As anyone who works in the creative department of an agency knows, sometimes a project will come around an absurd amount of times. My friend Rich Siegel named his blog Round Seventeen as an homage to the number of times he's had to revise copy.
I'll see your Round Seventeen, and raise you the revision number I had on a piece of car copy yesterday. The number was 68. Now, if you're reading this post as a civilian, I suppose you're thinking with all those versions the copy must change dramatically from one to the next.
Not so much.
Revisions come from all sorts of places. Proofreaders. Account people. Low level clients. Mid-level clients. The big cheese client. Legal. The product guy. The client's wife. The cleaning crew on the third floor. It goes on and on. It's usually a word or two they obsess over ("Is this too light? Too flip? Too...you know...). More often than not, it just a change for change sake so they can feel like they were part of the process, and get their name on the credits when they fill out the award-show entry forms.
I hear the Client's Wife category is going to sweep the shows this year.
There's an old adage, one I subscribe to, that says the secret to great writing is rewriting. It's a nice thought, but working in an agency will knock that sentiment into the next zip code mighty quick.
Anyway, old Albert had it right. And I'll be he got it on the first try.
