This is one of those things that goes without saying, yet bears repeating. Often. Daily even. Sometimes ad nauseam in a three-minute span during a meeting with fill-in-the-blank:Never show anything you don’t want to see produced.
I don’t know why agencies feel inclined to show clients three concepts. I don’t know why teams feel compelled to show their CDs three ideas. It could be the rule of three, or perhaps we’re all fixated on providing, yes, value to our employers. One or two ideas just aren’t enough. But three? Now someone’s getting their money’s worth.
Except, of course, that that third idea is often a clinker. And, more disheartening, it’s often a clinker on purpose.
I really hope this isn’t a shock to anyone. If it is, and you’ve been in the biz more than thirty seconds, please exit stage right.
The theory behind presenting a clinker of a concept – or straw dog as it’s commonly known – is to make the other ideas seem that much better, thereby guaranteeing the one of the ideas you really like will get chosen.
And yet we never learn, do we? This never works. It just doesn’t. The client always picks the straw dog because it’s the safest. The CD always picks the straw dog so he can steal one of your other ideas as his own. It’s just the way the world works, Pepe. Cope.
I’ve actually worked with a couple of agencies that only show one concept to a client. If the client buys it, great! If not, the agency comes back later with another idea. Sure, the client may eventually exhaust the agency so much that they reach for the straw dog, but at least the agency didn’t show it to them as a viable option from the get-go. (Side note: Is the past tense of “get-go” “got-gone”? Discuss.)
So please, if you, my junior writer, only have one or two great ideas to show me at the 11 a.m. status meeting, then just show me those two. It’s better that I yell at you for being brilliant-yet-lazy than for being a hack.
Later,
Fox