Lee Clow’s Beard

Musings on advertising and facial topiary. Usually daily. Often dandruff-free. • The book: • The story:

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

You cannot become the person or agency you wish to be by doing the type of work you wished you never had to do.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

Branding is the art of making a transaction only part of the transaction.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

If an ad agency’s job was to provide options, we’d all be wildly successful.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

The best practices in advertising are all philosophical.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

Clients are full of surprises. Sometimes they actually love what the agency’s self-appointed brand police swore they would hate.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

Some clients see greatness and complain it isn’t exactly what they never told you they wanted. Which undoubtedly wasn’t that good anyway.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

That advertising’s main job is not to inform is still new information to way too many people in advertising.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

Treat creativity like a commodity and you’ll end up with a surplus of value-priced mediocrity.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

A unique product saddled with a generic voice is still just another wallpaper brand.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

Potential clients claiming to want great work should have no hesitation explaining how they treated the last people they hired to create it.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

Clients who think problem/solution ads are “too negative” are themselves a problem with only one solution.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

Great advertising is 100% about the product and 100% about the audience. The math may be funny, but it’s still fundamental.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

“Now we don’t have to hire people who make us look and sound smart” is most often said by brands who never did.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

Flee the agency that values your efficiency over the work’s efficacy. Unless that’s the only type of agency you ever want to work for.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

Too many agencies have chosen to sell tactics as hedges against what could happen instead of creating work that helps brands make something happen.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

No project management platform yet devised can hold a candle to one good traffic person.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

When you present your solutions as suggestions, you’re asking clients to believe in something you apparently do not.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

A lot of agencies claim to “drive sales overnight while building brands over time,” but the great ones know building the brand at every chance leads to sales over the long haul.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

The point of cultivating a brand’s look and feel is so it always looks distinct and feels relevant. Yet another obvious truth rarely heeded.

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

Craft is not a nice-to-have. It is not something to worry about later. It is never an accidental bonus.

Craft must be trained, honed, rewarded, and insisted upon.

Craft is what separates a “what if” from an “oh wow.”

[Lee Clow’s Beard @leeclowsbeard]

When a marketer says “that sounds good,” it’s often because it sounds familiar. The alleged goodness comes from comfort, not contrast. So it may be great at getting approved, but terrible at grabbing attention.