The delightfully vulgar George Parker wrote about this on his weapon of mass cusstruction, but I just had to post on it as well because it single-handily shows what’s wrong with corporate adland and Leo Burnett’s in particular.
I should say now that I’ve always had an irrational dislike of that agency …
I admit that I’ve never worked for them … I admit they’ve done some lovely work … and I admit they have loads and loads of clever and lovely people who work there quite happily … however the mere mention of their name is guaranteed to make my face resemble a bulldog licking urine off a stinging nettle and I have no idea of why that is the case at all.
Well, apart from the fact I’m an arse!
Anyway back to the post …
What’s the betting the board member who decided on this move is someone walks around saying, “We’ve lost our place in the boardroom”?
Well the fact is they have but if he/she thinks a pair of fucking dress shoes [whatever they are, but I can sure as hell bet they’re not Birkies!] will get their place back, they’re even more fucked than I thought they were.
George [mine, not Parker] has this theory that one of the reasons clients don’t respect agencies so much anymore is because they’ve all become too much like them.
Their dress code, their business approach, their language – it’s all so bloody ‘corporate’ so clients no longer see them as a bunch of guys who can take them to new and interesting places …they see them as ‘suppliers’ and as such, treat they with about as much respect as they do their night-shift. In other words: SOD ALL!
If what Leo Burnett’s are implying is true – and an agency will win clients based purely on their dresscode, then my response is [1] they’re a fucked client [2] They’ll never win Apple or Virgin [3] I’m going to be bankrupt …
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate how appearances are important but this industry has already adopted style over substance in most of it’s output and if they’re going to start that behaviour in their day-to-day practices, then it’s not just corporate suicide, it’s the end of an agency that used to fight for what it believed rather than sat there all passively hoping not to offend anyone because these days they’ll take any client they can get.