Be honest with your ad agency
I want to visit a topic that came up this year at our annual holiday party. (The social event of the year I might add, here in the Greater Manch-Vegas area.) Several of my peers were there, as well as numerous media sales folks. A bunch of us got into a discussion about clients and the problems we all have. It is not a surprise that we all have similar experiences, but what was somewhat surprising is that all of us mentioned having clients with champagne ideas on a beer budget.
In and of itself this is not a problem. Where the problem does exist is the point when we, the agency, are not told in advance about budget limitations. More often than not we are asked to put our best foot forward, to make recommendations blindly, and then told to start over because we were way over budget! I don’t for a minute want to spend more than the client wants to spend but I can’t possibly imagine the right budget for them. Yes, I can use their industry standard as a guideline and go from there, but most clients have no idea what their industry standard is to begin with!
During the peer conversation I mentioned above, in more than one occasion we all noted we had been led to believe there was more money in the budget then there really was. When presented with the harsh realty of actually paying for what they asked for, far too many clients resort to the “what can we get for half of that” dance.
As you can expect, this scenario causes immediate problems of trust and leads to unrealistic expectations by clients who expect to do just as well with half the budget.
All I ask is one thing–if you are working with an agency don’t keep your budget under lock-and-key. And if you work with the media, tell them the truth about the budget. It may not set you free but it will make all of our jobs easier and you’ll get a better product for it in the long run. Let us be creative with the money you DO have, rather than hack away at the budget you don’t have.