Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Ninety-two out of every hundred people polled had no opinion or were not aware of the reforms? Congratulations. But eight percent of how many? True, 8 precent is better than zero, so yes, one could say that the campaign was successful. But successful compared to what?

David Ogilvy nailed it when he said that clients get the advertising that they deserve. You were hired to carry out a survey, you did your job and now you have a result to deliver.

If your client is too bone headed to see that yes, 8 percent is higher than zero percent then they'll do with their results what they will. But any failure here is not yours, it's the client's for having more money than sense in setting out to measure something before first deciding what they were measuring FOR and what they were measuring AGAINST in order to bring about WHAT in terms of a result.

You've done your job, they've paid you (I hope) but they've also wasted resources AND they missed a golden opportunity to begin and then engage in a continuing conversation with their stakeholders.

Last year I heard of a client that wanted to hire a marketer to help with marketing. The wanted X, Y, and Z and was ADAMANT that to succeed she needed a specific KIND of marketing, namely, a one time, full page, full colour ad in a national publication that would have wiped out fully two thirds of her available budget. The marketer cautioned against this move. The client disagreed. The marketer passed the client's details to an associate (someone the marketer respects and admires and who REALLY knows his stuff). The client expressed the same desire to the marketer;s associate. To his credit, the associate advised against the move and stated that it was "a waste of perfectly good resources".

The client walked away, muttering.

Sometimes, clients only want to hear what THEY want to hear. When people hire marketers the marketer needs to tell the client up front that if the relationship is going to work, their role is to brief the marketer and to then get out of the marketer's way so that the marketer can deliver the results they know will work best for the client.

Naturally, there are clients that don't like this approach.
I've had people tell me I'm rude, overly direct, and pushy. Guilty as charged, says I. But in order to make a chicken pot pie one has to first chop off the head of a chicken.

Was your client's money well spent? They got a positive result (not that fewer people could be aware of their message AFTER being polled than there were before), so yes, I'd say their money was well spent. But as to how well INVESTED that money was, well, that's another point entirely.