It’s Like Throwing A Baby Through Fire, Wolves, Poison-Tipped Arrows And A Combine Harvester And Hoping It Lands On A Tiny Pillow 100 Yards Away
Aren’t you always bloody amazed at the indescribable, against-the-odds occurrence of making a good ad?
You come up with a great idea and the first thing that happens is that it goes through the filter of your brain: do I want to make an ad like that? Will that keep the client happy? Will that win me an award? Will the public love it? Etc.
Then your partner has their own set of (possibly completely different) filters that might include wanting to make it closer to his or her speciality (a more visual solution for an AD; more words for a CW). They might also want to go broader with the laughs, older with the cast and more experimental with the director, so you’ll have to deal with all that – perhaps to your liking, perhaps not.
Then it’s the CD, who will have his or her own agenda about what they need to do to keep their job, stop the MD asking why they haven’t won as many awards as last year, or go home early to watch the football. They might know that someone else in the department is doing something similar and will have to choose who gets disappointed. They might have heard the international client in Beijing doesn’t like humour. They might be on the verge of a divorce and just ‘not in the mood’ to deal with your shit today.
Then there’s the account team, who have their own agenda about what they expect, what the client will expect and what will/won’t be an arse to sell.
Then the client gets to run roughshod over all the above. If your script gets to him/her unscathed (or at least in a state that isn’t a complete embarrassment) then you will have to deal with the fact that he/she will have an opinion that comes from a mind which is diametrically opposed to your own. Good luck with that. Then he might pull the entire budget, or, more annoyingly, half of it, so that you have to desperately sew together a silk purse, handbag and matching evening gown from just half a sow’s ear.
Then everyone else will chip in: the TV producer, director, editor, sound engineer etc. And, of course, any of the above might change their mind at any moment, potentially throwing your realigned perceptions into another 180-degree turn.
Then again, it’s just possible that all those little contributions could make your ad better…