Marketing Industry Crap

I had a discussion with someone this morning about how the "sell-in/upfront" of presentations has gone insane. Sure most of the ideas still try to put the end consumer in mind, but there is so much time and thought put into explaining the why of things to the client that I think their feedback often takes too much of that explanation into consideration.

They seem to forget that the agency will not be standing next to a billboard, ad, whatever, explaining to the consumer why the idea, copy, etc. makes sense and they should pay attention to it.

To the brand manager their product is the most important thing in the world. They have been trained to notice everything about their brand message. But the average consumer doesn't give a shit. Even if you are a product they really like, you are still just a product among hundreds that they buy and use.

I'd love to see the strategy and what is not the upfront become the appendix. Yes we can still explain why an idea is sound and give the client the information that we did our due diligence and homework. But lets keep them focused on the end result far more. Lets have them judge it in a more real world way.

Spend what was the upfront, making them get into the correct mental state of their target market, think of the surroundings this message will be viewed.

Then we can all see if the work does what it is supposed to.