Like consumers, products and services too choose their customers. In my many years in advertising, there often comes a moment during my discussions with a prospect when I realize - with sorrow, this prospect is not a match for our services.
This happens somewhere during our conversation to the cue of a single sentence, "I'm looking for a low-cost option to build my brand quickly."
There are 3 ways these usually end:
1. After a lot of negotiations with different kinds of media, the client realizes (what we told him at the start) that the mediums that are effective and have reach will require a decent budget and the mediums that are 'cheap' have no measurement parameters besides the lofty claims of its owners. Back to leaflets- which is a slow and agonizing road to inevitable BRAND-DOOM
2. The clutter-breaking creative route. More than 'Creativity' from the agency, this requires delivery of product promise and courage from the client. Creativity gets watered down to the 'safe' option. These brands become 'ships that pass in the night' into BRAND-OBLIVION
3. The client, despite our pleading not to, picks what he always had in his mind. Auto-branding (or equivalent). Initial euphoria ending with BRAND-SUICIDE
Too much pain. Time for free advice & end meeting.
