Paying Them To Leave

The more erudite amongst you (or the Hot Shots! fans, at least) will recognise the Charlie Sheen reference in the title of this post. The great man was asked by a judge at one of his many court appearances (this was either a divorce hearing, or, quite possibly, the Heidi Fleiss trial - it's hard to keep track when it comes to Charlie Sheen, court hearings and prostitutes) why a man of his stature would need to pay women to have sex with him. He famously (and possibly apocryphally) explained that he didn't pay them to have sex, he paid them to leave afterwards.

I see two points coming out of this story, one industry-wide, and one Suit-specific. I'll deal with the Suit-specific element here, and leave the wider point for a later post.

Sheen's point was, of course, that his use of prostitutes differed from the traditional, or the expected. Other men might consider consulting a professional because they were otherwise unable to persuade women to sleep with them. Sheen, by contrast, suffered with women who wanted a post-coital relationship, when he wanted to, well, carry on being Charlie Sheen. The judge, focusing on the superficial issue, got the situation completely wrong.

And that's the point for Suits - don't rush your judgments. If a Client is making a massive fuss about a seemingly minor point in a meeting, don't just charge headfirst into a battle, but try and consider the wider view. Whilst he or she may be ranting about the size of a logo, is it possible that they feel they've been backed into a corner on other, more important points? Are there concerns about the strategy? Or is it something else entirely?

A good Suit not only picks his or her battles, but recognises when there's a battle to pick. It stems from a genuine desire to understand where the Client is coming from, and adapting your approach and offering accordingly. It's hard to learn how to be more understanding, just as it's hard to become more sensitive, more intuitive or more intelligent, but it's very easy to take a breath and not rush in. A little bit of perspective, a little bit of breathing time taken to look at something differently, and you might realise that the Client's (or indeed anybody else's) problem is something quite different from what's being expressed. And then you might even get to keep the logo as it is*.

*There's obviously a cheap joke to be made here about Suits being little more than smartly dressed pros, but here at ALS we're above stuff like that. That's part of the reason why I've never really liked the phrase 'Client Service'. It just sounds dirty.

Real Men Wear Suits

This is just a quick post to point you in the direction of the dry, understated, insightful, amusing and bearded world of Real Men Write Long Copy. (I don't know if he actually has a beard, but I sincerely hope so.) The reasons for the post are threefold: first off, his blog is ace; secondly, he said some very nice things about me; and thirdly, with that last link, I hope to create a kind of Mobius blog post, whereby you good people spend the rest of eternity travelling between my blog and his. I shall be interested to know how it works out.

Real Men Write Long Copy - a good thing.

Give Me A Female Account Man Any Day

Prompted by the quite wonderful AdContrarian, I've decided that it's time to touch on a subject that's been on my mind for a while, but which I've steered clear of posting for fear of being taken the wrong way - it is now time. So, dear readers, answer me this - why are female account managers so much better than their male counterparts?

I'm not referring to senior Suits here. Advertising, for all its faults, does tend to be very good at sorting the wheat from the chaff: if you can't cut it, you don't tend to last, so seniority is, as a general rule (with some dishonourable exceptions), a fairly good guide for quality in both men and women.

No, I'm talking about Account Managers and Account Executives - an area in which women excell and men flounder. For every male Suit who's walked into an Agency on his first day convinced that he's ready to run the place, that status reports are somebody else's problem, that his AD/AM doesn't know what he/she is talking about, that leaving early twice a week for football training won't be a problem, and that life's too short to proof-read emails, competitive reviews or ads before they go out, I'll show you three female Suits who will work all the hours God sends, who believe that if a job's worth doing, it's worth checking (twice), and who understand instinctively how important (and defining) the detail is in any given project.

When I was in that position (and if we're talking about the position of 'Thinking You Know Everything When You Don't', then I'll tell you now, I owned that position), then I had a very simple excuse - I didn't really know what I was doing. Making ads seemed fairly straightforward, but the world of job numbers, P6s and status reports seemed utterly alien. I wasn't prepared for the job I was being asked to do, and my line managers didn't really help with that. Now, don't get me wrong - I was still a bit of a tool. But it wasn't entirely my fault - I had no real way of knowing what was expected of me.

Even if that was still the case (which, to be clear, it isn't - whether it's the IPA, the AdGrads chaps or some tired old hack, there's no shortage of information on what the role of a junior suit will entail), then it wouldn't hold any water as a defence, because it only seems to be a problem for men - women just get it. They get that you have to learn the basics before you can do the big stuff - that without the basics, the big stuff doesn't happen, something that seems to have bypassed the majority of Junior Male Suits. 

There is a school of thought that says these guys should be indulged - that they're hardwired to be ADs and higher, and that the lower ranks are some kind of holding pen in which all must sit until we are released to do the 'proper' job. To that, I'd say that anyone who doesn't understand how important an Account Manager's job is will never make a decent Account Director. And then I'd be sorely tempted to give them a slap.

The take-out from this post shouldn't be, incidentally, 'women for detail, men for ideas' - that's palpable nonsense. As I've said elsewhere, some of the best and brightest Suits I've ever worked with have been women. The point is that women seem to get what matters most at the more junior levels, and that doing it well will prepare them for their later career - most men don't seem to have picked up on that.

I should say here that this isn't just my view. I've had many conversations with many colleagues and contemporaries about this phenomenon, and its reason for being. And as I look around my Account Management department, I see roughly twice as many women as men, and it's a scene that's replicated across the industry - and for a reason. Put simply, there aren't enough Junior Account Men out there that are any good, while the sisters are doin' it for themselves. (Sorry.)

There are of course exceptions to the rule, a couple of which I'm lucky enough to work with, but by and large, it's true. The role of a Junior Suit is enormously important, and that's something that, for the most part, only the girls seem to get.

So am I wrong? Is this just a UK phenomenon, or is it happening across the world? Are you a Junior Male Suit who doesn't just think that you're bloody good at your job, but can actually prove that you are? All these questions and more should be argued about in the comments.

Hot Cross Buns & Whitstable

And so to Easter - the next few days will, for me, involve a lot of sleeping, a fair few hot cross buns, seaside walks and perfectly roasted potatoes. And no advertising - sometimes, that's important. I will, of course, be wearing a Suit as I promenade - if you see me, do say hello.

Have lovely breaks, one and all - and be back at your work stations by Tuesday.

Forthcoming Features

Afternoon, dear readers. This is a quick post to advise you all of an upcoming feature for ALS - Suits Laid Bare*.

Basically, I will be asking a number of Adland's finest and best-loved Suits to answer a standard list of questions, in a format stolen quite shamelessly from various publications, and publishing the results here, for you all to admire and, hopefully, enjoy.

What I would very much appreciate is thoughts on what you'd like to me to ask - if you had Johnny Hornby, Andrew McGuinness or Tom Knox sitting in a hot seat, what would you want to know? (NB None of these people have yet agreed to be interviewed...)

So, use the comments, and let me know what you'd like to know, and I'll do the rest.

*I've come up with this name off the top of my head for the purposes of this post. I'm not going to deny it, I like it - but sugggestions on that are also welcomed.

The Craft Of Writing

One of the most important skills of a Suit is communication. There are others (ordering cabs, carrying bags, paying for Lunch, Lunching in general, etc.) but communication is right up there - and rightly so.

From the day a Suit begins his career, he or she is (if the AD responsible is worth their salt) told quite clearly that every single item they send to the Client, or elsewhere, reflects upon them. Whether it's a status report, a piece of copy that they're sending on, an agenda, a timing plan or an ad, if it comes from your email address, it has your signature at the bottom of it, and as such its content reflects upon you.

Now, whilst there's an obvious point to be made here about checking everything before you send it out, that would make this more of a Junior Suit point, which it isn't intended to be at all. (But do check everything before you send it, please.)

No, this is a post about one of the things that separates us as Advertisers from our Clients, and that separates us as Suits from the rest of the Agency - our ability to write, and to write well.

In short, my question is this - why is so much of what we produce written so very badly? I'm talking about emails, I'm talking about blog posts, I'm talking about presentations, and yes, I'm talking about text messages. It drives me (and I think this is the first time this word has appeard on ALS) fucking crazy.

A couple of myths I'd like to debunk:

Myth No. 1: Emails are informal pieces of communication - as such, typos don't matter.

No, I'm afraid they're not - and they really do. Emails are now accepted as the standard means of formal, written communication between Agency, Clients, Production Companies, Procurement Companies and anyone else involved in the process. They are, as such, the formal written record, and should be treated as such - that means getting rid of the typos. Typos, spelling mistakes and poorly structured sentences make you look slapdash and unprofessional, two things no Suit should ever appear to be.

Myth No. 2: It's ok to make mistakes if you're writing from a Blackberry, iPhone or similar.

It's not 'ok' - it's lazy. There's a whole post (if not a whole book) to be written on Blackberry abuse, but for now suffice to say that if you're making typos on a Blackberry, it's because you can't be bothered to check what you've written, and that's not down to technology, it's down to apathy - sort it out.

I'm not insisting that everyone becomes Henry James, nor am I having a pop at people who genuinely have issues with written English, be they dyslexics, non-Native speakers, or whatever. But Christ, people - there is such a thing as acceptable mistakes, and then there's just laziness and bad writing. The craft of language is one of the most important skills we have in our arsenal, and treating it with disrespect reflects badly on us, and everything that we do. You doing it will make me angry, and I will think less of you as a result - as will everyone else who reads what you've written.

You can spend two hours writing an email to a Client explaining exactly why the artwork you've presented would absolutely not be improved by introducing a lurid flash across the top that will 'bring the rate out a bit more'; but why should he take your arguments about the craft of advertising seriously, if you can't even structure an email correctly, or spell a word how it's supposed to be spelled? I don't care how passionate you are, if you express yourself like an over-excited teenager, you will not be taken seriously. And that's a damn shame.

Postscript: Whilst writing this, I've received an email from a client that used 'your' when it meant 'you're' in the first line and 'you're' when it meant 'your' in the fifth line. By the time we reached the seventh line, said Client had clearly given up, and settled for 'ur'. We, as Suits, owe it to ourselves to be better than this. If you're not sure, ask. And once you've asked, then check. It's absolutely fine not to know whether you should be using 'practice' or 'practise', or not to know the difference between 'uninterested' and 'disinterested' - it's absolutely unacceptable however, whether you're an Account Exec or a CEO, to just pick one and go with it - it matters. Deal with that.

Kicking The Brain Crack

Well, hello! How've you been? I've been off for ages (a week) and have returned to find a maelstrom of fun and excitement (shitstorm) waiting for me. So, just to keep things ticking over until I have time to post something of my own, I thought I'd steal and share something from the wonderful Ze Frank. It's very definitely old, and people may well have seen it before, but it's just as relevant now as it was when it first appeared. (Apologies for the Portuguese sub-titles - unless you're Portuguese or Brazilian, in which case you're very welcome.)