« Email Marketing for CRM Ninjas | Home | Mobile Connectivity… I can haz the Interweb everywherez! »
Marketing Agency Stereotypes – Designer Jeans and Egos
By bear | April 8, 2009
Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some intelligent, creative, charismatic marketing agency types who deliver brilliant work and make working in the marketing industry (even as a brand marketer) rewarding and fun. However a few minutes of the Gruen Transfer quickly reminds me that the bulk of my dealings with agency types have involved wading through mindfields of rampant egos with a whimsical grasp on the realities of business.
Picture the savvy Surry Hills digital strategist who I have invited to sell a creative campaign idea to my CEO. I’m not sure if its the designer ripped jeans, the RUN-DMC sneakers, the wanker-slogan tshirt or the Hugo Boss sports-jacket with the sleeves rolled up (who ARE you, Don Johnson from Miami Vice??), but my 59 year old senior executive has already decided you will not be sharing any of our multi-million dollar marketing budget.
Then there is the twenty something media buying Account Manager who will not return my calls, answer my emails, return signed IOs or even speak to me like a decent human being. The same bloke that will be happy to ring me and demand a fresh deck with creative never-been-done-before integrated marketing ideas plus full mockups, and all in the next 3 hours please if I want any chance of securing any budget from his client during the next 12 months.
And what of agency principals that believe they can travel the world pitching their own TV show, Gruen-style, because they had been thinking of the idea way before the Gruen Transfer went into production? Or the agency Directors that at 45 are still wearing havaianas with Diesel jeans and hiding their tired booze-ravaged features behind a pair of over-sized sunglasses whilst trying to substantiate their value at $400 per hour billable rates thank you very much!
Not forgetting of course the female key-client manager, wearing Jimmy Choo pumps to complement her Versace handbag, who is whispering of the demise of a colleague because she was caught eating (not at an inappropriate time, just seen eating in general by management!).
Now Im not inferring that brand-marketers are above ridicule – we are all easy targets for the tosser tag. But I’d just like to remind all of my marketing colleagues out there that a rampant ego is ugly, that selling yourself means communicating and presenting yourself appropriately to your audience, and that eating disorders are not remotely sexy!
Now, back to writing my TV show ideas…. ;)
Topics: Marketeer Babble | 2 Comments »
April 15th, 2009 at 11:17 am
hilarious, love it, try recruiting those types…Painful.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
[...] Marketing Agency Stereotypes – Designer Jeans and Egos [...]