COMPANIES DESERVE THE AGENCIES THEY SELECT.

Several weeks before I sat down to write this article my wife and I had a party. After the evening was over and the last of the guests had made their good-bys, we found ourselves talking about one of the couples. We'll call them George and Alice.

"It's amazing," my wife said, "how aggressive that woman was. She hardly let George have three words the whole evening, Of course, George bugged me, too, because he just minced around. You know, they really deserve each other."

My cars picked up. Just that day I'd been having an after-hours drink with a copywriter friend at one of the better shops in town. He was telling me how there was one particular account he loved to work on. The company made computer disc drives.

"I'm not big on disc drives," he told me. "In fact, I hardly even understand them. But I keep on doing these great disc drive ads. The company runs 'em without changing a word. The ads work, and they even win awards."

I was intrigued. My friend had practically no technical background. Yet, he was not only turning out good technical ads...he was enjoying it! Why?

"These fellows really look to us for good advertising," my friend explained. "They see us as a creative shop...and we are. The agency has a creative philosophy, and what's more, the account exec is not above fighting for it. I think the client trusts us because of that. It makes for a stimulating relationship and a challenging work situation.

This was the conversation that came back to me later when I was reminiscing with my wife. "There is some kind of selection process," I observed, "that operates when a client and an agency find each other. And it's the same process that leads to a George and Alice exchanging vows.

"You can be sure that when the two love birds were courting, George wasn't the brow beaten wretch he turned out to be, nor was Alice the tyrant. If either "ego" had surfaced early, the relationship would have lost all its appeal, and the marriage never taken place.

"Yet, by a strange quirk of fate, each of them got exactly what he or she was looking for. Alice emerged as the czarina, and George plops along as the servant; complaining but secretly comfortable.

The truth of the matter is that companies, as, well as individuals, tend to find exactly what they're looking for. It's uncanny.

The truth eventually surfaces. Let me give you some specifies. I was once a writer on an account that manufactured heavy equipment. We were all excited about winning the account because the advertising manager had been making sweeping pronouncements about the importance of creativity. When we heard we got it, our whole creative department went out and celebrated.

It was a bit premature. It wasn't long before our best creative efforts were coming back with failing grades. Too radical. Too chic. Too this. Too that. The first campaign that the ad manager did accept was full of compromises and tired ideas.

So why didn't we fight back? Because our account executive was as timid and afraid of the ad manager. Each paid lip service to the tenets of good advertising, but when it came to going out on a limb, neither one would do it. They were a perfect match for each other. And our agency management made no effort to put a stop to that nonsense.

The story didn't end here, because it was not long before the agency began mysteriously attracting other second-rate clients not a surprising development since we no longer "deserved clients with standards we didn't have ourselves. In such ways does an agency lose its magic.

The point is, it takes two to make a relationship. Bad advertising (and good advertising, too) is always a conspiracy between the agency that creates it and the client that accepts it.

Games people play. Back in the 1960's a best seller called Games People Play gave the public a first look at a theory of personality and social interaction, called transactional analysis, that focuses on the communications...or "transactions"... that take place between two or more persons. Briefly, it states that all of us have three ego states that control our day-to-day dealings with people: the Child, the Parent, and the Adult. These ego states are developed by each of us as we grow up, and continue to direct our actions throughout our lives.

The most effective ego state for dealing with problems is the Adult. To make an adult decision is to analyze the facts, weigh the consequences, and act accordingly. It is essentially "game-free." The best advertising is produced under such clear and rational conditions.

Games emerge when hidden agendas are introduced, and they are usually played between the Child of one person and the Parent of the other. I'll give you an example. One of my early jobs was as assistant ad manager for a company that manufactured telecommunications equipment. And early in my tenure there, I was given the job of producing a brochure on a particular piece of equipment. I really slaved over the copy, and when I was sure I'd done the best job I could, I submitted it to the product manager.

I was shocked. He blue penciled things that made no sense to me. It seemed as if he were arbitrary and nonobjective. The Child in me got sulky, and I debated walking off the job as part of an "I'll show them!" scenario.

Luckily, my boss was wise. "Charlie always has to change something," he told me. "Don't worry about it. I'll show you how to do better the next time."

The next time came soon enough.

"Here's what you do," said the ad manager, looking over some new copy I'd written. "Make some mistakes on purpose, small mistakes, a few misspellings, and then hand him the copy." I did as I was told, handed the copy to the product head, and in due course received the copy back with the mistakes corrected in blue, and nothing else changed. I was amazed.

The product manager was playing a game called "Schoolmaster." It is a common game in advertising. It suggests that he is the schoolmaster (Parent), I am the student (Child), and that he must demonstrate his authority over me, even at the expense of good ad copy.

As a service business, advertising is riddled with such games, and every one of them gets in the way. I sat down the other day to list some of the games I've seen which jam the ad-making machinery. Some of them may sound familiar.

HOLD MY HAND. Also called "Don't Leave Me," this game is played by an insecure ad manager (Child) who wants the agency (Parent) around five times a week, even though there's little to do. Advertising copy is worked to death. Layouts are senselessly revised. Lunches are interminably long; anything to keep the agency guy around. Not only is little accomplished, but unless the client is running spreads in Business Week, Time, and Fortune, the agency ends up losing its shirt.

DO ME AN APPLE COMPUTER AD. This is an oldie. It is designed to demonstrate that the ad manager knows and recognizes good advertising ("Father knows best"). Luckily, he was never ad manager for Apple, or the Apple campaign would never have gotten off the ground.

GIMME MORE. The purpose of this game is to keep the agency off balance by implying that there's always something else they could have done. Compliments or thank-yous are unheard of. By playing this game, the ad manager can (hopefully) get the agency to try twice as hard and not argue when he wants to knock 30% off the bill for the AA's that he made. On the agency side the game is frequently played by a compulsive account exec who spent his childhood trying unsuccessfully to gain acceptance from his parents. In "Gimme More" the agency tries so hard to second guess the client that it loses touch with its own knowledge of what's good.

UPROAR. This usually takes place when someone discovers an error or a missed deadline. Ostensibly, it is designed to show that the ad manager is being conscientious, when really it is a bit of grandstanding to get himself off the hook. (Rule: the more you have to lose, the louder you yell.) Transactionally speaking, the ad manager is trying to please his boss (Parent)...while playing Parent to his agency. There's little chance of producing any decent advertising in the midst of this mish-moshmosh.

YES, YOUR WORSHIP. This is the classic agency game. The client says, "Jump," and the agency answers, "How high?" On the surface, it is designed to indicate how willing the agency (Child) is to serve the client's (Parent's) every wish. Often, however, the real issue is that the agency doesn't have anything original to offer, and feels it has to make up for it by yessing the client to death.

IF IT WASN'T FOR HIM. The full sentence is, "If it wasn't for him, we'd be doing the greatest advertising in the world." It hides the agency's basic lack of talent by blaming the client (Parent) for supposedly killing great ideas. Again, the bigger the blaming, the smaller the talent.

I'M HERE NOW. This is the complement to "Hold My Hand". The agency man, warm and loving, brings succor and solace to a client who needs it. The hidden agenda is to keep a weak client dependent on the ministrations of the account exec who props him up any way he knows how. Here the account exec is the mother; the client is the needy child.

You can probably think of dozens more. But the upshot of every game is that the work suffers. Always.

How to "deserve" good advertising. The antidote is not always simple, but I'd like to pass along some suggestions from my own experiences that seem to work. They all have to do with being honest and open about what's going on, and avoiding those anxiety-producing situations that create games.

First, check out the "chemistry" between client and agency. I mean that if there's a gross mismatch in personalities, or if one person secretly doesn't like another, the advertising may be taking a secondary role. Most people won't stay in a situation they don't like. But sometimes they do, and it most generally has to do with money or job security.

Don't keep the agency guessing. An uncommunicative situation is like a dark room -- the agency tends to project all its worst fears into it. If there are things you don't like about the agency's work, be honest. Let them know. Presumably, they're big boys (or girls) and can take it. Besides, the truth is always less scary than what you imagine the truth to be.

By the same token, if there are things you like, don't forget to mention them, too. Problems have to be balanced off by some nice words now and again. Otherwise, the relationship can become threatening for the agency, even though you're completely satisfied with their performance.

When you criticize an agency's work, always (if you can) start out by talking about what you like, and then move to what you don't like. Those first words are powerful because they establish a positive frame of reference. I have had clients compliment me on something I've written, and then proceed to blue pencil my masterpiece to death. And I have gladly gone back and rewritten the piece to their liking, because I felt they cared.

Change yourself first. If you want better work from your agency, make sure your own standards are high. One of the best ways to quickly upgrade your advertising is to hire an advertising manager with good taste who has proven himself at another company. It is always hard, if not impossible, to get the other person in a relationship to change. So if you want the relationship to improve, then first improve yourself, and let the agency do what it needs to do. You'll find out soon enough whether the relationship will sink or swim.

Keep your channels of communication open with the agency. If you are a supervisor, don't be visible only when there are problems. If you do, your presence will take on a most forbidding character.

Most of all, develop some sensitivity about how you come off as a person. Do you lock yourself into a Parent role? Then you're looking for people to cast themselves as Children. Remember, the best work comes when two Adults sit down to business.

The truth of the matter is that companies, as well as individuals, really do deserve each other. So if you're not getting everything you hoped for in a client-agency relationship, maybe it's time to investigate whether what you say you want as opposed to what you really want, are not entirely different matters.