Ineffective marketing is the result of scared marketers

by: Bo McDonald

I recently read an article by Shareen Pathak called “Why Agency People Are So Unhappy.” As the owner of an agency, I felt compelled to read it and find out “why” employees of ad agencies are unhappy.

The answer was, fear. In the article Pathak shares the story of Uwe Hook, a 20 year ad agency veteran who left the industry earlier this year. “It’s not fun any more,” he said. “We all used to come up with innovative ideas, but now we don’t. The bravery in work has disappeared.” One culprit is the constant need for results. “Innovative work is cut immediately because you don’t know how it’s going to perform,” said Hook. “So you just repeat what you did last year. It wasn’t this way always.”

This week the YMC team will spend several days away from the office beginning to draft 2015 marketing plans for each of our clients. Every idea will be based on achieving maximum results, but fear will not be a part of the equation. Each of our clients expects innovative ideas that help them stand apart from the other financial institutions they compete with. Without the freedom to think beyond the norm, we could never deliver the results for our clients that we do.

continue reading »