Flavour

The fast food industry prioritises speed, convenience and price over flavour. This is fine, this makes money.

This is really easy to compete with though, if you're prepared to put the work in, for the right people. 

With flavour. Like the cafe I work near.

Coffee made from outstanding beans, brewed with love. Tea served in a warm pot. Food you can taste. 

It's just re-opened and customers are making a special effort to come back, spending more because they want them to survive.

Agencies and clients are a bit like this.

There will always be clients who want the equivalent of Starbucks. Lots of work that's been flattened. All the highs and lows taken out, precise, pre-planned. Just okay.

Then there are the others, less of them, who don't just want to throw money at the problems, or kill it with analytics. They want stuff that can instantly change minds, cut-through all the shit out there. Stuff that really works, rather than just ticks boxes.

Stuff with flavour.

We need more work with flavour right now. Popular culture, what we really compete with, has never been so rich and full. Not with rampant creativity alone, stuff that strikes a nerve, resonates with you, makes you think. 

Clients like this are harder to come by, they tend to be more demanding, but I tell you want, they're much better to work for. You feel you're making something something worthwhile, rather than something you can tick.

You have to work at these relationships, you have to care more, but it's more rewarding, short-term and long term. 

I venture these are the clients sticking with their agencies at the moment, where they can. 

When most, of course, are not.