Check out this piece from AdAge: http://adage.com/article?article_id=120337
It covers a huge influx of business to marketing agency Cramer-Krasselt (founded in Milwaukee and built in part by, you guessed it, another alum of the J-School). Many in the industry were astounded earlier this year when one of its leaders very publicly showed a client the door. I couldn't recall a time when I had seen anything like that. I found it oddly electrifying. Strat comm is fun when it's edgy. CK certainly took us to the edge.
The AdAge piece seems to indicate it worked for them, rather than costing them business, as many had suspected. What does this mean? What obligation do agencies have to listen to clients? Is it like the restaurant business, is the "customer always right"? And what about CareerBuilder's reliance on the USA Today ad meter for evidence that the spots weren't successful? Is that any more scientific than the random polls I stick on this blog?
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
CK and the Middle Finger
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1 comment:
The difference between the restaurant mentality that "the customer is always right" and using that same mentality in an advertising setting is the aspect of creativity and what it does to an ego.
To be a waitress, there is probably some finesse and personality required, to say nothing of capacity to multi-task, but there isn't a whole lot of creativity involved in carrying someone's dish from the kitchen to their table. Therefore, when someone complains or is upset about their dish, it's less personal. A waitress may be frazzled or upset that someone was displeased with her service, but it doesn't cut to the heart of her ingenuity the way an insult to a creative endeavor would.
In the advertising world, what's being sold is creativity. And when someone comes back and says "you did a poor job" it's not just your execution they are insulting, it is your vision and your artistic ability. These are much more personal affronts. Therefore, I think it is harder to say that, in an advertising context, the philosophy of "the customer is always right" is applicable, and certainly much harder to swallow.
So I don't necessarily think the CK exec was completely out of line. It may not have been polite, but it is at least understandable.
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