I have what could be the perfect client.
It’s a startup that’s getting great funding, has been set up well and has all the research to back up their offering. The CEO has run private equity funds and understands the market he’s launching into. He’s got a name and brand initially set up for the offering that I’m pushing back on and his answer?
“I have no stake in the name. I want to let the market and investors decide. You come up with a brand you believe in and if you can sell it, we’ll go with it…”
Ahhhh… Such sweet music…
There are times when the best decision is to give the decision to someone else. In thirty years of naming things and building brands, I’ve heard everything but rarely have I heard such wonder.
All to often, someone somewhere took an art class and they’re a brand expert, in addition to being the CFO.
I remember years ago when I used to do annual reports (that’s a special level of hell I managed to escape). I brought our comps in to show the CEO. The front cover was comped up beautifully, tight color images, elegant design solution, all mounted on sharp black presentation board. The CEO promptly took out a black felt pen and started marking everything up, including killing the cover design because his wife did the bathroom in that color and he hated that color.
Ack.
He could care less about his audience, his investors, his employees or anyone else. The only thing that mattered was his angst over his bathroom.
We as a creative community are charged with developing unique solutions for our clients. But we’re not really working for our clients… We’re working for THEIR clients and the whole transaction has to flow that way.
So I’ve got the perfect client. He doesn’t want to build the brand of his new company to fit his world, he wants to build it to fit his clients world.
The man is brilliant. Now it’s up to YOU to be the perfect client and be brilliant too.
