(almost) always thinking

decoding the creds deck

27 April, 2012 at 9:45 pm Leave a comment

I’ve been unsuccessfully hunting for a new horse since January (my current one has been retired due to arthritis).  In the process I’ve discovered that there’s a lot of language in horse ads that needs decoding, for example would suit experienced rider means ‘the horse is a total nutcase’ and if you read spooks occasionally assume the horse in question treats every hack as a visit to the Scary Spooky Lane of Hell.

But agencies and their credentials documents are no better.  Integrated could as easily mean ‘the four of us aren’t very good at anything in particular’ as ‘we have a dozen shit hot specialists for any discipline you care to mention and they all work as one seamless team’.

Media Neutral could be taken to imply ‘best advice’ but may well really mean ‘we don’t care how stupid your marketing plan is, we’ll happily implement it for a fee’.

And as for the Special Unique Strategic Agency Process (which will probably be visualised as either a flow chart or some kind of wheel), in most cases the agency is really saying ‘We think we do thinking. We’d like to be paid for it please’.

Happy hunting, clients.

Entry filed under: advertising, agencies. Tags: blurb, credentials, creds, deck, jargon, presentation.