What hides behind the brief?

Normally our private parts, which in US slang, when used to describe people, are not very complimentary.

This piece is not a litany of the servicing people's woes, but is a clarion call to the creative people in agencies to stop hiding behind briefs.

KKDY Briefs

Not for a moment am I defending the lazy servicing types, who wouldn't think through a problem before briefing their creative team. I am no subscriber to the KKDY (Kuchh Kar De Yaar, or Please do something Buddy) school of briefing. But at the same time, I am not for the creative people who use briefs or lack of it as an excuse for not being creative.

"This brief is not very inspiring;" "I don't understand the brief;" "Can you be specific in your brief?" Oft-used, seemingly harmless comments, which more often than not reflect a lazy mind not willing to stretch.

Our industry is today plagued by such people who would much rather while away their time, than think laterally about what imaginative solution would lick the problem that keeps the client awake.

If you've got it, flaunt it

There are enough examples where creative people have accepted the challenge of a sodden brief and have come out tops! Let's recall one such creative piece. This piece may not have won creative awards, but has stuck in my mind as a brilliant example of work where the brief would have been innocuous. This was an ad released a few years ago for Virgin Atlantic.

The ad shows a caricature of veteran Bollywood actresses Jaya Bachchan and Rekha sitting in an aircarft next to each other, angrily looking away from each other (it is alleged that Jaya is not very kindly disposed towards Rekha, because there was a rumour of her husband having an affair with Rekha). And the tongue-in-cheek headline mentions how the travellers can now choose who sits next to them, as they will now get a free ticket for every ticket they bought.

The most likely brief for this would have been - "Hey guys, Virgin is giving a free ticket for every ticket you buy. Can you do an ad for this promo offer?"

Now this is what I call creativity. Putting two dissimilar, apparently unlinked facts together, and creating a memorable communication out of it. And I am sure, before this communication got created, the normal creative-servicing dialogue would have happened - what are the insights, who is the target audience, what is the response we seek (what do we want the audience to think, feel, do?), etc. But, here, the creative team decided to rise above this dialogue, and delivered a completely lateral piece of work.

By definition, creative people are expected to look at the challenge posed to them, well... creatively. They are expected to look beyond the obvious. They are expected to find ways in to the cosnumers' minds. Not delivering that, is tantamount to failure.

It is regrettable that today, in our industry, we are faced with a lot of such failures. They blatantly hide behind briefs given to them. If they were genuinely non-creative, I would understand this. But, they are extremely aware, extremely articulate and extremely intelligent. And still they creative excuses to avoid being creative. The only possible answer seems to be laziness. They would much rather dissipate their creativity in finding reasons for not delivering, than actually deliver.

Superman wears his brief on the outside

It is anecdotal that once upon a time a brief was given by servicing which actually was used as is, in a piece of communication. This brief was for Allen Solly (remember the 'Friday Dressing'?). The brief goes - 'a week according to Allen Solly - Friday, Friday, Friday, Friday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday'. Now, while this is an inspiring brief, such briefs are one in a thousand.

The creative people have a choice - they can either keep waiting for such 'once in a blue moon' briefs, or pull up their socks and start to deliver creativity, which by the way, is the very reason for their existance in the industry.

It's time they shed their laziness, and start to be creative. It is time they stopped to look at the glass as half-empty, and call it half-full instead. It's time they stopped cribbing, and start to crow. Or else, they will be the ones who will be squarely responsible for the value erosion that is plaguing our industry today.

Whither Great Client Servicing Professionals?

I was perplexed when a prospective account management candidate asked me what his key result areas would be. It set me thinking about a role I have been performing for the last over 2 decades (As the saying goes, no matter which level of agency management you get into, you can't wish away being an account executive).

We have all heard of postmen in account management, and we have also heard of mavericks who go beyond the call of duty and almost perform the role of the marketing head at the client organization. Since both are extremes, and since both are not the mandated roles that an account management professional is supposed to perform, surely the answer lies somewhere in between.

So I started to look into the repository of homilies shared by some of the who's who of Indian advertising. One of the first was a teaser shared by R Sridhar, a Partner with Ideas-RS, a consultancy specializing in opening creative windows of the mind. He had posed a question to all the fresh, green-behind-their-ears recruits - 'what in their view was the role of an account management person?' Many chickened out and didn't answer, and many fell back on their management school learning and came out with witty, text book jargon. And as expected, they were all wrong. The simple one line answer was - 'The role of an account management person in any agency is to get his client promoted'.

Cynicism apart, the above role definition actually sums up the reason-for-existence of an account management person. It is all about understanding what keeps the client awake at nights, finding simple solutions to all such tricky issues, and ensuring these are implemented flawlessly. Once done, the client gets promoted, and so does the account management person.

The next key role that an account management person must perform is to get his client to recommend his agency to his friends/acquaintances/wife/husband/dog… and get their business for the agency. And this, as we can see, flows from the first key result area. After all, the account management person also has a business development hat to wear. Net-net, he is the bread winner of the agency.


While he does the above, the account management person also needs to wear his creative hat and point his client towards newer ways of using their services. Though there's a famous saying that everyone knows 2 things well - one's own job and advertising, we all know that this statement has been made in jest. The account management person needs to either have or needs to develop the ability to see beyond the obvious. Naturally, this does good - both for the client and also the agency that employs these people.

It is not for nothing that they say - "advertising is people's business". This brings us to yet another role that the account management person needs to perform with panache. He needs to get his team to love him. For these are the people who in good times or bad, will make him come out on top.

Believe it or not, getting your team to love you, also helps them do justice to their next important role - getting the best ideas out of their creative partners. Creative people are known to be emotional, and if they see their account management partner as an ally who prepares well to present their creative ideas, and has a reputation for getting the creative ideas through unscathed, they go that extra step and deliver their best ideas to such people.

This by no means is a comprehensive list of desirable traits in an account management person, but these certainly are a good start. I welcome you to add to/critique this list. All such efforts will only go towards fine-tuning this ready-reckoner.

This isn't just an exercise at listing some idealistic traits. But an attempt at driving a bigger point. All of the above seems simple, and yet, unless you look around at some old-school advertising professionals, these traits are hard to come by. It is not that such people don't exist any more, but just that they don't find it worthwhile to come to this industry. As an industry, not only we have let our value proposition get diluted in the eyes of the clients, but we have done the same amongst prospective bright recruits who, in an earlier day and time would have given an arm and a leg to join our industry. It just might help if we take a fresh guard and make a new start, and begin by making a strong attempt at getting the industry's self respect and desirability back. And there's no better time to start, than NOW!