Ad Agency personnel who don't want to receive ads...

I work in advertising, specifically production of television commercials for ad agencies and their clients.

One of advertising's dirty little secrets (or uncomfortable truths) is the fact that many advertising agency personnel (creatives and production) do not like to receive solicitations from those of us a little further down in the food chain. This, of course, despite the fact they work in the ADVERTISING business. And that the account they work on was invariably the result of a business development person at the agency soliciting business or, to be more precise, advertising their services to a client.

So I was more than a little perturbed when I saw this from an agency producer on Wheresspot, an advertising email list:

"To all of you sending unsolicited emails regarding your services for hire: As much as your company may be a potential resource, please do not send unsolicited emails off list. It is not fair to vendors that do pay for classifieds and actually does you a disservice by creating a negative impression. I love to learn about new vendors, but not via unsolicited emails... Thank you."

In other words, don't bother me.

Now I have to admit I'm more than a little uncomfortable with this evolving paradigm that somehow allows agency business development folks to solicit--how else do they get THEIR clients?--while the agency creatives and producers seek to immunize themselves from vendors. For me this is both naive and perhaps more than a little arrogant.

Let's be clear: not every solicitation is inappropriate or gratuitous. Some contain information of a product or service that is germane. And if it isn't how hard is it to hang up, throw out the mail or hit the delete button?

Sales are the life blood of any business. Sure there are some vendors who do it better than others and some folks are less restrained than others but agency personnel can't have it both ways.

I do know agency producers are generally innundated with vendors (director, post and efx houses, music shops etc) and perhaps they feel overwhelmed but that is part of their job. Most experienced and thoughtful producers deal with it by throwing out the gratuitous reel or deleting the offending email.

But not all producers. To paraphrase TS Eliot, all the world's problems are created by those who think they are important. Some agency producers have inflated views of themselves, acting as barbarians at the gate, holding court and allowing some vendors access while denying others. Some of these folks are the by-products of the production purges that took place on the agency side during the late 1980s and 1990s when agencies weaned themselves of savvy, experienced and higher paid producers and replaced them with glorified secretaries or assistant producers.

Others argue they are too busy. Or they pretend to be busy. As a producer on the production company side, I have often had to do my job AND either assist or actually perform the agency producer job because the agency producer on the jobs was either incompetent or overwhelmed. In my view, an overwhelmed producer is someone who just doesn't know what they are doing. And now these "producers" are training the next generation of agency personnel. Oh boy!

So what is a vendor to do? What do agency produces and creatives respond to?

In the old days (think 1980s) before voice mail, security guards, overworked agency personnel and email firewalls it was possible to walk the halls of ad agencies to accost creatives or contact a producer by phone all with the intent of setting up a screening or arranging a meal (or drinks) to introduce a new company. It was the responsibility of the agency producer to know that current resources or new vendors would benefit their creatives and clients in a constantly evolving and competitive advertising landscape. They understood this.

Not today. Now that is virtually impossible. Agency personnel are either over worked or overwhelmed. Job titles and responsibilities have shifted. No one has time for meals or drinks these days. As one vendor noted, "There is just very little chance to introduce new talent to agency creatives. Everyone is overworked and does not have the time for screenings. Sure you can spend a lot of money advertising or doing PR but it seems that AD people are immune to those methods. So how do we work in this new landscape? How does a producer CD, AD, CW want to be approached with talent?"

There is no easy answer. As my friend Perry Schaffer noted, "Bottom line: repping - like every other job in this business - not for the meek or faint hearted!"

But the irony (and hypocrisy) of those in advertising agencies seeking to opt out of being advertised to is just a little bit too much to ignore. Shame on them.