Sounds like a Bad 'un to me

Hmmm, this old chestnut again. In my opinion suits are required, but mainly in the medium & large sized agencies. Although some creatives are good communicators, most of them are not. I just can't imagine a creative leading a pitch or presentation to a client, and being able to sell the idea. Or even creating and chasing invoices, typing up meeting minutes, planning workflow, copy checking etc.. I don't think they'd want to either! That is unless it's their company, and due to the small size of it they don't have a choice..

true, there is a fine balance and an arguement to each side...although i think the main thing im thinking to the whole debate is...any need for the debate? There's no real outcome afterwards as everyone differs in their opinion and it wont necessarily change much in the industry either

so what happens when the 'suits' are the owners of the company who act as Account Handlers?

bit of a pointless discussion...but good for a wet Monday...

Would you buy a car off a mechanic?

No but I might buy one off the engineer who created it.

Would I buy a car from a mechanic? I'd buy a car from a mechanic long before I'd buy one from a car salesman.

This antiquated idea that creatives are incapable of communicating ideas, leading a pitch, or selling, really needs to go. And to suggest that creatives can't type up and chase invoices, plan workflow etc is utter nonsense. In almost every agency environment I've worked in, where "suits" took control over workflow and client liason, chaos reigned. When creatives were given client contact, and controlled their own workflow, harmony reigned.

What it comes down to is this. Suits aren't smart, and you could train a five year old to do their job, so they feel a need to undermine creatives and make out that we're touchy feely types who can't deal with the corporate side of the business.

Utter twaddle.

Consider yourself told...told...and told again...

Dear Anon 12:40 aka "Utter twaddle" assume you are yet another mac monkey with aspirations far above your imagination?

Dear Anon 12:55 aka "they who assume". Your cocksure, arrogant, salesmanlike response essentially proves my point.

Thanks.

i agree....so....getting cold isnt it?

Certainly is. That North Easterly looks like it could bring a cold snap towards the end of the week.

Is that the offical Met Office reading?

gosh better tend to my vegetable patch..The key to successful winter gardening is knowing the average date of the first killing frost in your region i heard...

plant your winter crops early enough to let them reach their full maturity before that killing frost!

I think local garden authorities can give you information about the timing of first frosts and the hardiness of various crops for your area.

is that for farmville or real life anon 14.04?

I don't know about you lot but mine are like organ stoppers.

The two best agencies in the world right now (you can deliberate which ones if you like) were started by creatives - with none or very little suit based organisms. So no, they aren't needed.

Some are good. But many are just client yes men. Essentially in traditional agencies their job role needs updating, 'cos they're totally antiquated to the needs of the business/industry. Too many of them are simply being administrators and that's not what they should be doing.

It's the job spec at fault, not the people.

i am deeply offended anon 14.20....that you would think i would have a vegetable patch for real, of course its farmville!

why waste my time growing veggies when tesco, asda and waitrose grow them for me

'mums gone to greenland'...

It's not the 'suits' problem we should be dicussing, it's the creative problem.
The standard of some of the recent creative is quite concerning.

Anon 14.43. Phew! Had me worried there for a mo.

anon 15:36- yea cos the suit says to the client 'of course we can churn out shit for you if you want us to'. I had a suit come back from a meeting the other day with a sketch/scamp the client had drawn of what they wanted - I mean, fuck off.

15:41 - that'll always happen. It's up to your agency to have systems in place so that:

1. The account handler politely reminds the client that he's paying good money for creatives who are more creative than he is to work on his account
2. When the client fails to listen and draws his own scamp anyway, you don't have to get involved
3. When the shit client gets fired and a new client comes in and sacks the agency for doing shit work, the account handler isn't allowed to crawl under a rock and point at the creative department as being the reason for the business moving on

For some reason, I just read the title as 'Do agencies still need "sluts"?'

15:41. Your'e obviously one of the hundreds of deluded Mac monkeys that seem to dominate our industry. If your so concerned about your account handling offering then move to a decent agency.

It's 10.30am. An Account Handler has just handed me another quick job to fit in. He has told the client that we will get something back to them before lunchtime. Its easily a 3 or 4 hour job, as it involves some pretty intense Photoshop work. "It'll take you half an hour" was his response when I questioned him. No, it won't take half an hour. It'll take me half an hour to get the job off back up! "But I've promised the client so we have do it" he says. So now I have to just stop the job I'm already working on, which annoys the Account Handler on this project and do this new one instead, or to be more precise, do this new job as well, as the other Account Handler has promised the other client we'd get something back to them by close of play!

And we wonder why we have these debates?

bibbidy bob, bob a flob bob bib....which roughly translates to no one cares along!! if you have time to rant and moan on here, are you guys actually doing any work??!

err ok but what im thinking is...how would be able to do the work if you didn't have any creatives??

A man in a hot air balloon realised he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a man outside a pub below. He descended a bit more and shouted:

"Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approx 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees longitude."

"You must be in Production" said the balloonist.

"I am" replied the man, "how did you know?"

"Well" answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help far"

The man below responded, "You must be an Account Manager"

"I am" replied the balloonist "but how did you know?"

"Well" said the man "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You are in exactly the same position now that you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."

Meanwhile all the Creatives looked out of the pub window and muttered...

"Tossers"

anon 18:22 - a truly woeful gag – cut and pasted like most of the ideas?

No

I'm not sure!

Good 'uns, yes. Bad 'uns, no.
That goes for all departments.

what about a creative in a suit?

As a client, I find good suits harder to come across than good creatives. I'm beginning to think we could cut them out of the equation.

Anon 11:09

As a client you wouldn't survive a day dealing with the creative direct. It would only take ' make my logo bigger' or 'I don't know why but I just don't like it' for them to go mental and resign the account.

'go mental and resign the account' ?