Advertising top tips for students: Series 1 of 10

This is the first instalment in the series. By the end of the series, you’ll be in a position to understand what is involved in advertising in the workplace, what skills are needed, how to interact with colleagues and most important, what you need to do to prepare yourself for your first role in the world of Advertising.

This series contains similar articles in relation to marketing and design roles which are already published within this blog site, however it is the advertising arena which probably causes more confusion than marketing and design put together.

This is an actual excerpt taken from a job application to thinktank marketing & advertising:

“I would like to apply for a position in your company. I am a very creative person who is looking for a role in advertising as I am creative and can think of advertising campaigns. My English is also very good, I have a great understanding of marketing and can use software for creating adverts and websites.”

This letter, written by a final year graduate clearly demonstrates that applicants have the perception that working in advertising is primarily a marketing or creative role. In fact what this individual has described falls under the remit of creative designer, artworker, copywriter, account manager and web designer. It is doubtful that any single person could possible be competent at every skill, prior to graduation.

What is apparent is that there is a need to educate individuals who are looking to join the advertising industry, so that they have an idea what role is suitable for them. This also helps with the credibility of their application as I would be reticent to interview a candidate who doesn’t know what they want to do and isn’t aware of their best qualities. It’s tough, I know. However, this doesn’t exempt a graduate from having to take the time to apply for something that really excites them. Just wanting to be in advertising isn’t a reason to employ anyone. Now lets take a broad look at the main types of role available in advertising agencies. Because there are so many roles, we’ll just focus on the two main areas to illustrate the difference in skillsets required:

Creative roles:

These are highly skilled job functions such as designer, graphic designer, illustrator, art director, artworker and creative artworker. They require the ability to be able to use computer programs or standard media such as paper, to create or implement advertising campaigns into working ideas (dependent on the particular role). There are also important jobs for individuals who are equally skilled with words, called copywriters. These individuals work alongside the creative team in developing clever slogans, headlines or stories which fit together with the visually creative outputs. In certain areas such as radio advertising, they have a domain of their own.

For a more detailed account of creative roles, read the Series 1 article for Designers, which covers these roles in a little more detail.

Business Development / Account Management roles

These roles require a strong people skills, good sales skills, negotiation skills, listening and organising skills, plus the ability to learn quickly and to be able to translate ideas between client and creative teams, effortlessly.

As mentioned previously, other roles such as media buyer, print buyer and departmental specific roles such as in TV advertising production, camera operators, directors of photography etc, also exist, however there are so many roles in the industry that it means very little to say that you want a job in advertising.

Of course, there are thousands of people in the UK who sell advertising space in publications such as those who work in newspapers, magazines and yearbooks, however generally speaking, these individuals are considered to be outside the domain of the types of job that graduates generally look for, even though many of the job roles within these sectors are excellent jobs with good rates of pay.

The bottom line is that should you be looking for a role in advertising, it pays to figure out which specific route you wish to follow, otherwise you may be left out in the cold when the selection process commences.

Remember to read the next article in the series.

Design top tips for students: Series 1 of 10

This is the first instalment in the series. By the end of the series, you’ll be in a position to understand what is involved in Graphic Design or Creative Design in the workplace, what skills are needed, how to interact with clients and most important, what you need to do to prepare yourself for your first role in the world of Graphic Design.
Graphic Designers from all walks of life – people with a secret interest in getting into the industry, to diploma students, copy shop workers and graduates are rarely equipped with sufficient insight into what roles are available in the industry, where the jobs are or, what they need to get their foot on the ladder. This article focuses on the various roles that a Graphic Designer may aspire to apply for.

“The most annoying thing that prospective employers see is the lack of preparation by further and educational establishments in preparing young talent for their careers. You would be forgiven for thinking that academia is more interested in occupying bums on seats, rather than ensuring that course graduates obtain quality jobs. In fact, I would suggest that the vast majority of design course students never end up with the job they envisaged, prior to embarking upon a design course.”

Can you imagine a medical student spending several years studying only to find out that they aren’t prepared adequately for working as a hospital doctor. And, can you imagine what would happen if there were relatively few jobs for qualifying doctors when they’d completed their course. Well, that’s exactly what graphic designers face on graduation and I personally think that it is appalling.

There is fierce competition for graphic design roles, the industry is relatively ‘young’ in that it seems to employ the majority of designers between the ages of 19-35. There is a real issue in terms of ageism and lack of preparation of graduates for the industry. Most graduates fail to obtain the jobs they were envisaging on graduation. Britain’s got talent, but it needs someone at the helm of academia to funnel the creative strength of UK designers in the right direction.

Given that we’ll deal with many of the key issues in future articles, let us focus on the main options available for graphic designers in industry.
The roles vary from company to company, require slightly different talents and more extensive options are available, however for simplicity we’ll define the roles in separate categories that form the majority of UK design job roles:

• Creative designer jobs – these jobs are generally for highly creative graphic designers where there is less emphasis on attention to detail and a greater degree of importance placed on the ability to generate highly developed creative concepts. Roles such as this are mainly found in agencies where there are more than three designers. The career path will generally lead to creative / art direction.
• Artworker jobs – here the main skills are the ability to concentrate on detail, layout and the ability to turn creative ideas into a format which is suitable for print. Speed and accuracy are vital for such jobs. The career development pathway ultimately is to run the production facilities within a studio.
• Creative artworkers – these jobs are common in the domain of small-medium sized agencies where there is a need for an individual to possess a good blend of creative skills alongside an eye for detail and speed. The career pathway is to become head of design with an excellent blend of skills.
• Illustrators - provide illustrations or technical illustrations for a variety of jobs such as computer games design, medical illustrations and a wide number of other illustrative type jobs. Generally illustrators are freelance workers or work for major agencies.
• Photo-retouching – individuals with a high skill level in retouching photographic images. These individuals may work within an agency, a reprographics house or for specialist companies which carry out a high volume of re-touching such as catalogue production companies.
• Web designers / Web developers – designers with the ability to develop web sites. Web designers tend to be creative individuals with or without a high level of programming knowledge, whereas web developers tend to possess skills such as database design plus proficiency with at least one programming language. Flash designers can fit within one of these categories or may be a video or multimedia designers.
• 3-D designers – designers who are highly skilled in using 3-D programs to produce visually accurate representations and animations of 3-D characters, products, exhibition sets etc.
• Additional roles – there are additional designer job roles such as multimedia and video designers, which by their nature are self-explanatory, however the above roles account for the majority of designer roles available.

Whatever role you aspire to, you are advised to consider your main qualities so that you may focus on developing your career in the direction which is most suitable for you.

Remember to join us for the second instalment in our ten-part Design Tips for Students series.

Marketing top tips for students: Series 1 of 10

This is the first instalment in the series. By the end of the series, you’ll be in a position to understand what is involved in marketing in the workplace, what skills are needed, how to interact with colleagues from associated departments and most important, what you need to do to prepare yourself for your first role in the world of marketing.

When it comes to graduates possibly one of the most frustrating things you experience to as a client side or agency employer is the quote:

“I am looking for a job in marketing, I can work in any capacity”

Very occasionally out of sheer frustration and in the vain effort to help students, I will call one out of every hundred applications I receive, to assist them. Here is a typical list of things I hear in response to questions I may ask during the conversation:

Q. What type of marketing job are you looking for?

A. I don’t know, what type are there.

Q. Are you looking for an agency side or client side role?

A. I don’t know the difference. I’m good at advertising, creative, like market research and I would be good in any of the roles.

Q. Have your tutors at University explained the difference between client and agency side and if they have, what have they told you about the different roles?

A. They haven’t really told us anything about the different roles.

The one thing I really love about students is their absolute honesty, sincerity and enthusiasm for wanting a career in marketing. I have to say that academic institutions have much to answer for, not in their teachings but rather in their failure to prepare young learners for life in the industry.

If there’s one thing for sure it is that it is very hard to secure a role in marketing, whatever the qualifications you have and however skilled you are. Therefore, in order to prepare yourself for the workplace there’s a number of things you need to do. I’ll touch more on these things later in this series of articles for marketing students.

There are two major areas that you can work in as a marketer and both of these areas are distinct in the roles and diversity they provide:

• Client side marketing – working for a commercial, public sector or charitable organisation
• Agency side marketing – working for an advertising, PR, market research exhibition or similar type of agency

Within each setting there is usually a distinct career pathway and once you have decided which side of the fence you wish to work, the majority of marketers tend to stick to their own side. I have equal experience on both sides of the fence, in commercial and public sector client side marketing, plus working in an agency environment as a marketing consultant and head of advertising & design. This has provided me with a unique insight into both worlds and whilst the jobs are completely different, job satisfaction is high, whichever side you choose.

Marketing job titles vary widely depending on the company, with titles such as Executive often applied to the most junior of roles or in some companies, this can be the highest position. For the sake of simplicity, typical client side roles include:

Client side marketing roles

• Marketing Executive / Junior Marketing Assistant / Marketing Assistant – helps the department with the day to day tasks, promotion to this role is generally from within an organisation or in some environments, graduates occupy such roles.
• Marketing Co-ordinator / Marketing Officer – depending on department size this is generally a role which carries more responsibility. Tasks can include conducting or arranging market research, working directly with creative agencies, mailing fulfilment, organising events or promotional campaigns such as literature for product launches. Most Marketing Officers/Co-ordinators report directly to a product or marketing manager
• Product Manager / Senior Product Manager / Group Product or Category Manager – these roles are most often specific to companies that market products. Dependent on company size the Product Manager may have only one product or many, with the Category Managers being responsible for the entire group of products that his or her team market.
• Marketing Manager / Marcomms Manager – This role can be a position in a one-person team or can also be the position which is responsible for teams from 3-10 staff. The marketing manager in the smaller company may do every role from assistant through to manager, or in larger companies they manager the junior management level marketers. Note that one would not normally describe a category manager with a marketing budget of £5m as a junior marketer. As mentioned previously, the titles may be confusing.
• Head of Marketing / Marketing Director – The most senior marketing role in the organisation. In some companies the title is bestowed on the sales manager by default, however the Marketing Director or Sales & Marketing Director within a large company is the driving force behind the management of all marketing and sales activities. Both sales staff or marketers can usually be promoted to this role.

Agency side marketing roles

As many marketers aspire to client side roles, we’ll keep this section brief. Agency side roles fall into the following areas:

• Account Management – Ranging from Account Handler through to Account Director – individuals responsible for working in an agency environment and looking after client accounts, organising, managing and liaising with the client, right through to providing strategic support, dependent on the level of experience of the incumbent.
• Market Research – a number of roles exist within the research environment, this is a completely distinct and important area of marketing, with specialisms such as qualitative market researcher, quantitative research. Market Research is a fascinating area of marketing and in many ways is similar to client side, except for the fact you will be working on agency accounts across a number of market sectors.
• PR – as with Market Research, the PR environment has diverse career opportunities. They generally operate a similar structure to advertising agencies in that they have Account Handling to Account Director positions.

Finally, whatever the ultimate role you end up doing in marketing, you should now have a good appreciation of the diversity of opportunities available.

The next article in the series looks at the pro’s and con’s of client side V agency side marketing roles.

I’m not saying that small SME’s or even sole traders don’t embrace market segmentation, it’s just that more often than not, qualified marketers with their degrees and diploma certificates from the Chartered Institute of Marketing sit behind desks every day, happy to have a job with the word ‘marketing’ in the title, their first rung on the ladder, whilst their soon-to-be erstwhile bosses, choose to ignore the expertise that they possess.

I worked for a company in my early marketing days when I demanded that we segment the market and re-position our main brand. All was well until the MD called me in and told me that I had the equivalent of £50k in today’s money and 6-weeks to turn the fortunes around. I smiled and didn’t even ask what the ‘or else’ was. But that’s just the way I played things in my client side days. Great fun.

Why the boss may not agree with market segmentation

1. Why some companies ignore market segmentation
2. They have a mass market product which appeals to everyone
3. They have never heard of segmentation
4. They don’t understand marketing
5. They believe that segmentation makes them too ‘niche’
6. They believe they can defy the laws of marketing… and gravity

Whilst we’re not going to attempt to discuss the well publicised theories behind market segmentation, we’ll simply take this as read, our attempts now should be to tackle the issue of going about discussing this with the boss, if or when they’ll listen.

Now before any of you enthusiasts go barging into the directors’ offices and waving this article in front of them, think again, because marketing life is generally about weighing up company politicking and working out what things are worth fighting for.

My advice to you is to use your own judgement, because it’s your call after all and though getting your point across may work in the movies, it can be career-threatening if not done in the right way, or if you have an egocentric boss who thinks humour is something that comes at other people’s expense.

How to tackle the boss

1. Don’t use this article to do it for you – or you deserved to be put in the village stocks.
2. Start by thinking of the major segments and don’t ever begin a discussion by telling the boss that the town’s main employer has 2,455 segments. You need to start by defining the major ones first.
3. Give the boss examples of how some small niche companies profited by using segmentation – don’t get out the textbooks and talk about brands with a multi-million pound marketing budget, because that’s the easiest way for the boss to dismiss your valid points.
4. If you can find the budget for market research or some external marketing consultancy then that’s good and it may well back up your claims, however if you can’t then speak to some of your customers, or distributors, but ensure that you don’t annoy the management, so keep them informed at all times.
5. Don’t do what I did when on client side and be a maverick, taking things into my own hands, whilst it feels good being John Rambo, the directors get cheesed off very quickly – as I know too well. If you ignore this advice then just remember that you’ll have to deliver good results very quickly, or it’s your neck on the line.

So I guess that it’s over to you now. You can’t make an omelette without cracking some eggs, but then again like many of my colleagues over the past 15-years, you may not want to take the chance. Who can blame you if you don’t, but if you do remember that it’s your job, your career, your responsibility and your call.

To the b or plain foolish, please let me know how you get on.

Anyway, enough of this distraction, what exactly is web 2.0, is it any good, and do we really need it? And, when you know what it is and whether you really need it then I guess you’ll want to know what to know what to do with it. Web 2.0 is easier to explain by eliminating the things that it isn’t:

What Web 2.0 isn’t

1. It’s not a new operating system or browser
2. Unfortunately for programmers, it’s not a new programming language
3. Your web site doesn’t qualify to be called 2.0 just because it uses flash, rss, ajax, wiki or flckr
4. It doesn’t mean people, podcasts, digg, del.icio.us, YouTube the blogosphere or any one of the major social networking sites
5. It isn’t a web site that changes colour when you click on a new page
6. Neither is it a replacement for web compliance standards

Whilst web 2.0 may well include some of the things mentioned in this list, the only thing that is for certain is that the individual responsible for coining the phrase in 2004, along with his industry counterparts, have done their best to ensure that it’s definition remains abstract in what could be seen as an attempt to regain the programming salaries that were the norm in the nineties.

VC meeting rooms all over the country are jam packed with salesmen and their nodding spods repeating the lines, “It’s 2.0. It’s the future. Our projections show we’ll make ten zillion pounds next year.” I’ve been trying to extract a simple explanation from people in the know ever since the phrase was touted in 2003, but the trouble is that the higher up the food chain you go, the more nebulous the answer gets.

Whilst nobody really ever used the term 1.0 and snake oil salesmen tout web 3.0 as ‘web content using 2.0 as the base platform’, it only serves to confuse matters further. Let’s turn our attention to the ‘official definition’ to see if it clarifies Web 2.0 any better.

The official definition of Web 2.0

“Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.” – O’Reilly

Now that we’ve got that over with, have you finally seen the light? No! That’s good, because I wouldn’t like to challenge O’Reilly to a bullshitting competition. Many web developers often refer to it as software or languages used to build new web 2.0 sites including tag clouds, ajax and wikis – the foundation of collaborative sites. These technologies are fairly straightforward, free and easy to use, but their wider definition doesn’t stand up to scrutiny when looking at ecommerce sites, such as Gap’s, which doesn’t include collaboration.

Others talk about it being a collection of tools and sites that encourage participation, which is a little nearer the truth. Then there’s the view of some that it’s the modern day equivalent to the bring-a-bottle party, with online invitees all adding their own content to form a 2.0 collaboration. All the definitions seem plausible, yet talking 2.0 up as future technology isn’t really true when you consider ajax was around ten years ago. So have web developers got it wrong?

A difference of opinion

I don’t think for one second that web developers are devoid of an understanding of what web 2.0 actually means, it’s just that like with the term ecommerce, its definition has changed over time and it can mean a myriad of different things to different people. I’d say that the majority of decent web developers have their own definitions about 2.0, but they may not necessarily agree with each other. Nevertheless, they understand what’s going on and behind the scenes they are starting to get to grips with it much better as technologies become adopted and less buggy.

The trouble is that the more in depth you go talking about 2.0, the more difficult it is to fathom. Much of the trouble comes from business minded techies who missed out on the .com hype and are eagerly trying to dupe investors into offloading a cool million for a meagre chance that they’ll receive a big fat return – I hope those who are bare-faced enough to pull it off get their rewards, but I doubt that most of the investors will.

The talk wont last long and nor will the investors money when they realise that some of the schemes are an advanced yet legitimate form of the well-oiled 619 scam. Sure, there are still big returns to be made from web investments, however many of the best companies seem to be like vagrants – they usually come from nowhere. Before you reach for the phone and call your solicitor, I’m not saying that your particular 2.0 scheme isn’t going to be the next Google, just that there are many who are using it as a hood-winking exercise.

There’s a really easy way to describe web 2.0 in a way that everyone can understand, in that it is merely the natural development of today’s online culture of participation. Moreover, don’t let anyone tell you about it, ask them to show you online examples and you’ll be enlightened. Web 2.0 is simply another name for today’s Internet, it’s what web 1.0 should have been and, we use it every time we go online.

We should really begin by covering the most important point which is, “Clients aren’t supposed to understand what designer’s do, otherwise they would do it themselves.” If we start with this assumption then perhaps there wouldn’t be so much negativity towards clients from designers that there often is. Clients are clients and designers are designer. Generally speaking they are equally as good at their jobs as designers are at their own. Therefore, if we respect this then the process is usually more favourable.

Let us detail a few of the major issues clients face when they are looking at our work:

Looking from the client’s perspective

• If its junior or senior management level, there’s often the big boss to please, so some clients tend to bias their views based on what the big boss would like to see.
• Unless they own the company, a client will have a job, which they ordinarily would jeopardise by taking a punt on what may be the best advert.
• By nature, most clients aren’t creative and if you have to work hard explaining the creatives, then your chances of selling in the desired concepts are somewhat diminished.
• Whilst clients may understand the notion of bleed, crop marks and positionals, invariably they won’t have the same level of insight into the finished article as you, therefore don’t be surprised by comments such as, the box on the right hand side is too big, when it’s a 5mm page clip with an additional 3mm bleed, the box looks 8mm wide. If it looks too wide for the client, then there’s little use attempting to force your visual prowess into the client mind – they won’t be able to see it, unless of course they have a visually creative mindset.
• Client offices are filled with company politics. This means that there may be views on everything from what coffee to buy, through to what colours they do and don’t use.
• Clients have confidence in what they do and when it comes to creatives, many of them ask around, take your concepts home with them to show their partners or simply ask everyone in the department for their feedback. You have to show them that your concepts work in terms of business generation before they’ll learn to trust your judgement.
• Marketing departments will be more concerned with the impact of communication of the message, rather than the overall visuals. This means that to get things right you must communicate the visuals in a strong manner whilst respecting the importance of their message, no matter how strange it may be to you.
• Clients sometimes are unable to give you a clear brief or clear feedback because they lack the confidence to talk on your terms. If you can’t talk the language of the marketer, you need to have 100% clarification regarding the points they are clear about and the ones you aren’t. Checking is a good thing which shows enthusiasm, not a bad thing.

Stay in control

With the adoption of online technologies and time pressures faced by the client-agency relationship, it’s too easy to email the client and wait for their response, especially if you are in a small agency.

My advice here is that unless you manage their expectations and do this prior to forwarding your concepts electronically, you really place yourself at the mercy of an untrained individual who’ll relay the message in the way they see fit.

Worse still is the scenario whereby three people stand around a monitor whilst looking for problems in what you’ve done, by which time, selling in the client benefits of your concept is an uphill task. Therefore, always go to the client’s office to present or, if there’s not enough time, go through it with them meticulously on the phone before sending, then set up a telephone meeting where you discuss the concepts with them live as they receive them. The bottom line is to stay in control of the presentation at all times.

• Many more companies put up their own sites
• Major search engines changes their policy on automatic submissions
• Keywords needed page copy to match
• Search engines became wise to overuse of keywords

The late 90’s and beyond

After the early years, web developers started using tricks such as doorway pages, mirror sites and a host of other techniques in an attempt to overcome search engine rankings – many of these were no more than what we see today, with terms such as ‘backlinks’ replacing older SEO concepts like FFA (free for all sites which resulted in an avalanche of unwanted emails).

It wasn’t long before the advantages to be gained by using new techniques actually meant that eventually sites would be de-listed or simply fall off the rankings. The people in the know realised that Google was now taking off and humoured those still using alternative sites as a yardstick of success.

I remember a client in 2002 who called me on a Sunday to comment that his website was number 4 on Freeserve. I thanked him most courteously for letting me know and was flabbergasted at his response. He wasn’t a happy man. Despite me achieving position 1 on every other search engine for his product, he berated me for only being in position 4 on one of the minor search engines.

I laughed a little louder when he said that another company could do much better (because they would say that wouldn’t they). Politely suggesting that he may be wiser to use their services, I carried on driving and didn’t think anything else of it until 6-months later when he called again.

This time, all of his rankings had pretty much disappeared and he pleaded with me to start working for him again. He offered my 400% more for doing the work, yet I declined his kind offer on the grounds that working with clients is about trust and this had now well and truly evaporated. Back to the issues, things have moved on immeasurably today and even with individuals setting up specialist SEO companies, things aren’t yet where they should be.

To be or not to be

The main problem today doesn’t stem from lack of knowledge, simply the inability of SEO companies and their smaller clients to realise that the world is no longer a level playing field.

In years gone by the website was the domain of the smaller company, who without expensive premises on the high street, could easily masquerade as an industry giant, when the client base was either purely online or geographically so far away that it didn’t matter how salubrious their business premises were. In those days, what mattered was the quality of your website as getting up the rankings was very easy.

Nowadays, unless you have unlimited web budgets to commit to pay per click advertising, it is difficult to gain high rankings with your moderately sized site unless you are a niche market player or, can make good use of skilful copywriting.

The essence here is that clever copywriting is extremely important as often it has to tie in with what you want to say, the keywords you use and it has to look attractive on the site in order to make site visitors want to engage with you on a business level.

The bottom line is that whilst SEO is king today, you need to ensure that you either have an excellent understanding of the ancillary factors which lead to good search engine rankings, or craft your copy so well, that you could equally forge a living as a Booker Prize winner. Good luck.

]]> http://www.ttmconsultancy.co.uk/blog/?feed=rss2&p=7 0 http://www.ttmconsultancy.co.uk/blog/?p=6 http://www.ttmconsultancy.co.uk/blog/?p=6#comments Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:38:30 +0000 admin http://www.ttmconsultancy.co.uk/blog/?p=6
Read on and see a sample of real-life questions and comments colleagues from across the country encounter every day, as a part of agency life. ]]> We’ve all done it. You go into a shop to buy something which you have absolutely no idea about and ask some really good questions. The only snag is that whilst it makes perfect sense to you, the shopkeeper looks at you like you’ve got no clothes on.

I don’t like to admit this but I once went into a store to buy a shredder when I needed to shred 6,000 sheets of scrap A4 paper left over from a job and thought I’d picked up a bargain, buying it for under £150. After four hours use there was a loud grinding sound. I’d not asked the right questions and hadn’t bothered reading the instructions. Despite staff saying that I should go back and buy another one from the same store, I couldn’t face the embarrassment of winning the fool of the hour award. So, having learned my lesson and laughed about it, I never made the same mistake again.

This section is intended to be fun and sharing with readers some of the amusing things we hear every week from clients. If you’re a client then there’s no offence meant, it’s just a collection of common things which we get asked regularly. I hope you enjoy reading and can share our sense of humour. Whilst we dearly love working with our clients, like you, we have a good sense of humour too!

We’ve got a new camera, so I’ll supply you with the photos

Ever since the advent of digital cameras we’re inundated with clients supplying 8 megapixel blurred images for their brochures.

The truth of the matter is that nobody likes telling clients that their prized new brochure will turn out like a still from the Blair Witch Project, yet the subtlest of hints normally does the trick, like, sure this will be great when our design department touches out the date in the corner, but just as a matter of coincidence, we have a few hundred photos which may look even better, even though your shots are brilliant. Have you ever thought of turning pro? No, well that’s a relief then!

We’ll send you the copy by the end of the day

Okay, that’ll be great. The trick here is that the client hasn’t told you which day they were talking about. In our experience, it’s usually the day after the deadline expires!

We’ve ran this by everyone, but the cleaner didn’t like it

Let me get this right, we’re talking about people who won’t let anyone else have a say when it comes to choosing their company car, yet they’ll let a passer by comment on their new advertising campaign. Probably the strangest one I’ve heard is a client who gave it to his 14-year-old son to take into school to see what the Business Studies students thought? This was a campaign that was due to feature in the daily newspapers 72 hours later. Can you believe it!

Can you make the logo any bigger?

Of course we can, but we’ve made it this size because it looks better. I have friends in a few agencies around the country and all we can conclude is that their must be some virus going around which affects clients eyesight. I heard one story about a client who asked for their logo to be made so big that it took up more than half of an A4 front cover. I personally would have recommended Specsavers!

I want you to pitch, but you’re the favourite to win

In the heady advertising days of the 1990’s advertising agencies used to make so much money from each client that they didn’t care how many times they had to pitch to win the business, because it only took one new account to make up for the ones they lost. That may have been the case then, but in the days when four hours photo retouching would set you back a whopping £5,500 in today’s money, they could afford to do it for free couldn’t they?

There’s no doubt about it, there’s always a need to pitch for £50,000+ profit accounts, however some clients have got it into their heads that you’ll be grateful to pitch for under £5,000!!! Whilst there are bedroom designers and start-up agencies willing to do this, clients who believe they are getting a bargain simply have missed the point. Marketing and advertising is about maximising client profits from increased turnover and this requires a tremendous level of skill. I’ve sat in client meetings where I’ve made them 5% increase in profit simply by taking a look at their business and giving them the answer for free. That is of course, when we’ve got their account. As for the line, ‘You’re the favourite to win’ beggars belief – do clients think agencies are completely stupid?

So we say to clients that it’s okay to ask us to pitch for your business against ten other agencies, but in the long run it will cost you as you’ll be excluding the decent agencies who you’ll get the best from, leaving you with plenty of free ideas which have a high chance of failing in practice.

My boss said that we need to add three photos in the blank area , but we still want minimalist

This is the time when you send in your best friend, dictionary.com. If you can’t convince your client that their minimalist brief was read by the creative team as minimalist then it’s time to educate them that just because it sounds good doesn’t excuse the fact that they don’t understand what minimalist means.
The classic was the client who insisted on their 8-page brochure being simple and minimalist, then insisted that they required over 3,000 words of copy between pages 2-8. Eventually the client opted for 16-pages, only to add an extra 1,000 words just before print deadlines. Who says that clients don’t have a sense of humour – not us!

If you do this one at a good price, we’ll give you lots more work

Cue laughter! If they gave away 100 air miles for every time a new prospect said this, I’d have enough to book a return flight to mars by now.

We’re looking for a new agency. Send your portfolio

… to a fictitious email address
… by post to your newest competitor
… to someone who had a dream about setting up a new business
… to the person who can’t actually make the final decision
… and you’ll never hear from us again

I need to add an extra page to this 64-page catalogue!

That’s great, is it an insert they need or have they discovered a 1-dimensional world where they sell single sided paper. Whatever you do, just nod and politely explain that pages are like animals on Noah’s Ark, they come in pairs and then have a brainwave and tell them you’ll print another two pages for free!

I’ve got a brilliant idea, a website which is going to be the new Google.. can you do it for £5k

My friend tried a similar line when he went into the Aston Martin dealership with his savings, dressed in his corduroys at age ten. Try telling them that you’re on the Board of Google and it would be a conflict of interest. Whatever you do, don’t say it’s a good idea. I remember a new potential client who insisted on seeing me for a meeting with one such idea.

After travelling the length of the country, she gave me a copy of her business plan. Eventually after a quick read, I typed in the address of Facebook and hey presto, it was exactly what she was planning to do… just one problem, we’ve all heard of Facebook and a clone of the site for under 8’s isn’t going to get you a place next to Richard Branson on the rich list.

Why don’t the colours on our website match our letterheads?

This is a simple one to answer, just ask the client to look for a torch. Are you with me on this? Now get them to turn the torch on and shine it through their letterhead from the back, meanwhile asking them to tell you if the colours look more like their website yet. If this doesn’t work tell them to turn off the room lights, then their computer screen and go home!

I’ve just spoken to someone who can guarantee me number one slot on Google

Must be that Simon Cowell has started a new SEO business. He seems to be the only one that guarantee’s number one nowadays. It takes less than half a brain cell to fathom this one out for yourself. Could it be that Google is going to allow people to know exactly how it works? This would make Google pretty much worthless and, trust me, one of the most successful companies in history with all the top brains wouldn’t be outwitted by a man with a mobile from Manchester.

This one reminds me of a young client who began our meeting by saying that he wanted to set up a website which could run itself so that he never had to work again. Could we help him develop a business idea for him that would guarantee this for him. Hang on a minute, this is a client who wanted us to give him an idea for a guaranteed money making scheme without doing any work. Smart guy hey?

Take the example of Hoover’s free European flights promotion in 1992, which was commercial suicide and, to make matters worse, they did it again, offering two free tickets to the USA for customers spending more than £100.

Nothing added up here and what started out as an exercise to clear excess stock ended up with the company suffering irreparable damage to its UK corporate image and leading to the organisation being forced into providing 200,000 seats for disgruntled consumers. This was a failure of common sense rather than marketing theory, with executives not understanding that people were buying because of the travel tickets rather than wanting Hoover products.

It isn’t always the case of a failure of common sense, there are times when marketers do make mistakes and it’s easy to see why non-marketers point the finger of blame.

Experience

The lack of understanding of the marketing function doesn’t excuse company directors from their responsibility to take a close interest in marketing, yet marketing seems to be the only area of business operation where inexperienced incumbents are let loose with company money and in many cases whilst it’s good experience for the fledgling marketer, it’s evidently bad for the company.

It’s amusing to think that not one company director would appoint an inexperienced accountant to sail solo with its finances, just in the same way that you’d let your children be operated on by a surgeon who had never had any clinical experience. Therefore, why do some company directors appoint graduate marketers to positions where there is only one member of the marketing department, trust them with their brand and then blame the employee for making mistakes, when they haven’t been trained adequately for the role.

What is apparent from experience of interviewing many graduate marketers over the years is that the best of them always have oodles of common sense and that not many graduates understand marketing in the real world, as the textbooks focus on case studies where the company has unlimited funds, competitors are believed to be inert in their reactions and as pure academic marketing experts would have you believe, that you’re the only one who is smart enough to have thought of it first.

Just like football, learning the skills are a pre-requisite, yet when the whistle blows, every match is a new one and you’ll encounter new experiences every time. The take home message is that a couple of years marketing experience is worth the same as an academic PhD. However, it’s even better when you have the academic background to back up experience.

The onus is on you

I know what your thinking, when I say the onus is on you, who are we talking about? Is it the graduate marketer or the prospective employer? Well, it’s both. As an employer you have the responsibility to ensure that you work closely with your new marketing incumbent, providing training, discussing the practical consequences of actions and the reality of your situation.

Unfortunately in the real world this doesn’t excuse you getting stuck in and I strongly advise you to cut your teeth by gaining valuable marketing experience wherever you can so that when you graduate, it will be easier to market you!

The world is full of companies with the best products which have the greatest features. These products are generally the property of businesses which massively underperform in their respective markets. Perversely market leadership is so often the playground of those who ‘spin’ facts into the minds of their customers in a way which captivates their audience.

The bottom line is that to make your product a success, you have to give your audience the perception, the whole perception and nothing but the perception. Don’t get the wrong idea about marketing though, it isn’t there to give your products or services properties that they don’t possess. Marketing simply crystallises the good aspects about your offer, turning it into an attractive proposition.

Whatever you do, don’t lie about what you do, simply put your best foot forward first and remember that customers aren’t interested in hearing about the 20 things which prove your product are better – save this for your Intellectual Property solicitor when applying for a patent – they’ll listen long after your customers stop.