Imagine a world where you have to wander around blindfolded. Now ‘watch out’! There’s something out there to kill you. Sounds familiar? Sure, as that’s the plot for the popular Netflix movie Bird Box, where the protagonists have to wear a scarf around their eyes to protect themselves from a mysterious creatures that would kill the people if they caught sight of them. Now, you’re probably wondering what’s the link between the film and the advertising industry. Simple: Just imagine that the blindfolded people are creatives and the scary creatures are clients. What would their power be to simply ‘crush’ the designers? No feedback! A thing that challenges most of the artists that work in advertising agencies.
Now, let’s see an actual example of how this works: TBWA/Helsinki—which won Agency of the Year—was assigned to illustrate client satisfaction between marketing, advertising, and communications agencies in Finland for Agency of the Year. The campaign’s big goal is to prove to clients the importance of feedback and data when they cooperate in making a big project successful.
The Helsinki-based agency decided to create a survey behind the campaign, blindfolded. This way they illustrate the challenges of working without knowing what they are actually doing. Working with no feedback at all is like operating blind, according to the agency. So, the agency’s designers took it upon themselves and demonstrated what is like to be in such position. With not even a bird box to guide them! Each of the participants was wearing a scarf around their eyes, and once noone was able to see they went on to create ads.
As you might have expected, the results are pretty bizarre. “You can’t emphasize enough the importance of feedback and transparency between clients and agencies,” underlines TBWA’s designer Timo Klemola who was among the blindfolded creatives. The resulting ads are now being published in Finnish newspapers such as Fortum, Nokian Tyres, Vepsäläinen, Atria Wilhelm, Arla, and S-market. Do you think they would work? Let us know in the comments!
“We were honored to design the campaign for the Agency of the Year study. Being nominated as the agency of the year between marketing communications agencies was an honorable mention, but even more important was the data we got from the study. We naturally listen to our clients and follow the customer-satisfaction in many ways and that’s why we value the Agency of the Year survey’s data highly,” explains Sami Tikkanen, the CEO of TBWA\Helsinki.
One can’t make advertising, marketing, or branding without data and feedback. Otherwise, the results will most likely end up catastrophic. Providing feedback is at the core of communication and relationship between agencies and clients, so, the latter has to learn how to improve their way of communicating with their collaborators. You know what they say: Partners in crime is what they should be!
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