Number 3 of 52 Lifelong Communication Lessons: Money motivation backfires
January 19, 2015 |
| Science World construction, 1984 (Colin Price, The Province) |
The year was 1988.
Elton John released his first rendition of candle in the wind. Crack cocaine was making its debut on the street and Science World opened in Vancouver.
I was working at the largest ad agency in town. It was a rocking good time. We were taking clients on $1,000 a day fishing trips, the creative team was cleaning up on awards and the business was flowing. It had the mad men elements of hard work and long hours with plenty of partying.
I was doing a lot of crisis work which generated some strong client relationships. One particular client had been through a number of tough issues. We had saved him a ton of advertising money managing a big issue through good PR. The agency was not thrilled about losing the revenue but was glad the client was happy.
The client was smart, a tough negotiator and had a quick wit. He did not suffer fools and more than intimidated a few of the "suits" in the client service side of the biz.
I was getting to know this client's style and found him an interested study from a communication perspective.
As per usual, I sat in on advertising meetings with clients like this. The agency had prepared a pitch for a big national consumer campaign for this company. It would cost at least a million, if not more. They sent in the top suit for this one. As he pitched the idea, I could see the client getting frustrated. The client was quoting research that clearly proved the campaign would not work. The customer was not predisposed to the kind of tactics being recommended. In fact, they were strongly opposed. The ad exec kept pitching aggressively guaranteeing it would work.
Oh oh. This is when the meeting took a turn for the worse. As I did not have a role in the campaign, I was merely an observer. It was fascinating to watch.
The client slowly turned to the agency guy and said, "Well, if you are so certain it will work, go ahead and run it. If it doesn't work, you pay the million and if it does work, I will pay for it." Dead silence.
The ad guy stumbled and fumbled and finally murmured that there was no way the agency would do that. Huge embarrassing moment. The meeting ended at that point. Boys with tails between their legs scuttled off.
The client talked to me about it later saying it made him feel unheard but also reinforced his sense the agency was just after money and really had no interest in helping him grow his business. Ouch. A client should never feel like that.
Communication lesson: Always check your motivation. If you make a strong contention, you better be able to back it up. I have learned to never do work just for the money.
Fast forward to 2015. Whenever we feel like people are just in it for the money, we get turned off. Think Facebook profiling your purchases, Twitter selling access to your tweets or Bernie Madoff.
Next week we will go back to 1979.
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