Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This

Figure 18.1 These posters celebrating infamous client quotations are courtesy of Mark Shanley (and Keith Byrne, Keith Doyle, Eddie Gardner, and Austin Richards).

18Only the Good Die YoungThe Enemies of Good Ideas

In a perfect world, it works like this. You come up with a great ad. You take it over to the client, who agrees it solves the problem and approves it for production.

In all my years in the business, this has happened maybe three times tops. What usually happens is your idea dies. I don't know why it's this way, but it is. Get ready for it. It doesn't matter how good your idea is; it can die. I once watched a client kill an entire campaign between sips of his coffee. Two months in the making, and he killed it all—all the TV, the print, everything—with one chirpy line: “Good first effort.”

The thing to remember is, clients are perfectly within their rights to do this. We are in a service business. And our service isn't over when we present something we think is good. It's over when we present something they think is good. It's hitting the sweet spot in those overlapping circles we talked about in Chapter 3. The trick is to do both, the first time.

There are good clients out there. Bless them. When you have one, serve them well. Work nights for them. Work weekends. You will produce the best work of your career on their behalf.

And then there's the other kind: the bad ...