How To Cope When Clients Don't Buy Your (Absolutely Amazing) Idea

"Philistines, the lot of them. They wouldn’t know a good idea if it bit them in the ass." Sound familiar? I expect so. When an idea you’re proud of is pitched to a client and gets rejected, it’s only human to place the blame elsewhere. And let’s face it, your idea was amazing.

As agencies, your raison d’être is brave, creative ideas. I’m not about to ask you to change. 

"Having pride in your idea is no bad thing. But it can be blinding."

But it’ll come as no surprise to hear that there’s more to a client picking your work. It seems somehow off-kilter when creativity – the absolute best kind, you understand – is rejected. Especially when scrolling the pages of the trade press months later, you see the winning work and think, ‘Really? This?’

The perfect place to start though is by looking at that work. It mightn’t float your boat – it probably won’t. But ask yourself is it right for the client?

Having pride in your idea is no bad thing. But it can be blinding. It’s my experience that agencies can become so dazzled by their own ideas that they fail to ask whether it’s something that’s right for the client. The success of a campaign can rely on client compatibility.  Creativity needs to be adaptable. 

The character of the brand you’re going for is the biggest help you’ll have. It should be your North Star throughout the whole thing. The creative impulse can quash this, but the questions being asked should be along the lines of whether a cautious idea is going to be better suited than a bold one. There’s a scale, of course. But regardless of which idea makes you come over all tingly, where on that scale would the client prefer the idea sat?

Clients can be sensitive – no, really. If you turn up with an idea that’s so jaw-grindingly audacious; one that contorts their brand thinking into something contrary to their 100-or-so-year history, you need to realise that it’ll come as a shock – one that potentially sends them running for the hills. The idea might be brilliant, but is it one they want?

On the flipside, it’s important to know the idea isn’t everything. If you turn up and deliver one so spellbinding the client signs on the dotted line – well congratulations, you’re a certified miracle worker. What is more likely is that they’ll see an idea that is a morsel of what they want you to go on and do. They want to see potential. They can see this in a campaign that’s 99.9% there. And they can see it in a single thing you say. So long as it shows a future they want.

Making that connection and ensuring you are heard requires good spokespeople, not multiple bodies in a room. Handpick those that are representative of your agency and how adaptable it can get – particularly in the context of the brief. Put your client’s cause first and think how you can best support this through team knowledge, insight and personal experience. The resulting campaign will no doubt be aimed at a diverse public, so think about how your idea can contain the requisite creative answers to that.

"It’s not about chucking people in a room like props to win business. If you do this – they’ll know it, and so will you."

The first indication a client will have of how much you’ve thought about a brief is in the team that walks through the door. If the company is known for its innovation and youth marketing, consider who is best suited on your team to talk to them about that. If it’s focussed on gender specific products, put forwards a team that can offer panoramic thinking. 

I will caution you here – it’s not about chucking people in a room like props to win business. If you do this – they’ll know it, and so will you. It’s about showing off the array of thinking and perspectives you have – that which they would expect to see at work every day on the account should you win it.

This article isn’t here to stop your creativity. Lord knows what the industry would be like if agencies just went along with whatever clients said. 

Image credit: Johan Swanepoel

But it’s good to think there can be a balance to you adapting to the client, and you upholding your agency’s grit. Being challenging can start small. Then once the client sees a challenging idea work, they’ll acclimatise to more. A strong, longstanding brand-agency relationship can be a conduit for greater creativity.

The idea the client will like the most is the one that works for them, not the one that you are in love with. 

This means your ideas (however amazing) might not be right all the time. Creativity is adaptable – that’s worth repeating. And that adaptation starts with you.