Love-Hate relationship between the ‘Creative’ and ‘Servicing’ in an ad agency

As the famous saying goes “Women- you can’t live with ‘em, you can’t live without ‘em”. Don’t jump to the conclusion that I am a Male Chauvinist. It’s just that I want to draw an analogy with the advertising world. Creatives and Client Servicing can’t stand each other but they can’t help it. Because without the other, neither of them can do anything. There is a Love-Hate relationship between the two. The occasions when the creative and servicing has agreed are far and few.

But without the servicing guys, the creative won’t have the client to work for and without the creatives, the servicing won’t have any one to do the creatives for. An advertising agency should be creative because that is what advertising is for. Creativity should, therefore, ideally take precedence over other things. Alas ‘ideal’ things never happen. In an ultra competitive environment where the client calls the shots and has all the bargaining power over agencies, except for the top 3-5 agencies, the client has to be taken care of. Thus it becomes a tight rope walk for the servicing guys. Neither can they offend the creatives nor can they say ‘no’ to the client for a particular rendition of the creative. And this is where the love-hate relationship blossoms (with a tinge of sarcasm).

Creatives complain that the servicing guys do not know how to sell the creative to the client. Servicing guys say that the creatives are not able to give what the client wants according to the brief. Let’s make an attempt to understand both the sides. Advertising is a service which is offered to the client. To be more precise, a ‘creative’ service. Advertising helps to promote the product of the client in a creative manner which the client himself cannot do. Thus it is outsourced to a specialist which is the ‘advertising agency’.

The process starts first with understand the needs/ wants of the client. Servicing does that for the agency. The process is then continued with the creative rendition by the creatives which is facilitated by the ‘creative brief’ by the servicing. The marketing brief of the client is transferred into the creative brief. Thus the end product does not just have to be creative but also in sync with the marketing objective of the client. The creatives have to be made aware that we are not in an art competition where the best creativity is praised. The creativity has to result in sales for the client or brand building. If the creative isn’t in sync with the objectives, how can the servicing sell it? On the contrary, the servicing guys too need to be able to convince the client that the creative rendition is the apt for the set objective.

This however is a very subjective issue and varies with each client, each servicing guy and each creative. Thus the love-hate relationship will continue to be there.