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It’s nearly impossible to talk about agency/client relationships without coming across the classic story of then-Avis CEO Robert Townsend’s “Advertising Philosophy,” in which he codifies the working relationship between his company and their newly hired creative agency, DDB. It’s a simple document with six declarations. Without rehashing the whole story, which can be read many places, I want to point to list item #4, which, in addition to being my favorite, is the directive that seems most difficult and perhaps even out of step with current trends.
#4 reads: “To this end, DDB will only submit for approval those ads which they as an agency recommend. They will not ‘see what Avis thinks of that one.’” [View larger image.]
It’s simple and powerful. And it’s the only honest way to win the client’s full confidence—in their arrangement, Avis can never suggest whimsical edits or nitpick over details. But in an age of 37signals, Google, Agile development, and iterative development cycles, the logic seems outmoded. Read More
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The dust is settling on the new switchyardcreative.com. What we’d like for you to see here is more than a redesign — it is a realignment of our site to the strengths and vision of a time-tested Switchyard Creative.
When we began this thing over a year ago, most of our (beloved) clients were as green as we were. Read More
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Almost exactly six months ago, Steven Walling wrote about why every employee in a web startup should learn how to code. He composed a two-part post on the subject, in which he shares excellent ideas about how non-coders should start engaging code, starting with a toe in the water (for example, Joel and I had to get up to speed on GitHub pretty quickly, since we share and source control all of our documents there), then upping the ante a little with a side project. Read More
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