Veksner: Expectations and Reality
February 17 2014, 9:15 am | | 6 Comments
By Simon Veksner
So you may have seen this meme going around – pretty funny, no?
I guess it has spread across the internet because the underlying thought must be relevant to many different industries – “client has high expectations, but not the money needed to realise them.”
However, the truth in our industry is a bit different, and in fact strangely toxic. READ ON…
6 Comments
…..But as the process continues, everyone realises that they don’t have the time to build that, and it’s also too complicated, and some elements of it are risky (because untried),……
Maybe work should not be presented that ultimately can not be produced on time, with certainty and within budget.
Doesn’t someone say it can be achieved before going to Client??? Maybe time to start checking this small point.
The simple and rather depressing answer Simon, is that with most people in the chain determined not to rock the boat by trying anything genuinely new, and having very limited imagination or courage for anything truly original, mediocrity must rule. It’s true of almost every field of human endeavour. Must I elaborate?
“How much” asked my client.
“$100,000” replied the CD, “if you want a 100% result”
“How much would 90% cost?” asked the client.
“$70,000” replied the creative director.
“I’ll take” it said the client, and never paid a silly price again.
Nobody noticed the 10% difference, not even the CD.
People rarely do.
Chaps, I don’t quite see it the same way.
Old CD Guy – I think people in the chain, both Client and Agency, DO want to do something new and great. And they delude themselves (or each other) into thinking this will happen. Why it doesn’t – the gap between what everybody wants and what ends up running – is the part I don’t understand.
Groucho – I’d contend that the extra 10% makes all the difference. Obsessive perfectionism has really paid off for the likes of Apple…
@scamp perfectionism can pay – it is an admirable quality in an airline Captain for example – but I’m talking about an everyday local example not a US one with an unlimited budget.
To quote/paraphrase Steve Jobs cause I can’t be assed searching YT for the reference; “We take technology in their Spring and make it popular in the Summer.”
To 90% (the mainstream) it’s brand new whizz bang cutting edge, but to those on the cutting edge it was last season.
Mr Jobs understood you don’t have to be first, just the best.