A totally brilliant post from the Zeus Jones blog...
Most people are going to focus on the lack of alignment between Brand power and Advertising focus/budget. Personally... I think what's far more interesting is the implications raised around how Ad Agencies have over-reached with the clients.
It's also led to heinous presentations (yes I've been there) where ignorant agency people present naive and (in some cases) damaging ideas which demonstrate their utter lack of understanding about a client's business and how that client makes money. This is not terribly surprising. Agency people aren't trained to run businesses, they are trained to create communications which help to achieve business goals. (Charitably, you could say the same dynamic is on display in the efforts of many clients who attempt to create communications.)
This is a REALLY important point - not just for ad agencies, but for all of us.
We need to know what we're good at and what we're not good at - and we need to be honest about our limitations. If we don't, we not only do damage to our clients; we also dig our own graves.
