When Was The Last Time You Felt Proud To Share Your Interview, Oh! Last Evening..
After running Agency Reporter for 4 months, talking to a lot of agency folks, hundreds of well wishers and too many haters, I realise that the so called Agency Heads/Leaders/Founders who are protagonists of our interviews etc. are actually only happy seeing their pictures framed in a nice template with all flowery questions bestowed upon them including very carefully chosen words like excellence, passion, achievements, awards blah blah. They just love flaunting these cheese & mushroom, double mayonese sort of interviews on LinkedIn to prove themselves ‘Oh, I rightly deserved’. The moment someone tries to questions them about the not so green side, they just go AWOL.
Forget the protagonists, they will always attend to questions which are easy and which make them look heroes. What happened to the trade media? It seems too many (almost all) publishers are in a race to prove one single point, i.e. ‘the ass I licked, shines more, than the ass you licked’. Nobody cares to ask even slightly uncomfortable questions. I understand the need to be nice and even we at Agency Reporter do it sometimes but here it seems that in the process of licking and pleasing, trade media has forgotten to ask these heroic agencies and their representatives to prove mettle (awards prove shit). No one asks them questions like –
- are you honestly making a brand manager’s life easy?
- are you actually solving complex marketing problems?
- how are you making sure that the numbers with which you make brands happy, are genuine?
The thing I am trying to tell all agency leaders and representatives (at least the young ones, 35 something to be specific) is that you should answer tough questions outside board rooms and client meeting rooms as well. Answering difficult questions with honesty will make you a hero, at least in your eyes. You will feel proud to share it, like you have achieved something. After all, people are interested in reading what all you did that moved things around and not how yoga keeps you & your mind fit. Softy interviews makes you look like, well, softy.
Share as much as you want, hardly any one, except PR intern of your agency, reads them. Oops, that hurt..