You want to know what really pisses me off? It's clients who aren't
honest with their advertising agencies.
I just found out yesterday that one of our clients is about to appoint
another ad agency. Did we hear that from the client? No way.
So, here we are busy working our guts out on the client's business,
while the client is busy working behind our backs to move the account.
Is that kosher? Well, if a client wants to move its account it should
have the decency to tell its agency of its plan. As we all know, news
travels fast, particularly in the ad industry. Account moves rarely
remain a secret for long.
I don't see why I had to find out about this from someone other than my
client. Surely it's not right.
This same situation happened to me a few years ago when we had an IT
client who moved its account. Again, I came by this information through
a contact of mine at the winning agency.
Before the account moved, we respectfully asked the client whether they
were happy with our work and whether they wanted us to employ more
people to service the account in the event that it would expand. The
client said 'yes' on both counts. Liar. I absolutely hate that. Just
imagine the consequences if we had employed more people. It's the agency
not the client that would have to pick up the tab in the event of a
retrenchment for a lack of business.
Don't clients realise that when they move their account it has a direct
and immediate impact on people's lives, not just the bottomline of their
supposed agency partners? The complaint often leveled against ad
agencies is that all they do is hire and fire staff. Well, now you know
who puts the agency between a rock and a hard place.
When you have clients suddenly moving their accounts at little or no
notice, it is pretty hard to not retrench staff. Some things are simply
beyond our control. It's supposed to be a two-way relationship. Surely
honesty is the right thing? And situations like this are bound to
happen.
How often? We can only guess, but it's the agencies that bear the
brunt.
Fortunately, our client is something of a midget in this market, so it's
unlikely to have much of an impact on us. It still pisses me off.
- Whoever you are, and whatever you want to get off your chest, send
your rants to rant@media.com.hk, and we'll print them anonymously.
