Comments on: Jeff Goodby on Award-Chasers and the Future of Ad-Tech http://www.tobyjoe.com/2009/06/jeff-goodby-on-award-chasers/ Toby Joe Boudreaux on Tech, Creativity, UX, and All Things Digital Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:55:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 By: chandler http://www.tobyjoe.com/2009/06/jeff-goodby-on-award-chasers/comment-page-1/#comment-938 chandler Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:09:58 +0000 http://www.tobyjoe.com/?p=737#comment-938 there is another question, which i think is really at the heart of it, and hinted at when you say more "MBA than MFA", most of the people in advertising don't want to sell things. They want to make "experiences" and create the glamour (both meanings) of a brand. They want to do what Koolhaas does in Project on the City. But they aren't Koolhaas, nowhere close. So we get pointless media disconnected from sales and focused creating half-formed false images of corporations. there is another question, which i think is really at the heart of it, and hinted at when you say more “MBA than MFA”, most of the people in advertising don’t want to sell things. They want to make “experiences” and create the glamour (both meanings) of a brand. They want to do what Koolhaas does in Project on the City. But they aren’t Koolhaas, nowhere close. So we get pointless media disconnected from sales and focused creating half-formed false images of corporations.

]]> By: Bill B http://www.tobyjoe.com/2009/06/jeff-goodby-on-award-chasers/comment-page-1/#comment-937 Bill B Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:43:14 +0000 http://www.tobyjoe.com/?p=737#comment-937 TJB: Count us in. Colgrove and I were just talking in a similar vein yesterday w/r/t a very famous quick service brand failing to make ground on another very famous quick service brand despite the award-winning work turned in by its very good agency (ahem, http://adage.com/article?article_id=137472 ). To be fair, CPB's business objectives in its campaigns may have had nothing to do with increasing BK's same-store sales or overtaking McDonald's or selling more non-hamburger items or whatever. I'm not privy to that information so I’m reluctant to judge too harshly (although if it’s not “beat McDonald’s,” I’m not sure what BK’s objective is … but that’s why I’m not in the QSR business). What I do know, though, is that unless agencies are working in a complementary manner toward broader business strategies and that our efforts as designers, developers, copywriters, etc. contribute measurably to delivering against those strategies, we are de facto doing it for ourselves and not our clients. We cannot and should not be in a position where we can blame the CMO or blame the direct mail agency or blame the inadequate media buy or blame the weather for our campaigns failing to move the needle in the right direction. If we didn’t develop a holistic view of the entire problem and the role our work plays in solving it from the outset, we disserved our clients. If the budget for all players wasn’t there for our work to contribute positively toward meeting strategic goals, then we probably shouldn’t have taken the job. Much easier said than done. We all gotta eat, and worry about building the brand of our agencies to attract clients and talent. Awards are a potent drug. And how can you measure “client satisfaction that they asked for and received ‘good creative’,” even if that creative didn’t deliver more sales/visitors/subscriptions/donations? And when CEOs signoff on awarding a contract to an agency based on their awards and not their results, the cycle feeds itself. We all live in glass houses, so I’m reluctant to throw stones. But I am willing to volunteer my and my team’s time to see if we can help figure something out. TJB:

Count us in. Colgrove and I were just talking in a similar vein yesterday w/r/t a very famous quick service brand failing to make ground on another very famous quick service brand despite the award-winning work turned in by its very good agency (ahem, http://adage.com/article?article_id=137472 ). To be fair, CPB’s business objectives in its campaigns may have had nothing to do with increasing BK’s same-store sales or overtaking McDonald’s or selling more non-hamburger items or whatever. I’m not privy to that information so I’m reluctant to judge too harshly (although if it’s not “beat McDonald’s,” I’m not sure what BK’s objective is … but that’s why I’m not in the QSR business).

What I do know, though, is that unless agencies are working in a complementary manner toward broader business strategies and that our efforts as designers, developers, copywriters, etc. contribute measurably to delivering against those strategies, we are de facto doing it for ourselves and not our clients. We cannot and should not be in a position where we can blame the CMO or blame the direct mail agency or blame the inadequate media buy or blame the weather for our campaigns failing to move the needle in the right direction. If we didn’t develop a holistic view of the entire problem and the role our work plays in solving it from the outset, we disserved our clients. If the budget for all players wasn’t there for our work to contribute positively toward meeting strategic goals, then we probably shouldn’t have taken the job.

Much easier said than done. We all gotta eat, and worry about building the brand of our agencies to attract clients and talent. Awards are a potent drug. And how can you measure “client satisfaction that they asked for and received ‘good creative’,” even if that creative didn’t deliver more sales/visitors/subscriptions/donations? And when CEOs signoff on awarding a contract to an agency based on their awards and not their results, the cycle feeds itself.

We all live in glass houses, so I’m reluctant to throw stones. But I am willing to volunteer my and my team’s time to see if we can help figure something out.

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