. Mostly they're ideas for more meetings.

Even though people are burned out, every angle has been covered, the ideas are all starting to sound the same, and they’ll never present more than three to the client, and none of them are as good as the first one, the show goes on.

Way past the point of exhaustion, when the pizza is gone and the sun's about to come up, eventually someone musters enough awake to say something like “Remember that first idea we had at the beginning, what about that?” Then everyone in the room nods like a shelf of Peyton Manning bobbleheads on the San Andreas fault, and the creative director claims he/she always loved that idea from the beginning.

It’s a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in bullshit.

I suppose thinking it will change anytime soon is futile. And besides, I get paid to come up with all those ideas. As long as the checks continue to clear, I'll keep doing it.

Anyway, my point as you've probably guessed by now is never throw away the first idea.

And always buy stock in foam core.

Remaining faithful

It's like Groundhog's Day.

Every September, Apple introduces the newest iPhone along with a few other products or improvements.

Then, online and in person, the Apple faithful show up in droves a couple weeks later to snap them up so they can have bragging rights to being among the early adopters of Apple's latest.

ME: Hi, my name is Jeff and I'm an Apple loyalist. ALL: Hi Jeff.

I love the annual show. From the year's worth of rumors leading up to it, to the pre-show music (all of it available on iTunes), to Apple's vice-president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi's humor-filled and loose presentation, to the products themselves, it all works for me. And on me.

I have an ancient iPhone5 I waited two months and went to seven Apple stores to get when it first came out. For those of you keeping count, that means as of today's presentation I'm three generations behind on the iPhone. I want the new iPhone6S Plus. But I probably won't get it.

Instead, I'll wait for next year's song and dance when they introduce the iPhone7. I like buying in the non-"S" years.

Whenever the subject of iPad comes up, between my laptop and my iPhone I've never been able to find a reason to hop on the iPad bandwagon. But I did want one after today's introduction of the 12.9" iPad Pro. It has an available Smart Keyboard for $169 to make it more like a laptop, and a $100 Apple Pencil which is their way of saying stylus.

However when I use the calculator on my ole' iPhone5 and add up exactly how much all this new gear would cost me - and add in the fact I now have tuition for young Mr. Spielberg, plus the wife and daughter are waiting for their new phones - it becomes painfully clear I'm going to have to wring (or ring) a little more use out of what I have.

Hey Siri, couldn't you cut me a little slack and make it every two years?

Ready? Set? Wait.

Here are two things you need to know about Rich Siegel, proprietor and managing editor of Round Seventeen: First, he'll be very happy I started this post with a link to his blog. Second, he's away camping - as Jews do - and reposting pieces he's written while he's away. So yesterday, I took a page from his blog and did the same thing. It went pretty well. So even though I'm not away camping (my idea of camping is a hotel without cable), or out of town, in solidarity with my vacationing friend and colleague I'm going to take the week and revisit the classics. And by classics, I mean posts you may have missed, forgotten or wish you'd forgotten. The more cynical of you might think it's an easy way out of having to come up with a bunch of new posts this week. Shhhhhh! Have a gander at this one, originally posted April 4, 2011.

My friend Janice, a swell writer with a blog of her own, used to have this sign in her office. I think she hoped it would work as a deterrent.

But she knew better. After all, she worked in an advertising agency.

Hurry up and wait is standard operating procedure at virtually every agency I’ve ever worked at. It usually falls somewhere between their mantra and their mission statement.

The philosophy manifests itself in several forms, and when it strikes it can happen quicker than Charlie Sheen going from $2 mil a week to zero.

The way it usually begins is they - you know, “they” - hastily assemble a team of whoever happens to be unlucky enough to be in the building.

Everyone is quickly gathered in a conference room that hasn’t been cleaned since the Eisenhower administration, and wreaks with the sweet perfume of cold cuts and bagels.

Serious as a heart attack, they brief everyone with the few threadbare morsels of information they got from a casual conversation with the client. Then they send everyone scrambling to do work that has to be presented in two days.

Two days! 48 hours!

“We’re pulling out all the stops on this one people!”

"This is our chance to make a real impact!"

"We won't have this chance again so it has to count!"

So, everyone puts on their thinking caps and scrambles.

And even though we cry like babies and complain like Rosie O'Donnell when the buffet is closed, we’re all professionals. After a round-the-clock coffee, pizza and cynicism fueled night, we deliver everything that’s been asked for: tv spots, web site, emails, print, radio scripts. The whole shootin’ match.

We present our work to extremely non-committal reactions, then wait to hear.

And wait.

And wait.

Oh, the meeting got pushed back? So you didn’t need it in two days? Uh huh.

Ah, and the client’s not sure he really has the budget to do the program? Huh. Might’ve been a good question to ask up front.

So you want us to wait, and you’ll get back to us on next steps.

Okay. We'll wait here.

What’s that you say? Maybe we can think about it some more until you decide what comes next.

Yeah. We'll get right on it.

After dark

This will be very deja vu-ish (funny, you don't look vu-ish) to my fellow copywriters and art directors.

You've been working for eight weeks on an important presentation to the client. The day of the big meeting finally comes. It's a Wednesday at 4pm. There's no immediate deadline, but this was the day and time everyone was available, so this is when it was scheduled for.

As the meeting goes along, the client laughs at the right places, nods their head and you're thinking how great it's going. Then just as you're all getting ready for Miller time, as you're walking out the door, the CMO asks if they can have a word with the management supe and the creative director.

When they come out of the conference room, the smiles are gone. So are any thoughts of Miller time. The clients you thought loved everything had a little problem with it. They hated everything. And they want to see new work in the morning.

The call goes out - everyone at the agency stay at the agency. Place your dinner order and cancel your plans for the night. You're there until morning, coming up with new ideas for the clients to hopefully like as much as they led you to believe they liked the first ones.

There are so many things wrong with this picture it's hard to know where to start. But I'll start here: What does it say about a client who knows you took a couple months honing to perfection the ideas you just presented, and then asks you for entirely new ones fifteen hours later?

It says they're an asshole.

Anyone who had any idea what it takes to do what you just did would realize it doesn't happen in that short amount of time. They're poking a dog with a stick. Watching you jump through the hoop. They're laughing, and not with you.

The other thing that's wrong with the picture is the agency agreed to do it. Without an ounce of self-respect, dignity or value for their own work, they cut themselves off at the knees and affirm to the asshole client the work they do really has no worth, since you spent months working on it the first time when you could've just come up with it overnight. Like the account leaders just told them you would.

There comes a point, at work, in life, where you have to - and let me quote the bumpersticker here - just say no. When you have to make clear you respect yourself even if they don't. That great thinking takes time. And the fourteen hours from 5pm to 7am is not that time.

I'm not saying you can't come up with something, you can. But at that time of night and level of burnout and exhaustion, when creatives are cracking each other up with bad Christopher Walken impressions, scrounging around for cold pizza and sleeping face down on their keyboards, it won't be anything either of you will be proud of.

Which only lowers their opinion of the agency further. It's a vicious circle.

Still, the same people that agreed to this insane request will be the ones high-fiving each other like overgrown frat boys just for the fact they managed to churn out something that, if there were any justice, would be sitting at the bottom of a birdcage. We've all been there.

I think anyone who knows me would agree that while I'm a joy to work with and for the most part a little social butterfly, I also have a short fuse and don't suffer fools lightly. Another thing they'd tell you is I don't have a problem saying no for the right reasons when everyone above me is saying yes for the wrong ones.

No matter what time of day it is.

The thrill of the chase

I've written here about how hard it is for agencies to let an account go, even when the hour is late and it's way past time for them to say goodnight.

The flip side of that, and no less sad and demoralizing, is when agencies somehow manage to get themselves an invitation to pitch an account they don't have a chance in hell of getting.

The advertising landscape is littered with storyboards from small, start-up agencies with one office, a purple bean bag chair, a five-year old laptop and a staff of three who all thought they had "just as good a chance as anyone" to land General Motors. Or American Airlines. Or Budweiser. Or Hilton.

It's only after these global accounts go through the review, and do what they were inevitably going to do in the first place - award their business to a global agency - that these agencies feel the cold water tossed in their face, and come to the grim and true-from-the-start realization they never had a chance.

Never. Had. A. Chance.

Despite the amazing creative they did. The unbelievably thorough presentation deck. And the supermodel receptionist, who's brother's cousin's nephew's best friend went to an improv class six years ago with one of the hundred and seventy brand managers, which is how they weaseled an invite to the dance in the first place.

Lot of good your principal involvement, unmatched agility, media agnostic positioning and social integration did you.

It's not hard to see why they take the shot. Every agency wants to play in the big leagues. They all want a showcase account they can hopefully do some killer work on, then use it as a calling card to get into pitches with other global clients they won't stand a chance with.

There's some lesson to be learned here about a sense of entitlement. And believing that just because you have some brilliant insights that's going to be enough get the job done.

Sometimes, many times, with clients that big, sad but true, great ads are the least of it. They're looking for infrastructure, global presence and some actual media leverage to support the effort. Or maybe they're just looking for an agency with some maturity, both figuratively and literally.

The point is, in every industry there's a hierarchy. Steps to climb. Dues to pay. Even if you've been in business a while, it still takes time to arrive.

Everyone wants to be the agency that has the insights the client is going to spark to. But even more valuable to them would be an agency who knows who they are. Knows what they can do and can't do.

Not that you asked, but my suggestion would be to play to your strength. Build your story by going after accounts you can actually win.

If you're as smart as the presentation deck says, you'll know who they are.