It's not you. It's me.

In this week's blog posting, I've been asked to talk about why some companies have bad relationships with their creative agencies.

In the years that I’ve done marketing I've began to notice patterns with clients.  Many companies come to us –like a jilted lover- having had a very bad experience with their previous marketing firm.

Working with businesses like these is like dating someone on the rebound.  They are hurt, they feel betrayed, and they are looking for someone to blame.

But just like any relationships, some businesses find themselves constantly in bad ones.  They never see their own patterns.  As a result, they repeat the same mistakes and end up in the same painful relationships again and again.

One of the patterns is some businesses blame their previous creative firm totally for the collapse of a project.

Now, while I know there are a lot of incompetent creative firms out there, it’s also true that it takes two to tango.  Just like when dating, there are rarely any innocent victims.  One of the pair is usually passive aggressive, an enabler, a bad fit, or has unrealistic expectations.

But regardless of the couple, the story I hear from these jilted businesses is almost always the same:

• Business hired creative firm.
• Business assigned a project to the creative firm.
• Deadline were promised.
• Payments were made.
• Work was produced.
• Work was not liked by business.
• Work was redone many times.
• Work was still not liked by business.
• Deadlines were missed.
• Tempers flared.
• Projects where canceled.
• Relationships ended.
• Blame was assigned.
• Heartbreak ensued.

In all these cases, the companies professed to be the innocent victims of a shady and predatory creative agency.

But is that really a likely scenario?

For starters, marketing projects are expensive.  I find it highly unlikely that a company simply handed over money to a marketing firm without seeing a portfolio first and checking out come clients.

Somewhere during these discussions a proposal was put in place that outlined the deliverables and the time lines.  So there should be no surprises.

So does it seem likely that this creative agency went through the bother of forging websites and references, contracts and portfolios just so they can engage in a failed project to “rip you off”?

And, even if the business moved forward on a project based solely on the agency's portfolio, surely they must have enjoyed what they saw or else they wouldn’t have hired them in the first place.

Does it seem likely that a creative agency -whose work the company admired- suddenly started sucking and forgot how to do logos and websites?  Do you think that at the moment of starting the project, the agency somehow became terrible copywriters or branders?


When we have taken on companies who have had bad experiences with their previous agencies, we do notice something that may explain why so many of their past projects have failed.

In many cases, these companies have the same personality and engage projects with the same attitude.

Tell me if you see yourself in any of this (or if you are a fellow creative agency: if you see any of your clients):

Businesses with previously bad experiences with creative agencies have usually:

• Insisted on micromanaged projects.
• Insisted that they know more about design than the graphic designers.
• Insisted that they know more about copywriting than the copywriters.
• Insisted that they know more about branding than the brand expert.
• Insisted they know more about advertising than the advertising agency.
• Insisted that they could do their marketing themselves if they “only knew how to use the software”.

Without fail, companies who have had bad experiences with past agencies have had these kinds of personalities.  And you can now see why their past projects have failed.

A good creative agency only knows how to do one thing: good work.  They don’t know how to do bad designs or bad marketing.

So when faced with a client that is pushing to have things “their way” it becomes understandable that any credible agency will push back and try to convince the client to go in a more successful direction.  It is, after all, our responsibility to do so.  This is usually the source for most of this friction and the ultimate reason why many projects fail.

So if you have had a bad experience with a marketing firm, odds are you may have played a small role in the situation.  Don't feel bad.  You're in good company.

But If you feel that’s the case, call up your ex and tell them: "It’s not you. It’s me."


Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca