What Advertising Agencies Want From Their Clients

You all read that blog post that Steve wrote last month, “What clients want from their Advertising Agency”, right? What was he thinking? He must be a little out of it, what with the holidays and all the booze flowing. I mean, what about what the agency people want? What about our needs? Where’s our post? Where’s our champion?

Fear not! I have heard what the Ad agency people want and I am here to clear the air.

I conducted a study recently asking advertising agency peeps what they value most from their clients. The overwhelming answer was money, fish tacos, and pizza. We don’t even want to meet the clients. Just send a text or email of what the job is followed by a package of money and a note with details of when and where the fish tacos and pizza will be. That’s it. Don’t over think this. Move along. Next….

Seriously though I have to admit that the actual top answer —communication—holds true for agency peeps too. Anyone who has been doing this for a more than a decade can tell you that communication is key. Don’t waste my time with requests you don’t understand. Don’t pretend to understand things. We can all tell that when clients want to circle back and regroup and take a closer look at the synergy that they are completely full of shit.

Just tell us what you need and what your budget is and we will rip your philosophy out of you with questions and research. Then we’ll give you something that’s close enough for you to give some feedback so we can then add some of the client’s touches. Once the product has been deployed, we then collect as much data as possible and then make changes and re-deploy. We can keep doing this process until the cows come home or until you all retire fat and wealthy and never wanting to see or talk to Drew again.

Oh, and —for real— no need to tell us that the flyer we made was great. Like, really? It’s a flyer. We know, if we can’t bang out a crappy flyer, just kill us.

When you talk to an agency, remember: we are an agency. We do this for a living. We’re not your mother’s cousin’s kid who is really good on a computer, so don’t treat us like them. We do this every day. Some of us have for over twenty-five years. So, try to remember that when you are communicating with us. Also, just FYI: Momentum Advertising and Design takes absolutely zero responsibility for this post. My study consisted of two other agency peeps: one was a dog and the other was a coffee mug.