Budgetary Ties

Ah, September! It's the month in which many corporations wrap up the fiscal year. As a result, advertising agencies often receive many requests and proposals for new projects right around now.

The resulting RFP's, NDA's and marketing briefs try to cover every possible angle. But one critical item is often TBD or even MIA in this information stream...and that's the client's budgetary parameters.

Why does this happen? Perhaps lips are zipped because clients sometimes feel that sharing budget details with the agency too early in the process will put their company at a disadvantage. They fear that the agency will automatically jack up its pricing. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

When you share a budget with your advertising partners, you give them a framework on which to build your campaign. In fact, agency teams actually welcome challenges. They are usually happy to work with reasonable numbers and limitations and, believe it or not, the most innovative strategy can sometimes stem from limited funding (just think about why tactics like guerrilla marketing and social media advertising were born).

But when you don't disclose a budget, you're really doing both your company and your agency a disfavor. The creative team doesn't know whether your plans call for a Maserati or a KIA. If you see a luxury plan, you cringe because it's out of your price range. If the agency then shows you a more economical approach, you feel cheated when comparing its impact to a higher-priced strategy.

It's almost like walking into a store to buy a necktie. The salesperson asks if you'd like to see the Armani collection and you say "Yes!". He tells you that the tie you like is $250 and you murmur "Hmmm!". He then asks how much you'd like to spend and you say "Just keep it as reasonable as you can" or "I'm not prepared to share that information with you right now."

When the budget question is avoided, no one gets the necktie...and no one gets the sell.

All You Need Is Love? Or Respect?

Working in multimedia presents unique marketing challenges. We often have to "corral" different media assets about the same product or issue and transform them into one clear message. Oftentimes that isn't easy because some of our client's favorite efforts from the past may actually contradict or clash with each other when brought together in a new advertising presentation.

We try to convince clients that if this editing isn't done with care, the overall message gets muddled and murky. It's kind of what happened at The RNC on Tuesday night.


Ann Romney gave a thoughtful speech. Every word in it resonated beautifully. She stepped up to the podium and began this way:

"I want to talk to you tonight about that one great thing that unites us, that one great thing that brings us our greatest joy when times are good and the deepest solace in our dark hours.

Tonight, I want to talk to you about love.  I want to talk to you about the deep and abiding love I have for a man I met at a dance many years ago.  And the profound love I have and I know we share for this country.  I want to talk to you about that love so deep, only a mother can fathom it.  The love that we have for our children and our children's children."

Her thoughts were followed almost immediately by barnstorming NJ governor Chris Christie. His speech discussed love and valuable advice that his late mother gave him:

"And the greatest lesson that mom ever taught me though was this one.  She told me there would be times in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected. Now she said to always pick being respected. "

Instead of two efforts echoing one clear message we get a conceptual tug of war. Did anyone bother to read these speeches together to vet their synergy and overall content?

Learn from The RNC. Understand that all of your advertising messages leave strong individual impressions...but together, they might be saying something entirely different. And be assured that even though Mrs. Romney chooses love and Mr. Christie ditches it for respect...we advise our clients to always opt for clarity!