As I was digging through my book collection, I came across Liars Handbook with a charming list of lies advertising agencies dabble once in a while. This list was collected in 1985 by The Sydney Morning Herald through reader submissions.
And since there seems to a lie list for Creatives, Account Handlers and even Ad film directors…here goes agency lies.
- We are totally loyal to the client.
- This agency has never compromised creative standards and we’re not about to start now.
- We’ve never missed a deadline yet.
- It is a totally original concept. I’ve never even seen that copy of The Best of British Advertising.
- We always check the accuracy of the claims our clients ask us to make.
- We respect the intelligence of the consumer.
- Our ethical standards are the highest in the industry.
- We do a great deal of charity work which we prefer to keep confidential.
- We never do cigarette ads.
- That’s a special case, to do with long standing commitments too complicated to go into.
- We never take on a client if there’s any risk of conflict of interest.
- They’re not spelling mistakes, they are just typographical errors.
- The art director feels the apostrophe spoils the look of the headline.
- We conducted extensive and thorough research – we talked to a large number of consumers.
- The ad didn’t pull but it did a lot for the client’s image.
- Our audience ratings are down, but we all know about surveys, don’t we?
- We’re going to be late with the artwork, but wait until you see the treatment.
- Sure Andy’s a hopeless drunk, but he’s a brilliant creative director.
- They haven’t taken over our agency – we’ve merged.
- We didn’t sack Andrew, he resigned.
- This commercial cries out for atmosphere – we’ve got to shoot it in the Bahamas.
UPDATE: Okay enough of beating ourselves all the time…can someone make a list of ‘client lies’?
Leave a comment