Hasta La Creative!

I was just reading Tim Brunelle’s Creative Corner article Gossage on the Brain and had one of those aha moments when I read the following quotation from Mr. Gossage:

“The audience is our first responsibility, even before the client, for if we cannot involve them what good will it do him?”

Damn! There it is. There’s the reason why so much advertising fails — because it is written to please the client.

We put the clients first because we want them to be happy. After all, it’s their happiness that keeps us happily employed. But as the man so eloquently said, to truly service the client we have to look beyond them to see the people we really need to please — the audience.

The truth is that clients aren’t always the target audience, nor are they always the best judges of the target audience. That’s because clients often live in a world of wishes; they wish that their product was incredibly popular, that everybody loved and desired it, that there was no competition, and that everybody spent all of their disposable income buying it. Of course, intellectually, they know that none of that is true—but it doesn’t stop them from wishing it anyway.

This wishful thinking leads to clients falling in love with anything they hear or see that echoes what they hope people are thinking and saying about their product. But that doesn’t make for effective advertising. People don’t want to hear how great your product is, they want to hear how it’s going to solve a problem, make their life easier, or make their wishes come true.

All the wishing in the world can’t make someone buy your product, but a relevant message based on an insight about your audience’s needs can. So there are times when we must turn to the client and gently remind them that they are not the most important person in this relationship. That honor goes to all of those other people out there that we call consumers.

Steven Stark is a Creative Director for hire, who honors his clients with the truth. www.stevenstark.net