Up the Agency

by Peter Mayle

  The commission system has several major faults. When an agency is doing development work on a product that is not being heavily advertised, the commission generated isn’t enough to cover the overhead. When the agency is simply placing old work, the commission is often excessive. In neither case is the system equitable.

  It also means that agencies have a vested interest (hotly denied, naturally) in recommending ever-larger budgets. Often this is sound commercial advice; sometimes it isn’t. But the most obvious absurdity of the system is that it assumes a similar level of competence among all agencies. No distinction is made between the good, the bad, and the indifferent. They all get 15 percent, unless menaced into taking a smaller percentage by a client who makes reduced commission a condition of keeping the business.

  There have been sporadic attempts in the past to establish a more rational scale of charges, and some agencies have fee arrangements with some clients, but it would take a concerted effort by the entire industry to change the system. And since it delivers golden eggs to the more fortunate agencies, the goose is likely to remain safe from slaughter.

  Campaign

  A campaign is a collection of advertisements, often spread across TV, press, posters, and radio, that are in theory expressing the same advertising message (the campaign theme) in a variety of ways.

  It is also the name of the British industry’s organ. Campaign magazine, like Ad Age, is considered to be essential weekly reading for all advertising people—a position of virtual monopoly that should have encouraged editorial bravery. Instead, the magazine has consistently licked the hand that feeds it, describing nonentities as “supremos” and swallowing inflated agency press releases whole. Visually, it is distinguished by photographs of executives and other notables standing forlornly in what appear to be deserted underground garages.

  Copywriters

  These are the men and women who write the words, which are sometimes brutally dismissed as “that gray bit under the picture.” Good copywriters can transform the fortunes of brands and can earn fortunes doing so. Geoffrey Seymour was the first copywriter in Britain who publicly broke the six-figure barrier, and for a time his name was used in advertising circles as a unit of currency: “A Seymour” was equal to £100,000, “half a Seymour” was £50,000, and so on. The phrase is no longer popular, probably because copywriters earning six-figure salaries are no longer rare.

  Account Executives

  The business given to the agency by the client is known as an account. If it is sufficiently important, it is dealt with by a senior member of the agency, usually on the board, who is called the account director. Beneath the account director are serried ranks of account supervisors, account managers, account executives, and assistant account executives. These poor souls are traditionally the butt of copywriters. One writer, on observing a team of executives filing into a meeting, was overheard describing them as “the bland leading the bland.” He was fired, but his epitaph lingers on.

  The function of an account executive is to translate the promotional requirements of the client into advertising that will meet those requirements. The best account executives are shrewd business operators and perceptive judges of advertising and human nature. The worst are glorified bag carriers, ferrying messages back and forth between agency and client with all the interpretational skills of a yo-yo.

  Art Directors

  In more primitive days, people called visualizers were required to devise illustrated settings for the pearls delivered to them from the copywriting department. Simple, paint-stained artisans, they were housed in a remote corner of the agency where clients would never see them. Those days are gone. Visualizers are now called art directors. They often share offices with copywriters (one art director and one copywriter making a “creative team”). They are even introduced to clients when aesthetic matters are being discussed. Their job is to set the visual style of the advertising, from designing the layout to choosing the typeface and selecting an illustrator or photographer. Many modern art directors disdain the traditional skills of doing their own lettering and rough illustration, but to make up for that they have become more involved in the origination of campaign ideas. Or so they like to believe.

  Creative Directors

  One of the more thankless jobs in an agency is to be responsible for imposing some form of order and discipline on a group of disorderly and undisciplined personalities. Most creative departments have their share of nonconformists and anarchists, and it requires the combined talents of a wet nurse and a prison warden to deal with them. It is no coincidence that various creative directors are prematurely gray.

  Producers

  When an agency is making a radio or television commercial, the producer is the point of contact between the production company and the rest—writers, art directors, executives, and clients. Producers have two passions: One is working with directors who have made feature films (for the vicarious fame that it brings); the other is going on location (for the out-of-season tan). Producers will always tell you that location jobs are fraught with difficulty, but any suggestion that a Caribbean beach could be faked at Paramount Studios is meet with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

  Roughs and Storyboards

  These are the bare bones of advertising ideas. Roughs are preliminary sketches of posters and press advertisements; storyboards are cartoon-strip versions of proposed TV commercials. The degree of finish depends to a great extent on the degree of understanding and trust that exists between agency and client and on the clarity and strength of the idea. A strong idea can be understood from a scribble on the back of an envelope. A feeble commercial may need a dozen meticulously rendered illustrations to dress up what is essentially a piece of drivel.

  Research

  The sums of money spent on advertising are such that clients crave reassurance before reaching for their checkbooks. Unwilling or unable to rely on their own and the agency’s judgment, they submit their advertising campaigns to members of the public who are selected not because they are knowledgeable about advertising but because they represent the “target audience.” It is not uncommon for a campaign to be strangled at birth by a few dozen housewives from Queens. The problem is that any genuinely original idea is likely to receive mixed reviews because of its very originality; show those housewives something familiar and they will give you more comforting reactions. In this way, research often perpetuates tame and derivative work. The results are seen on television every night.

  Presentations and Pitches

  Very few clients come into an agency and hand over their account without a period of foreplay. The agency’s work for other clients may have attracted their attention in the first place, but what they really want to know is, What can you do for us?

  The only truly candid answer to that question is, Try it and see, but as that would sound frivolous and unprofessional, the agency (or, in most cases where a client is on the loose, several competing agencies at the same time) is obliged to put on a show to demonstrate its unique skills. This is the new business presentation.

  Its format will differ from agency to agency, but it normally includes the following elements: First comes a private chat with the agency chairman or managing director, during which the agency expresses its deep and sincere interest in the account. After coffee, the client is ushered into the screening room to meet those members of the staff who have been handpicked to work on the account. Their credentials are taken out and polished, and a selection of the agency’s work is shown, usually interspersed with remarks on the agency philosophy—that secret weapon that separates a great agency (us) from the also-rans (them). Appetites by now being thoroughly whetted, the meeting adjourns for lunch and further courtship.

  This performance may be enough to get the account, or it may lead to a request for more practical evidence of the agency’s suitability, a visible answer to the still-unanswered question, What can you do for us?

  Of all the extravagances in the advertising bu
siness, and they are many, nothing is quite so wasteful of time and effort and money as the speculative pitch. It is carrot dangling on the grand scale, employed for the most part by unimaginative clients in the manner of a lame man grasping for a crutch. What happens is that a number of agencies—from two to half a dozen or more, depending on the degree of indecision—will be given a certain amount of information about the account, together with a deadline. Each agency then prepares an advertising campaign, often taking its best people away from their work on existing business and spending thousands of dollars on typesetting, photography, experimental commercials, jingles, new package designs, and anything else that might tip the balance in its favor.

  A second round of presentations is arranged for the agencies to show the results of their labors. Eventually, the client can dither no longer. A new agency is appointed, and the losers hurry back to accounts that have been neglected in all the excitement.

  The speculative pitch was documented at length some years ago in London’s Sunday Times Magazine when Guinness moved its £7 million account from one agency to another, only to acquire a campaign of such startling banality that even the winning agency must have been astonished at its luck.

  Useful Shorthand

  In the daily battle of wits in advertising, where disparate temperaments and sensitivities are thrown together in a highly charged and often panic-stricken atmosphere, there is not always time for the leisurely niceties of corporate behavior. Also, it is not always advisable to say exactly what you think; you may be right or you may be wrong, but a forceful and clear expression of your point of view will probably do more harm than good, since it is certain to cause offense to some of your colleagues or clients. Consequently, a number of euphemisms and shortcuts in communication have been developed over the years; these help to avoid ugly confrontation or the embarrassment of being caught with your trousers down on the wrong side of the fence. A short selection follows:

  “Basically, the client loves it.” — account executive

  The client thinks that most of it needs to be done again from scratch, but I can’t tell the creative team that. There will be endless argument and I won’t be able to get any work out of them for days. If I can find something positive to say, maybe I can nudge the little brutes into some form of cooperation. Anyway, I seem to remember approving it before I took it to the client, so I’d better be careful.

  “I don’t think there’ll be a conflict problem. Leave it to me.” — agency chairman

  If you just stop playing hard to get and give us the business, I’ll resign that piddling little account that seems to be worrying you.

  “Good. We’re all agreed, then.” — head client

  I’ve decided what I want done. Go away and do it, and stop wasting my time.

  “I’ve given the package photo a bit of air to make it stand out.” — art director

  That package is undoubtedly the most badly designed piece of shit I’ve ever seen, and I’ve reduced it to the size of a postage stamp so that it doesn’t spoil my tasteful layout.

  “People read books, don’t they?” — copywriter

  How dare you try to cut my fifteen words of copy down to three sentences! Of course people read long copy. Look at War and Peace.

  “I didn’t know the agency had a box at the Met.” — client

  Why haven’t I been invited?

  “Must have lunch as soon as I get back from London/Tokyo/Bora Bora/Milton Keynes.” — agency managing director

  That should keep you quiet for a couple of weeks, and with a bit of luck you might have forgotten by the time I get back.

  “We’ll take care of it in the shoot.” — agency TV producer

  If we change the storyboard once more, the director’s going to tell us to stuff it, and he’ll go back to L.A.

  “We tried that, but it didn’t work.” — creative team

  It’s a lousy idea and we have no intention of having anything to do with it. Why don’t you just take what we’ve done and sell it?

  “Creative Boss Quits to Set Up Own Shop.” — Ad Age

  He shot his mouth off once too often and now he’s been fired.

  “As you’ll see, there are some very interesting variations in the responses to the questionnaire.” — research executive

  I’m damned if I know what to make of them, but maybe one of you can come up with something.

  “How nice to see you again, sir.” — head waiter at the Four Seasons

  It’s the third time you’ve been here this week. God help your liver.

  “Unfortunately, some of these projections rely rather heavily on the last quarter’s performance.” — security analyst

  Don’t try to bullshit me.

  “The next one’s on me.” — various

  You’re paying for lunch.

  “He’s in a presentation.” — secretary

  I know it’s three-thirty, but he’s still in the restaurant. Anyway, he doesn’t want to talk to you.

  “I’m sure we’ll be able to work out the money angle.” — TV production company

  Don’t be so tight. We all know it’s going to cost a fortune.

  “I’m just sending for a messenger.” — studio manager

  We’ll start on it as soon as we can.

  As you can see from some of those coded communications, bad or unpalatable news in advertising is delivered obliquely, and nowhere is this more true than in the situation where, to save large redundancy payments, hints are dropped to an out-of-favor employee that he should look elsewhere.

  The gentle hint

  “You don’t mind sharing your secretary for a week or two, do you?”

  The heavy hint

  “The client’s having another bad day. I’m coming onto the account for a while to hold his hand.”

  The coup de grace

  “We’re giving you a new office down the hall by the elevator.”

  Sorry about that.

  Starting an Agency

  The motivations for setting up an agency are ego and money, probably in that order.

  Advertising is a blatantly immodest business, and you will rarely find an agency that follows its own sound advice to clients by adopting a short, descriptive, and memorable name for its product. (There was once an agency called Service Advertising, but it was buried long ago under a pile of forgettable surnames.) Advertising people are addicted to the eponymous, and with very few exceptions their companies are named after themselves, no matter how cumbersome the end result.

  The last one to be invited to the christening is, ironically, the person who will have to wrestle with the agency name most often: the long-suffering woman on the switchboard. It is she who has the task of reciting what can sound like the forward line of a multinational soccer team every time the phone rings. Imagine, for example, how you would feel after answering perhaps a hundred calls a day with the seductive greeting “Still Price Twivy Court D’Souza” (believe it or not, a genuine agency name) before you could commence a normal conversation. Two weeks of that is enough to give someone a speech impediment.

  One day, agencies may train parrots to take over, but in the meantime what usually happens is that these uncomfortable laundry lists become eroded in use until only the initials or the first couple of names remain. When founding an agency, therefore, it is crucial to get your name at the top end of the list. Failure to do so will lead to relative anonymity, a fate worse than being seen in an unfashionable car.

  The only real thing needed to start an agency is a client—preferably a client who spends his money on television rather than in the more labor-intensive and therefore less profitable print media.

  With this one potential money-maker as collateral, the members of the new agency can make their first clandestine presentation. Taking an afternoon off from work—they will still be holding onto their old jobs, just in case—they will submit their plans for a golden future to a bank. They need money for premises, for cars and lunches (be
cause appearances will have to be kept up), and for salaries. They will not normally receive any income from their client until the advertising has actually appeared. Before that can happen, the work has to be produced and paid for and the TV time and press space has to be bought. The members of the media like to be paid within thirty days; clients often take up to ninety days to pay the agency. The unpleasantly long gap between forking it over and raking it in, with interest accumulating at the rate of several zeros a day, is one of the hazards of launching a new agency.

  That, however, is a problem that can at least be foreseen and measured. The real hazard, more fundamental and infinitely less predictable, is how the new agency’s founders are going to work together. It is one thing to be united in a common disdain for your tyrannical and money-grubbing employers, who wouldn’t recognize a good advertisement if it got into bed with them. It is quite another thing to find yourself and your new colleagues in the position of having nobody to complain about except one another. Getting on with one partner whom you can tolerate over a period of years without wanting to throttle is hard enough, but getting on with three or four partners is almost miraculous, and such miracles are few and far between. The corporate divorce rate in advertising is high, and the pages of the trade press are spattered with breathless pieces of prose reporting breakaways, boardroom rifts, and filched accounts, complete with sour quotes from those who consider themselves wronged and want to put in their two cents (no comment being the words most ardently hoped for but most seldom used).