Up the Agency

by Peter Mayle

  The first and perhaps the most important of these is the reputation within the business. When an agency’s work is widely admired, when it picks up awards, and always providing it isn’t run by a bunch of Nazis, it becomes thought of as a desirable place to work. If you already work there, you are automatically part of an elite, and few things are more comforting to the human soul than a feeling of superiority.

  Another essential is to keep everyone so busy that they haven’t got time to be bored. Boredom leads to all kinds of mischief—politics and vendettas, moonlighting, four-hour lunches, disastrous liaisons with secretaries, and all the rest of it. Agencies need to be kept slightly understaffed and slightly overworked, and an occasional bout of disciplined panic and “ghosting” (working through the night) is no bad thing.

  But this will only be effective as long as the advertising produced within the agency consistently sees the light of day. When campaigns are mauled or rejected by clients after a lot of effort and overtime have been expended, it is difficult to persuade copywriters and art directors (who bruise easily) that they should try again. It’s no fun for the account executive. It costs the agency twice as much as it should to produce an acceptable piece of work. But above all, it is a dispiriting blow to morale, and if it happens too often, it is only a matter of time before word gets around and the best people get out. Successful and highly regarded agencies always have at least one person at the top who is capable of selling 80 percent of the advertising he or she takes to the client. Providing this can be kept up, such persons are worth their weight in expenses.

  The other aspects of agency management, apart from the obvious requirement to keep generating new business, are details. They may be as important as using income and profits intelligently, or as trifling as organizing a good office party, but they are all secondary to the way the human assets are managed. Agencies don’t become rich and famous because of their impeccable administrative procedures or even their financial acumen, but because one or two people at the top have been able to hold together a collection of wildly conflicting personalities and motivate them into working with one another. It is not a skill that can be learned mechanically; it is a knack, rather like being good with animals.

  On the Menu: Poached Client

  Every agency has to live with the awful possibility that, for one reason or another, a large client will leave, causing headlines and redundancies and, worst of all, public doubts about the agency’s stability and prospects of survival. Is it going through one of those periods of internecine warfare known as a management shake-up? Is there a plot afoot to start a breakaway agency? Does the departing client know something we don’t know? These and other fascinating and damaging speculations are energetically promoted by those with axes to grind and advantage to be gained. Hearsay and wishful thinking are retailed as fact, and sometimes they will have the desired effect: The agency’s remaining clients will become unsettled. Indeed, some of them may be so sensitive about being associated with what they are repeatedly told is a sinking ship that they will scuttle off in the appropriate fashion.

  The only way to avoid this nightmare is to ensure that new clients come in faster than old ones leave. Any losses can then be airily dismissed as unfortunate casualties of the agency’s dynamic expansion. Consequently, all agencies have a more or less organized program designed to pull in new accounts. (At one time, this was called soliciting new business, which was thought to have a respectable ring about it until it was pointed out that the only other trade commonly known to solicit for a living was prostitution, and so alternative terminology had to be found.)

  Some of the larger agencies maintain a small squad of corporate poachers whose sole job it is to cultivate contacts and tickle them into a sufficiently receptive mood for a presentation. In other agencies, the principals have to assume these duties in addition to working for the clients they already have, and this is their excuse for the out-of-office diversions we shall come to later.

  In the new business budget, a certain amount will be put aside for speculative pitches, which can cost anything from a few thousand dollars for rough layouts to $100,000 or more for a full-blown campaign with commercials. There will also be provision for the occasional advertisement (but only occasional; agencies tend not to spend too much on advertising) placed in the business press to commemorate some particularly impressive achievement, such as a clutch of new accounts or a demonstrably effective campaign. And there will be the mailing shots, aimed at everyone within postal range who might conceivably be influenced by developments within the agency: a new appointment to the board, an addition to the range of services on offer, an award here, a research breakthrough there, the acquisition of another agency—triumph piling upon triumph to foster the image of growth and success.

  But of all the techniques used to convert someone else’s client into your own, perhaps none is so enthusiastically employed as that mysterious and fattening process that appears with such regularity on expense accounts and that is optimistically described as “entertaining a prospective client.” This covers practically every social and sporting activity known to man, and much else besides, but it starts with simple refreshment.

  Nothing of any significance in the advertising business is discussed without a glass or a knife and fork close at hand, and it was probably an advertising man who was guilty of inventing the hideously uncivilized custom of the business breakfast. That, however, is not generally forced upon clients until they are safely in the bag. In any case, breakfast does not allow enough time for the delicate probing and maneuvering that is the purpose of the first rendezvous. Dinner, at this early stage of the relationship, is too intimate. But lunch is perfect.

  The choice of restaurant requires very careful thought, not because of an interest in good food, which is of little or no importance on these occasions, but because of psychological and practical factors. First, does the restaurant reflect the way in which the agency would like to be regarded? The image of a young and irreverent agency doesn’t sit comfortably with ties and solemn conversation at the Plaza, any more than a pinstriped executive from a conservative agency would feel at home in one of those frisky Italian establishments where the waiters are prone to kiss you on both cheeks and pinch your bottom. And then there are the prospective client’s feelings to be considered. One wants him to be relaxed and comfortable and, at the same time, stimulated by his surroundings (which include you) so that he can appreciate how dull his existing agency is. It’s a question of matching what little you so far know of your guest’s personality with any one of dozens of possibilities. When in doubt, the instinct is to take the most expensive option rather than risk leaving the prospective client with the feeling that he has been underlunched.

  To add to the complications, the choice is limited to restaurants where the host has clout. To be treated as just another customer and consigned to a murky little table by the kitchen is an appalling blow to the image and could ruin the mood of the entire lunch. The agency executive must be seen to be in control—with a good but discreet table and no small measure of deference from the staff. Obviously, this can be guaranteed only by frequent visits and consistent overtipping, and so time and money need to be invested in becoming a familiar and well-loved figure in maybe half a dozen restaurants. To the uninformed observer, the sight of an advertising executive having lunch with his secretary might indicate a liaison that goes beyond work. In fact, he is merely doing his duty, preparing the ground and building up credit in the restaurant against the day when he will bring the prospective client to the table.

  And when he does, to the accompaniment of bowing and scraping and solicitous inquiries after his health and confidential disclosures about a specialty that is not on the menu but is available to privileged clients, then he is able to concentrate on his poacher’s work, secure in the knowledge that he is in charge. Settling back amid a flurry of waiters, he can devote himself to stage one: purposeful small talk.

  Nothing a
s crass as the true purpose of lunch will be mentioned during the first two courses. Instead, like a doctor examining a new patient to see if he can find any interesting deformities, the agency executive will gently interrogate his guest to determine his areas of general interest. Does he like tennis, golf, sailing, the opera, nightclubs? Where does he spend his vacations? Does he watch films, read books, go to art exhibitions? What are his politics? Little by little, it comes out and is stored for future reference while the agency executive waits for the right moment to broach, with infinite tact and finesse, the two most important questions of all.

  First, is the client secure in his job and in control of his business? If he isn’t, and is honest enough to admit it, he might find that lunch ends early; it is, after all, his account we’re after, not his conversation, and if there are doubts about his ability to deliver, he is not a man to waste time cultivating. There are many ways to clarify this fundamental point, the most flattering of which is also the most risky. It is to ask the client whether he had ever thought of putting his immense skills at the disposal of an agency, where men of his caliber are always in demand. This sometimes backfires. Instead of the client being highly complimented but not interested, he may very easily jump at the hint and start asking awkward questions about company cars and a seat on the board.

  But let’s assume that he is a serious prospect, dedicated to his brand and with the power to move the account. Once this has been established, the agency executive can move on to the second crucial point: How strong are the client’s ties with his existing agency? The fact that he is breaking bread with a competitor is not necessarily significant. Some clients see it as part of their job to keep in touch with a number of agencies on an informal basis. Others are just gluttons with a fondness for free lunches (they can usually be spotted by their choice of food and drink, and by the glazed and unseeing eye that ignores the arrival of the bill).

  The time to bring up the subject of the client’s relationship with his agency is traditionally at the end of the meal, over coffee. Why this should be, when both parties know perfectly well why they are sitting down together, is somewhat of a mystery, but it is a carefully observed part of the ritual. If things have gone particularly well and a rapport is in the making, brandy and cigars may be summoned as a means of prolonging the conversation, and then the agency executive will roll up his sleeves and start chipping away.

  This is an exercise in heroic restraint, wonderful to watch. The agency executive may feel that the client’s current advertising stinks. He may know, because he is an avid gatherer of gossip, that the people who produce it loathe one another and drink too much, or that they subcontract the work out to freelance moonlighters. None of this will be mentioned—not in so many words, anyway. The agency executive will be quite happy to sow a seed or two of doubt while appearing to be scrupulously fair. He may even be generous with faint praise, because the true purpose of lunch is not to make an unseemly grab at the business there and then. It is to offer himself—wise, sympathetic, and highly professional—as a potential port in an advertising storm if anything should cast a blight on the client’s existing arrangements. If he has achieved this, and if in addition he has picked up some valuable information about his guest’s leisure interests, then the lunch can be counted as worthwhile.

  Depending on the time of the year and the proclivities of the client, lunch will be followed by an invitation to the U.S. Open, a concert at the Met, a day of golf, a private screening of a feature film, or some other appropriate event. Many of these invitations will include the client’s wife, so that there can be no doubt that this is a purely social occasion. Other members of the agency will be present, of course, but not in any official capacity, and there will be no mention of business; this is merely a group of congenial people enjoying themselves.

  Weeks or months, sometimes years, will go by, but contact will be maintained and the invitations will continue in the hope that patience will be rewarded. Often, it is. Sooner or later, the client will have some reason to be discontented with his existing agency. It might be the departure of a key executive, disagreements about a new campaign, or simply a gradual realization that the magic has gone out of the marriage. For whatever reason, the client feels that it’s time for someone to take a fresh and enthusiastic look at his advertising problems. And whom does he turn to? Who else but those congenial people with whom he has already spent so many happy hours.

  Agencies may dispute the importance of entertaining, because it smacks of buying business rather than winning it on merit. (And, in fairness, most accounts are won through abilities other than proficiency at lunch.) Nevertheless, it is not uncommon for a diligent seeker after new business to eat and drink his way through several hundred dollars a week, and there are one or two legends in their own lunchtime whose only notable business assets are their extraordinary social stamina, their seemingly indestructible livers, and their thick skins. These men follow the advertising version of the philanderer’s golden rule: If you ask a hundred women to go to bed with you, then one of them probably will.

  Eating and drinking as part of the job is not confined to the senior members of agencies. Everybody does it, in surroundings of diminishing luxury and elegance according to rank and salary and there is at every level a clear understanding of who picks up the bill. Account executives buy lunch for copywriters as an inducement to further creative effort. Copywriters buy lunch for art directors, who claim they never have any money. Television production companies buy lunch for agency producers. Media sellers buy lunch for agency media buyers, and so it goes. There are probably a hundred restaurants in New York whose prosperity is due almost entirely to the appetites and thirst of the advertising business, and if there was ever to be a single slogan representative of the industry, it would surely be those three irresistible words, “Let’s have lunch.”

  Great Moments in the Working Day

  The official agency day begins at 9:00 A.M. and ends at 5:30 or 6:00 P.M., but only novices and conscientious receptionists pay much attention to the formal hours of business. The ambitious members of the agency—or rather, those who don’t mind their ambition showing—will be at their desks long before nine, knowing that the early morning is the best time to get some constructive memo writing done before they are sucked into the vortex of briefings, presentations, lunches, and drinks that will take up the rest of the day.

  There is, however, one oasis of calm: the creative department is often tranquil and virtually deserted until 9:30 or even later, since copywriters and art directors like to exercise their artistic privilege to ignore such prosaic habits as punctuality. The creative director, now retired, of a large agency once became so irritated at being the only member of his department to start work on time that he lay in wait at the entrance to the agency, alarm clock in hand, to hurl abuse and threats at latecomers. As ten o’clock approached, he was about to return to his office, when a final languid art director sauntered through the door.

  “You should have been here an hour ago,” said the creative director.

  “Why?” said the artist. “What happened?”

  But eventually, with bright or bleary eyes, the entire agency is present and ready to attack the problems (which, as all advertising people know, are only opportunities in disguise) of the day. These are dealt with in a variety of ways that tend to overlap, but they are probably best explained as separate events. And to start with, what better than the corporate ritual dance without which nothing from the purchase of office china to the takeover of a rival agency can proceed: the inescapable, interminable meeting.

  The prize for the most trivial meeting is currently held by a team of thirteen agency and television production people who agonized over which brand of mineral water should be available on the set where they were shooting. (Badoit won, but not without some stiff competition from the Perrier supporters.)

  Whatever is on the agenda, though, is subject to the same rules and traditions that govern th
e conduct of all meetings and the deportment of those in attendance.

  Venue

  Unless the numbers are exceptionally large, or the subject particularly important, meetings are held in the office of the most senior person involved. At the moment when the meeting is scheduled to start, the senior person will usually contrive to be on the phone so that less exalted colleagues can be instructed by the secretary to wait outside or to tiptoe in and perch awkwardly on the glove-leather furniture until the telephone is put down. It is instantly picked up again, and the secretary is buzzed and told to hold all further calls. The senior person, sighing at the magnitude of the cares of high office, will then be ready to preside.

  A variation on the telephone technique used to be practiced by the senior vice president of a large New York agency. As his underlings filed in, he would peel off a twenty-dollar bill from a fist-sized roll of bills and use it to polish his already gleaming toe caps before crumpling it up and throwing it into the wastebasket. The effect diminished with repetition, but young and impressionable executives could often be seen in their cubbyholes imitating the great man, the only difference being that memos were used on the toe caps instead of currency.

  Equally effective as an unusual start to a meeting, and much closer to nature, was the habit of an agency chairman to be closeted in his personal executive bathroom as the appointed hour arrived. And so one would wait in his office, eye and ear irresistibly drawn to the closed door in the corner, until, with a triumphant flush and a gurgle from the sink, the door would open and the chairman would emerge to address himself to more intellectual matters.

  These and other refinements are only possible when meetings are held in a private office, where twenty-dollar bills can be rescued discreetly from the wastebasket and where lavatories are only a few steps from the deck. Other tactics need to be used when the meeting is of sufficient size and gravity to justify the more formal setting of the agency conference room. In this case, the senior person should always be the last to arrive, preferably still in conversation on a cordless phone or with a secretary in tow taking dictation on foot.