When Clients should listen.

When I started in the Advertising business, it was towards the end of the "Mad Men" era. Three martini lunches, taking clients out to expensive dinners and flying them to tropical getaways in order to maintain their business. Those days, for the most part, are long gone! Yes we still cater to our clients, but meetings happen more often in the office or a coffee shop than a hotel bar. Instant contact with smart phones and mobile devices mean that many meetings don't even happen in person. Since everyone's schedule is busy, meetings have to be more efficient and time conscious.

I addition, the Agency / Client relationship has changed. In the 60's through the late 80's the Agency was the expert on marketing and branding and the client was more inclined to do what the Agency proposed for their business, because, after all the Agency was the expert!

Now days the relationship is a little different. I have observed that as clients have become more educated, the paradigm has morphed. Clients now are more vocal, and many have hired marketing specialists, or they themselves majored in marketing in order work hand-in-hand with agencies to come up with solutions to better spend their advertising dollars.

I believe the change overall has been for the better. The relationship between client and agency has become more of a partnership, where each partner cares about the brand, marketing, design of the business and wants to make sure the best possible solution is the the one that makes it to the public.

There are occasions, however where the client still needs to defer to the agency (or design studio). I'm a Creative Director of a small design shop. I have also worked for two of the largest advertising agencies in the southwest. For over 20 years I've met and listened to many clients, given input to help them create advertising solutions to help sell and expand their business and developed long partnerships and in some cases life long friendships with them. The following are three areas I've discovered, where clients still need to listen to their agency:

1. Photography- There are two areas that need to be addressed in photography used in ads and web. The first is professional photography. Everyone has a camera these days and the camera companies have given us many automatic settings that allow us to take really good images. But, let me just say that having a good camera doesn't make you a good photographer. Professional photographers train to do what they do. They understand composition and they have worked with professional designers and know what the designer needs in a photo for an ad, brochure or poster. They understand lighting and they make sure that things in the background don't look like they're growing out of someone's head. Second, is they know how much PPI (pixels per inch) is needed when they shoot. This is incredibly important if the images are to be used in print instead of on the web or on video (see my previous blog on ppi, dpi and spi). Hire a professional photographer, it will make your life easier in the long run and your company will have a polished image that will better sell your product or service.

2. Design- whether its a logo, brochure or the side of a truck, graphic designers have the ability to cut through all the garbage out there to give your brand better message. Designers don't just put something on the page because it looks pretty, there is always a valid communications reason why something is designed the way it is. Just look around you, everything you see was designed by a designer, signs, rooms, streets, buildings and even automobiles, you hire them for their expertise, trust them to do their job.

3. Time- A wise man once told me you can have any two of these but you can't have all three, FAST, GOOD OR CHEAP. This is so true. If you do it fast, it may be cheaper but you lose quality. If the agency tells you it will take a certain amount of time to get you the quality you deserve, you should listen. They have a lot of combined experience in their field and know what they're talking about. After all, isn't that why you hired them in the first place?

Good agencies welcome the new working relationships that exist between between them and their clients. We love what we do and that's why we do it! We listen to you and learn about your business in order to produce the best possible message. On the other hand, It's still very important for you to know when it's time to listen to us.


© Copyright 2013 Michael Burke

NASA's new mission to Mars

I heard a caller to NPR this morning saying the mission to Mars was a waste of money to go and look at rocks. I guess that we are lucky that everyone in history has not felt that way about exploration. Crazy guys like Columbus, Lewis and Clark, John F. Kennedy and Neil Armstrong. I can certainly see his point, we are going to look at rocks, but we are there for so much more. What if we find something unexpected that's not found on our planet that helps cure cancer or HIV. Even if we don't find anything we didn't expect, just developing this project creates new technologies that are some of the the first of their kind on Mars, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking elemental composition of rocks from a distance., or a first-of-its kind automated flight-entry system to sharply reduce its speed.

I know a project like this costs money, but I believe that missions like this on to Mars and past missions to the Moon have benefits, some that we see and some we don't, that far outweigh the costs.

Doing for Others

I have 3 sons. Two of them are in their 20's and have grown up to fine young men. The third son just turned 3 years old.

As an older father, and having helped raise two sons, I have been looking for ways to improve my parenting skills and make sure the youngest son grows into a good man (fortunately I have a built focus group with the older two).

I will probably in future blogs discuss different ways that I will accomplish my goals, but the thing he and I decided to to this week is to help someone out every week for the whole year.

Today he asked my how come a man was standing on the street corner holding a sign. I explained that times were tough and he is asking for help. He then wanted to know why I didn't help him; I didn't have a ready answer for him.

You can't really explain to a 3 year old how some of the people out there are not honest, and you can't be sure if they really need the help, or if they are just running a con. But upon reflection, does it really matter if they are running a con or not? I'm trying to teach him compassion and generosity and the only way to do that is by example.

So this week we decided to help one of our neighbors pick up the trash from her yard. She is older and has trouble bending. It only took 15 minutes and she was grateful.

We won't limit ourselves to one a week, but we will at least try to give someone a hand once a week. Whether it's helping someone with a chore, donating clothing to a shelter, or giving someone a handout, if we feel safe in doing so, we are going to help.

My son is already a loving, caring young boy. I want him to stay that way and think of others before himself.

So next time we see someone on the corner we'll go ahead and give them a buck or two and then we will have helped someone who needed it, and even if they didn't really need it, my son will be learning to care about his fellow man.

Respect for the President of the United States, what happened?

When I was a kid my grandfather used to say, " you don't have to agree with the President's policy but he's our elected President and deserves our respect and our help. If the President needs me to sweep his floor, then its my responsibility to sweep my ass off!"

These days I can't help but wonder what has happened to our ability to respect the President. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and I said we, as Americans, are such a nation of team players and if you don't play for our team then you're on the opposite team. Our mentality seems to be that, our team has to win and the other team has to lose no matter what.

Our elected politicians seem to forget, America is the team we are all playing for! Democracy elected our President, and just case everyone in Washington has forgotten, that means the majority of the country hired the President to run our country. It doesn't' matter if you are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, he's the man hired to do the job and its your responsibility to help him accomplish the job he was hired to do.

As the saying goes, if you can't respect the man, respect the office.

I'm not sure when respect for the President started to go away. It could have been when Nixon lied to congress, it could have been the Clinton sex scandal or it could have been G.W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished".

Frankly I don't know and I don't care. The President of the United States of America deserves our RESPECT, SUPPORT AND OUR HELP to get his job done, whoever he is. If you don't like the way he does his job, fine, then elect someone different when his term is up. But until then give the man respect and help to accomplish what we hired him to do.

I've voted every since I was old enough,. I was told, if you don't vote, then you can't gripe. I take voting very seriously and its my responsibility as an American. Right now I have to say I'm pretty ashamed of the congress and politicians I helped elect to office.

Hopalong Cassidy said, " If you want to be respected, you must respect others. Show good manners in every way."

I think everyone in government would be better off following that rule!

Just my opinion...

© copyright 2011 Michael Burke 

Can Design be taught?

Wow can't believe its been a year since I updated. My apologies to everyone. Not only have I been running my business and teaching, I've been taking care of our now two year old son. Very rewarding, and very tiring! Anyway the blog has been one of the things that slipped through the cracks.

Okay, on to my subject!

Can anyone be a graphic designer?

I've noticed quite a few ads for design programs lately, schools I've never heard of, weekend seminars promising to teach you graphic design, offering to instruct you in how you can be a successful designer in a year (or a weekend). The question I've been hearing as long as I've been in this business is, can graphic design be taught?

I believe there are a several different kinds of graphic design students.

There are people out there with natural creative ability who want to learn the history and gain the technical ability to be a successful graphic designer, then there are the folks out there who's boss sent to a class on design so they can start designing the company newsletter. Finally their are those the company sent to learn graphic design so it can get design on the cheap.

Can design be taught?

As a teacher, my opinion is, design technique and mechanics can be taught to anyone. However, I believe that natural creative ability is 90% of what makes a successful designer. The artistic talent has to be there first in order to be a good designer.

I commend anyone for wanting to further their education, and I think that there is the right occupation for everyone. But, let's imagine graphic design as fine art for a minute, design is art that solves problems and communicates a products or services. Anyone can draw or paint, my two year old is coloring right now, but his drawing is likely not going to be in the Louver (at least not yet), not everyone is Andy Worhal or Charles Schultz.

Successful designers have talent and training to accomplish what they do. Not everyone can do it well.

So if you have talent and want to be a graphic designer, go for it I would love to see you in class. If you are doing the company newsletter and you need to learn basic design software, please do, it teaches you how to layout with the program and will get you by. But if your a business owner and you're trying to get cheap design by sending the janitor to a weekend design seminar, just remember you get what you pay for!

Great Graphic Designers are born not made!


© copyright 2011 Michael Burke