The Client Brought His Calculator To The Creative Presentation

I cleaned out some files today and found one of my favorite pieces of creative. It was written by Chris Scharpf (who is a wonderful writer and a tropical fish enthusiast) who was employed at the time by Gray Kirk & Evans (which is now GKV). The piece was a pro bono invitation to an Advertising Association of Baltimore event. And it’s old – from May 1991. I was the account person on the project and I am still proud of it reading it today. As you read it, keep in mind that we all got in trouble because it was based on a real experience with a real client at the time. Oops.

“He was a numbers guy, after all.

Everything he knew about advertising could be expressed in a spreadsheet. Media, research, the latest agency invoice.

Everything, that is, except creative.

Here he had trouble. Words, images, ideas, abstractions.

Things as deep and mysterious as the inside of a noodle.

The agency presented with skill. Their strategy was sound. Their ideas smart. Their executions clean and original. But they used words like “visceral” and “on the edge.” They talked about “jump cuts” and “pushing the color.” They argued that people responded to commercials emotionally, not rationally.

The client began to twitch, He did not understand what his agency was saying. He did not “see” what they were describing. The glowing LED numbers on his calculator offered no help or reassurance. Yellow hilighter in hand, he went through each script, counting the number of times the product’s name was mentioned. “There’s not enough about the product,” he said. “You need to mention it more often, not just at the end.”

Client 1, agency O.

Such a stand-off has always been a major concern for Jeff Goodby. As a writer and director he has created some of the most visionary advertising of recent years. And as one of the founding partners of Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein, he has had to sell tha vision to any number of CEOs, CFOs, MBAs and other client types. And sell he does. For Jeff has helped build GBS into a $100 million agency. And he has built it by doing stylish, groundbreaking work for clients such as Royal Viking Lines, New Yorker Magazine, Heinz Pet products, and Polaroid’s Cool Cam, to name a few. Work that not only wins awards, but work that works. Work he made sure his clients didn’t fail to “see.”

How does Jeff do it? Find out as the Advertising Association of Baltimore hosts Jeff Goodby for lunch and a lecture, May 21st, 11:30 am, at the Hyatt Regency, Inner Harbor.
Jeff will share his secrets on creating good creative that sells, and on selling good creative that stays that way. He’ll even give us his honest, unsolicited opinion of the state of creativity in the 90s.

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And remember to check your calculators at the door.”