GRRrrat-it-tating!!!
Why does the raspy nasal voice of this account director make me want to kick her teeth in?
Could it be her own lack of commitment to how she pitches ideas to a creative team (who, by the way, snickers and rolls their eyes when she turns her back)?
Could it be that she says one thing, makes a 180 to contradict what she just spewed and rambles so quickly you think she MUST be out of her ADD meds?
Oh, wait, NO….it’s the way she saunters around the corner from my cube to hold a fucking big-mouth press conference 8 feet from my desk!!! Fucking obnoxious scattered-brained BITCH!
Is it really that hard to fucking drag her bony ass into a conference room in an agency where there are now 60% less staffers? Loathe her whiny scrappy voice which is made worse when it only booms stupid miopic ramblings of what she thinks is discussing strategy. IDIOT!
A Tiny Speck of Light
Two weeks ago as I rolled up and down through all the ad job sites I could find, row after row of jobs seemed to mock me with “not for you.”
I had almost reached that place where you begin to wonder if you’ll ever be employable again –well past that “picked last” feeling of younger years. I was on the verge of desperation and just when I finally decided to give in to the thought that perhaps a career change was in store, a thin glimmer of light pierced the dark corners of my depressed mind.
I received a call from a well-known-top-behemoth-of-a-company inviting me to apply for an opened position on the “client-side.” I am not talking a million-dollar company big…I am talking billions mega size.
As I eagerly read the job description I am hopeful and utter a mantra, “let this be for me, let this be for me.” Ok, wait, it dawns on me as I type it that it sounds pathetic. But hey, I was desperate.
The description fit like a glove and soon I was picturing myself in this new position. I seemed to have wowed my caller with my witty responses, my insightful experience and my eager interest.
I hope to hear back this week and perhaps my next entry is good news…but if not be ready for a hail of either angry obscenities or pathetic depression.
Toma Leche –Why?
‘Got Milk?’ Gets Spanish Site
May 27, 2008
NEW YORK The iconic “Got milk?” health initiative gives its Spanish counterpart “Toma leche”a permanent interactive home Wednesday with the launch of the Web portal, TomaLeche.com. Read Full Article
Some of the quotes in the article:
“We’re hoping that by making it entertaining, engaging and whimsical, in addition to being informative and useful, that it will be a winning combination,” said James.
–um, they are ‘hoping’? If they had actually developed strategy based on sound, relevant data they most surely would have developed metrics that would thus enable them to say, “We’ve planned making it entertaining, engaging and whimsical as a way to….” What the hell is “a winning combination”supposed to buy their client? What is the intended repositioning of milk consumption among this Hispanic segment? What is the desired mindset, action or result?
“…to bring Latino families together to spend time reading together, as well as some important bonding time,” James said.
–aa-haaa, so togetherness is supposed to be the path to increased milk consumption among this Hispanic segment? I wonder if they bothered to research online usage for this particular segment. Do they go online in search of stories to read? Do they go online to play games? Do they spend most of their time researching products and downloading coupons? Is there an opportunity to gain any feedback from the segment thereby increasing likelihood of better understanding their consumer?
Are, in fact, the predominantly Spanish-speaking Latino families so fragmented and disconnected from one another only to reconnect online to read a bedtime story (a transparent attempt to use the client’s forum for their story-telling aspirations IMHO). I don’t buy it and I would be surprised if anyone else besides Gallegos and CMPB will.
“While we’re hoping to introduce families and their children to the benefits of milk, we’re also hoping it will do something good.”
–’something good’ like, say, see an increase of milk sales in an economy that is seeing a sharp rise in commodoties such as milk and eggs? Why don’t they just say that? I know, they had no clue this was the ultimate objective…to sell milk.
Ok, then there is the possibility that selling milk is not the objective. After all, isn’t milk consumption among Hispanics already high (at the very least higher than the general market target)? Sure, but what goes up must come down. So how about an objective that seems to maintain current milk consumption levels among their Spanish-dominant segment, other than the diluted ‘hope’ to bring Latino families together (oh brother).
As this web site URL directs its target to drink milk (TomaLeche), CMPB drinks the Kool-Aide.
Account Management Becoming Irrelevant?
In my dedicated job hunt these past weeks, a foreboding shadow of doubt begins to hover and I begin to wonder, “Has my discipline gone the way of the beta recorder and the Walkman?” Sure they both served their purpose but eventually the world moved on.
For the past 10 years I have been faithfully honing my skills in account management. I mastered the delicate art of expectation management. I can write at least 8 different types of conference reports in my sleep. I can budget and calculate ROI, P&Ls and know the difference between BDI and CDI. I know to pad any timing both internally and with the client to account for any unforeseeable delays. I can spin and position any bad news and sell-in an idea with such persuasion I would put a snake oil salesmen to shame. I am skillful at diplomacy, know how to address each team-member’s mindset and can research a project with cunning and dedication. I know the difference between a USB and a single-minded preposition.
Yet, here I am struggling and flailing about as I begin to desperately eye every industry dedicated job board I can find. A ribbon of lines reading PM, Engagement Manager, Project Manager, Sr. Project Manager, Project Director, Director of Project Management repeat over and over in ever ad industry job board.
What the hell happened to account management? When did account folks become relegated to being yes-men and women. Worst still, when did they get edged out to be replaced by project mangers who from what I’ve experienced are nothing more than over-glorified traffic managers?
Even producers serve a more valuable purpose. A producer still has to source, meet budget and timing deadlines. A project manager’s strength is to take a very simple task, dismantle it an restructure it in the most convoluted manner to make his over-bloated role actually appear significant. They are good at over-complicating tasks, developing graphs and charts in excel to appear skillful when it all really boils down to puffery and bull-shit!
They massage a production schedule like it’s the equivalent of administrative masturbation, rarely hit any deadlines instead becoming adept at developing excuses for why an initiative was not carried through according to how it was sold-in or why those deadlines continue to fall to the way side.
And who the fuck decided in their infinite laziness and ignorance that project managers=account management?!!! No, no, no!!!!
Project managers have no interest or clue about strategically moving forward with an initiative. They very often confuse strategy with tactics and wouldn’t know how to contribute to a marketing plan if the client held a gun to their over-inflated heads, yet they are “client-facing?” WYF!!!
They learned to speak out of their assholes proving to be a mile wide and only 5 inches deep. They are to an account what traffic coordinators were to agencies a decade ago. They run between web engineers and creatives delivering messages but rarely offer any significant solutions or suggestions. They function more on the premise of CYO than bothering themselves to being proactive with the client or on the client’s business. They never want to make a call preferring to coward behind placing the onus (thus the blame and responsibility) on the client. They shun accountability like a vampire shrieking from daylight.
So seriously? Is THIS what has replaced the proactive, advisory, strategic role of tried and true account management?
To all clients struggling to make sense of interactive advertising/marketing and feeling so lost they believe the disciplineis a science, don’t.
Read this a few times until you finally understand who the fuck wrecked the agency/client relationship and why you still NEED account management. Then when you finally get sick of your agency’s bull-shit, make sure your next RFP includes strong traditional account management in your staffing requirements.
The Death of an Account
Knowing your account is going away in a few months is like the doctor telling you how long you’ve got to live. Hold on, wait to see where I am going with this.
Now I am not particularly in-love with my account. I do like it despite its challenges and truth be known, it is by far the nicest client I’ve worked with in a very long time. I believe in the product and I am genuinely rooting for them to succeed.
However, my life is not necessarily on the line. I mean I won’t go suicidal for the loss of this account. However, inching my way into work through traffic this morning, it dawned on me that route would no longer be familiar to me in just a couple of months. I will no longer curse at the same road for being under construction at the most inopportune times –mainly when I am running late. I will no longer greet my parking floor with “what the f—” when another car beat me to my favorite parking space and I won’t race to the elevators still hoping to make my daily morning meeting just in the nick of time. That routine will be over by the time summer is in full effect.
Then as I sit in the doldrums of our daily status and listen to the debates about how we are going to address a client issue, I become annoyed with these people.
These inane arguments about whether or not something is covered by the contract or if we need a change order for shit that should have been done out of best practice to begin with is just one of the many reasons we lost this account.
We failed to put the most experienced people on the account, we let an ass-hole incompetent project manager with the maturity of a 5 year-old run amuck with delivery of projects and yet we are still arguing about whether ,what should have been done right to begin with, is within scope? WTF!
This account was destined to fail from the start. First this wannabe agency (run by a bunch of tech consultants and bean counters) hires an ASS for an AD.
To this day none of us who worked with her in the past can understand how she got through the rigorous interview process. She lost three major accounts at her previous agency, has a fraction of the category experience required to run this account, is lazy, unimaginative and knows so little about this business all she can mutter in meetings is, “I will have to check on that” or parroting what someone else already said.
Next, they place an incompetent moron as the project manager to handle all the major initiatives of the account. Oh, to fully appreciate what I am about to write, you need to get a better picture of who I am describing.
Imagine an impish little man wound so tightly he sucks every other sentence out of his mouth back in for fear of how it might sound. His manner is over the top effeminate and his whining so much worse than a tired five year old at the super market. His passive-aggressive reproaches are more annoying and mastered to a degree that would put a frigid mid-western wife to shame. In short, he makes me want to kick his teeth in when he speaks. His thank yous always sound like fuck yous and his lack of focus or understanding of priorities made him a major account liability –and no one but those of us who worked in real ad agencies ever saw it.
This project manager dropped the ball so many times he would have surely been fired long ago had he been at say, Campell-Ewald, Rubin or Saatchi. He shoved things he didn’t want to handle or didn’t know how to address under the rug so that everyone including the client forgot about them. He pretended issues were never brought up mainly because he didn’t want to deal with them and then he complained if what HE thought was right or priority did not move forward (never mind what the client fuckin’ wanted or needed). He would write email rants so acerbic it made me want to reach through his email, grab at his shriveled balls and yank them through the server, pull them up only to shove them back down his throat to shut him the fuck up.
As you can read, this little shit makes me violent with disdain for his inadequate performance. Why do I care? Because I resent him and his shrill little voice.
I resent that I have to be the one to cover for his fucked-up deliveries and to cover for his lack of delivery when I really long to tell the client, “listen this didn’t happen because shit-hole sat his fuckin ass on it so long hoping you’d forget about it then pretended no one ever told him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing nor what the fuck he’s talking about but pitches a fit so irritating, management would rather shut the door until he’s done. They would rather focus on calming him down than on doing what is right for the account and the project. He’s the one who hates to put schedules together, refuses to commit to any sort of timing and basically thinks he’s the client. Overall, HE is the little shit responsible for all the failed projects, late deliveries and missed opportunities….but he had help. Management not only put up with it, they encouraged it by keeping him employed on your account and worst still, employed at the ‘agency.”
Then there is the other AD who is OOO so often we all wonder how he got such a deal. I mean we all get two weeks vacation and 7 sick days but for having only been employed one year, he has been out 4 weeks-worth of vacation time and eaten through his sick days so quick, we thought he’d have to come in on his death bed. No such luck on the death bed.
He has a quick defensive temper, is overtly rude to the client and basically admitted to knowing very little about our discipline but praised his own uncanny ability to bull-shit. He was always running late and often dialed into meetings from his cell on his way into the office or left early ‘cuase he didn’t feel well enough to put in a full-day’s work at the office.
Once the client asked me what he did to which I had no reply simply because I didn’t know. I could have said (and probably did) that he handles all the behind the scenes dealings of running the business. As you can see, I am not a good bull-shitter or perhaps I wanted that to be transparent; this AD is a fuckin’ waste of space and the quicker we got rid of him, the better off we all would have been.
Finally, the last thing you do to kill an account is to relegate the most experienced person to mundane daily maintenance projects keeping him so busy that he is not allowed to attend meetings that involve new initiatives, thus a forum for him to provide the kind of real insight the account needs. Instead, the moronic AD is the lead for your discipline and of course all he brings to the table is “I will check on that.”
So when we got the word the account went up for review, was anyone really surprised? No, no… REALLY? Didn’t the fact that almost a for a whole year, I sent numerous warning emails, voiced concerns and made suggestions to improve our client relationship tip anyone off?
That, in short, is just a sampling of how you kill an account.
To get started…
First blog in my professional career so bear with me as I figure this out.
My very first blog was a mom-blog which I used primarily to bitch about the then lonely state of motherhood. Yeah, that got old fast and after only 5 entries I abandoned the whole blogging affair, until now.
My own bitter resentment spurred the rebirth of my blogging activity. However, let’s get a couple of things straight right now and out of the way. First, I type really fast (last clocked at 80 wpm) so my blogs are bound to be peppered with glaring and sometimes not so glaring type-Os. Also, I managed to have lost the ability to spell although I now have the uncanny ability to know what my kids are up to and when they are lying. A fair exchange. So if you absolutely feel the need to criticize me for my spelling mistakes. Flame away.
Now back to my resentment. What have I got to be resentful about? Let me start with my current state; job hunting. I hate it.
I hate realizing that as I sqeeze into my black interview suits, I now have to lie on the bed to close the zipper. I hate that all my interviews inevitably will fall on an unusually hot day so that I am sweating like a runny faucet as I put on my make-up, as I drive to the interview and as I sit in the lobby trying to look more interested in the Newsweek and Times than in the Vogue or Lucky Breaks magazines.
I hate repeating my name to the insipid 12-year-old behind the reception desk and to my interviewer. I hate that I have to debate with myself whether I should sit up straight and risk looking stiff or casually cross my legs leaning into my interviewer’s desk to appear more engaging yet risk appearing less professional.
I hate that my interviewers will not have read my resume so that they “um” and “eh” and “ah” before they can form their first cohesive question.
I hate competing with younger less experienced and better bull-shitters than me because what it boils down to is salary requirements and having been at this game for over 10 years, I can’t afford to bring down my price any further.
I hate the follow-up emails. All those are really for is to say, ”thank you for your time,” or ”thank you for seeing me” when what I really want to say is “hey asshole, my name is not that difficult and if your lazy ass would have bothered to read my resume, you would not have wasted MY time. After all I am the one who had to think of an excuse to take time off from work, to battle traffic, to sit uncomfortbly waiting in your lobby as the button on my pants pinches me and to sit there in your office faining a smile and keeping myself from yawning over the excruciating drone of your voice as you take up MY interview time to tell me about yourself.” Oh and here’s a hint, don’t ever fuckin’ ask me what I know about your agency. Have you not heard of the Internet? With all the information there and all the industry pub write-ups and all the blogs, what they hell makes you think I would not have come across your agency’s name at least once? Moron!
Lastly, I hate that there are now two schools of agency HR staff recruiting talent. One has no clue what advertising is about as their last job had absolutely nothing to fucking do with an ad agency. They came from banking, accounting, or working the front office at the local dental practice yet there they are, the gate keepers to talent this industry so desperately needs!
Then there are those who’ve been at their ad agencies for years and still don’t know the difference between a producer and a project manager. I am also convinced these folks have formed an ad agency HR mafia of sorts.
I know HR personnel of all or most ad agencies meet periodically supposedly to discuss talent aquisition trends and best practices for talent retention. Bull shit!
They all meet to blacklist those they’ve hired before because they resented the way they dressed, the way they talked, their accents, their last names, or how aggressively they tried to climb the ladder. Don’t believe it? Go ahead, piss-off one of these bitches see how quickly you get hired atother larger agencies like Saatchi, BBDO, DDB, RPA, etc.
I am also convinced this coven of agency HR bitches blacklists those who’ve moved around so that they’ve spent less than two years at any one gig. Yet, do they ever fuckin’ bother to ask themselves where that agency failed that talent? Why that person had to leave or was driven away? No, they are so myopic in their search that they can’t bother their little cubicle minds to look at the talent as a whole …only at the holes in the resumes.
Then among this group you have the bean counters. Yes, the bean counters are those who pick at number of actual months on a project so that cumulatively they hack away at your experience down to half the amount of years you really have. They count months and years because they don’t know advertising well enough to ask real questions that would identify the real talent.
I hate that the ad agency industry “muses” over the talent acquisition crisis. For starters, fuckin’ fire those antiquated coven of bitchy lazy myopic gate-keepers. Get rid of the bean counters who have no business in trying to hire talent for this industry if they themselves can’t make an assessment of talent by actually knowing what the fuck the business for which they are hiring is all about.
There you have it. For starters the resentment that spurred my return to blogging. Tomorrow is another day and the start of my new diet so I can stand while I zip up my interview pant suits.
