Ayam tired

Tired of clients that don’t really know, never really believed and never even cared that the more information they give me about the current state of their business, the better the output I can deliver.

Tired of clients that are clueless to the fact that the more focused their communication, the more they stand a chance of actually making someone, somewhere, anywhere actually give even a smidgeon of a flying shit about whatever thing they have to say.

Tired of CMOs that don’t really know their salt. Tired of so-called strategy leads that don’t seem to get the big picture.

Tired of having to work with brand managers who are simply former agency guys that couldn’t really cut it. Agency guys who barely managed to escape over to the client-side before they were found out for the monumental frauds they really were.

I am tired. But just before I pack up and leave this circus, I have decided its probably best to try and educate you. So, if you are out there, Client-From-Heaven, pause. Before you decide to give me that brief, pause and listen to me.

First off, not every ‘brief’ is actually a brief. That 2 or 3 page document you are about to email to me; is it really a brief, and even if it is one, is it actually YOUR brief?

After close to a decade working at the forefront of advertising and brand design in Lagos I have to admit the sad, sad truth: most so-called briefs are actually what I call zombie-briefs.

Zombie-briefs are briefs that don’t actually posses their own consciousness, but are mere shells - ghosts and echoes of long dead briefs written by someone else to a long-changed situation. Essentially, your zombie-brief is a talker i.e. just regurgitated BS your marketing person is copying and pasting because he has to send me something.

A real brief, on the other hand, is a living reaction to an ongoing situation. It demands insight rooted in the here and now.

So, is your brief grounded in the realities of your business and your customers? Is it really?

Think about it. So next time I ask who do you want to talk to, please don’t say “male, aspirational and loves to be with his family”. And when I say 'Why do you want to talk to him?', you must realize that why means

• Why now? Why not before?
• Why only males? Why only males of a certain age?
• Why is this so important? Why only a small budget?

The list of whys is potentially endless - that's part of why we ad people like them - but trust me, if we could just get started on even a few of them, we’d probably get better results.