No Name And Shame

Just finished reading the updated edition of The Art of Client Service by Robert Solomon who was CEO of Rapp Collins, New York as well being at Ammirati Puris Lintas, FCB and Bronner. Its subtitle is “58 things every advertising and marketing professional should know”. Obviously, I was interested because it deals with client services in agencies.

The 58 things are definitely principles an agency account handler needs to know and therefore I would recommend it on that basis. However I recognised the dilemma which I struggle with here in the blog and also struggled with in Agency Account Handling – namely the anonymising (if that is a word) of examples to allow discretion. Solomon comes up with some very good ideas but he has depersonalised all the names of clients and situations to avoid any insensitivity towards former clients. Consequently it is less of an engaging read.

Similarly my questioners want their and their clients’ anonymity so I am not sure how to overcome this. My hope is that by using the Q&A format in the blog which picks up real-life situations and couches thoughts in a realtime, contemporary context, that this may counterbalance the obvious downside of not naming names. Pity though, sometimes naming names can be very cathartic – but to do so I think comes under that category of “career limiting moves”.