It seems to me that the biggest, most pervasive problem in advertising, is poor communication between client and agency. And it is so hard for me to fathom why.
There are two consistent problems I see: 1) Lack of listening, 2) Assumed clarity.
One-- I think the root of this problem is, really, a lack of patience. Which makes sense in advertising and marketing because both sides live in worlds of short deadlines and quick turnarounds (and unfortunately so). And it happens on both sides, though I'm pretty sure both sides assume it is the others' fault. Nothing makes you feel more dumb as a presenter than to have your audience ask a question that you literally answered one slide ago. Another symptom I see often is the audience commenting on a part of the presentation you haven't reached yet, making it very clear that they have an agenda and the rest of what you are going to see is irrelevant until it is answered, and this, obviously, cheats the presenter out of setting up a proper context.
Two-- I think this is an extension of problem one, because it is what happens at the end of the meeting when we all agree on next steps only to find in the follow-up meeting that we never really did. And that is disheartening, too, because we always feel so empowered by having next steps, actually knowing what to do next; and feel equally wasted by learning none of that work will be appreciated. Again, I think we rush that end of the call because we were so impatient about the rest of it, and it often results in a lot of wasted effort.
I think the solution is simple-- marketers need to trust the agency more. They need to trust that we will get to where we need to and we will give them what they need, so that they will take the time to listen.
BUT, more importantly, that means agencies need to better develop trust with their marketing counterparts, because I think that responsibility rightly falls our way in a client-agency relationship. We need to prove that we can be reliable and give them exactly what they're looking for. And to do that, we need to take the first steps of being invested and engaged with the client's presentations to us. We need to show them that we are taking their requests seriously, and we need to put in the extra effort to make sure every call is effective and that we all really do agree on and understand the next steps. And we may hate it because doing that will require a lot of redundancy, but I think it would all be worth it in the time we save in between reviews.
So, in short, I think we all need to dumb down our conversations a bit. I think we all get a little too-caught up in flashing our big marketing words like "gamification" and "omnichannel" and, as a result, we all waste a little too much time not actually understanding one another. So my personal challenge, coming out of this week, is to take the time to review my communications and ask myself how I would say it differently to a 5-year-old. This doesn't mean treating people like children, but it means communicating with clarity as the first priority.
I think a little bit of clarity can take you a long way.
-Aaron
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