My first client was General Mills (Total cereal and Yoplait). GM had been a client of my agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample (the largest agency in New York at the time) for over thirty years and the relationship was deep and sweet. It was based on mutual respect and the goal of producing great creative to drive sales. It was a fabulous starter client, but I soon realized that all of the clients that I would work for in the next 25+ years were not going to be as professional. Most were, but not all.

My old agency Citrus once had a very profitable casino client who’s marketing director was soooo stressed out and f&cking mean that she had made an AE cry. After determining that this was not a win-win situation, we fired the client. A few years later we readmitted her and the casino to our account list. Time had passed and they needed our expertise and frankly, we liked their budgets. We also hired a brilliant ‘lion-tamer’ AE that actually wound up building a great relationship.

Then the client left and an even more major asshole became the marketing director. (What’s up with casino clients? I’ve heard casino client horror stories before.) The President of the casino thought that this guy ‘got it’ as he had run the floor of a major Las Vegas casino. Guess what… he didn’t have a clue and he was very insecure.

Things got so bad before we again parted ways, that I wrote the following white paper to:

1) Tell my clients that nice, professional clients actually get more time, personal attention and hard work from their agencies;

2) That being nice and decent and professional is a good thing and,

3) I had to blow off steam — nicely. I figured, why not turn this problem into a learning experience. Here’s the 2009 white paper based on my best ad agency client relationships during my 16 years at Saatchi & Saatchi and owning my own agency. Why not share it with your clients? Subtly.

“I Heart My Ad Agency. Or, How To Create Nice Clients.”

Building a Strong client-agency relationship for Better Work— and Better results. Lets start with a good quote.

“There are no bad advertising agencies, only bad agency-client relationships.”

Kenneth G. Romanzi, Domestic Chief Operating Officer, Ocean Spray Cranberries [Read more…] about How To Create Nice Ad Agency Clients