'To the marketing agency, Robin!'

"Help, help! We need more help to put out this fire!" "Don't worry, I'm here." "Great!" 

You lend a hand, doing the best you can to quench the intense flames. Then, the person who pleaded for your assistance, getting word from somebody trapped inside the fire, informs you, your face frizzled, dripping with sweat all over, physically and mentally exhausted, that you're not putting out the fire properly. "What?! Do it yourself, so."

Marketing agencies: Modern-day slavery of sorts? (Image from web.)

'Can't someone else do it?'

That, more or less, sums up the world of the marketing agency. In the analogy, the person caught inside the fire is the client. The one asking for your help, the marketing executive at the agency, usually just as frustrated as you are.

For such an integral part of a company's day-to-day business — how it portrays itself to the public, to both its actual and potential customers — that the powers that be see fit to outsource marketing to third parties is a head-scratcher for me. A case of, so it seems, 'we don't know how to sell ourselves, so we'll get a group of relative strangers to do it for us, people not directly part of our organisation.'

'Never mind a revolving door, there might as well not be a door at all.'

If I'm going to be selling someone else's product or service, I at least need to feel that I am part of it in some way. My topsy-turvy experience in a marketing agency is of largely demotivated, weary staff, particularly those doing the donkey work such as copywriting, design and graphics.

The turnover rate at the team I had been part of where, after over a year, only 10 of the original 40-plus team remain, is a representation of that. Never mind a revolving door, there might as well not be a door at all. Of course, there are a number of factors at play, some of which aren't exclusive to marketing agencies.

For one, here in Colombia, there seems to be a general top-down belief across all sectors of the economy that being at work trumps actually doing work. Clock in the hours, bums on seats, ensure the office or whatever has the appearance of work about it. Wonderful. One important result of this: inefficiency. Another not-insignificant one is increased energy costs for the company when you have staff just counting down the hours.

Then there's the client. Word has it that not all are the same. Some are actually fairly organised, have a clear vision of what they want, plan accordingly and are thus relatively pleasant to work with. That is to say, not all come across as dysfunctional.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the company to which I've had to devote the lion's share of my time in this gig, Avianca. Just my luck that I, um, jumped on board with a crowd that appears particularly chaotic when it comes to its marketing.

'Agencies shouldn't yield so willingly to a client's unreasonable demands.'

After a few rather turbulent years (yes, I meant that), things might be looking a little smoother for the airline these days as it celebrated 100 years in operation in December. The arrival of Dutch 'saviour' Anko van der Werff in July 2019 was seen in some quarters as the start of a brighter future.

We'll certainly give him time to put a bit of order on things, to see that "northern European efficiency" click into gear. (That quote is taken from an interview I had with Mr van der Werff. It will be our next podcast episode. He definitely talks a good talk anyway.)

Yes-man agencies

Now, not all the blame can be laid at the door of Avianca's marketing guys for the way it operates. Management at the agency shouldn't be so yielding to their every confused, disorderly demand. Give an inch and all that. Yet, the client must be kept onside at all costs, that's the agency mantra. If not, there's always another waiting in the wings. They're all undercutting each other in a race to the bottom.

That's not to say a race to the bottom in terms of quality from the agencies, it's more one where wages are paltry and work demands excessive. For those at the coalface, this usually translates into burnout and stress with relatively little in return.

When it's your own baby so to put it, then you tend to be more inclined to go that extra mile. Doing somebody else's dirty work, right in the thick of it, removed from the very receiver of your done-in-good-faith deeds, doesn't fill one with much enthusiasm.

Put out your own fire, guys.
__________________________________
Listen to The Colombia Cast podcast here.
Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan - The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

"I is the expert."

An old friend once told me that in the world of gambling on horses, it's best to be in one of two camps: The first is to know a lot about it, where you make an informed, "backed-up-by-facts" decision on your selection. The other is knowing nothing or practically nothing about the subject.

"It's fine, I checked it all on Google Translate."

Obviously enough, in a pursuit where there's an amount of chance at play, neither position is a guarantee for success. 

Nonetheless, in the event of failure, the expert can go back to the drawing board, study harder to be better prepared for next time, assured (as much as one can in this particular game) that his/her superior know-how will help him/her come good.

For the very occasional backer of horses, the one who has no intentions of moving past the novice stage, the just-for-fun flutter that didn't work, it's not a problem. It's a very minor part of such a person's life.

Malign middle ground

It's those in the middle who aren't at expert level, and perhaps never will be, but yet have enough knowledge so as to sound as if they know what they're talking about, to the point that they convince themselves they are right, this is the problem group.

People in this category, unlike the expert, aren't savvy enough to realise where they've gone wrong and, in contrast to the novice, they'll continue throwing good money after bad.

"Sometimes they get too ballsy." 

We can easily apply this three-level concept to the world of language learning. In fact, it could be said it's a great fit for it. 

The experts, generally speaking, are the natives or the non-natives who have acquired an almost-native level. Of course, language is much more than just knowing all the mechanics of it, it's a culture.

It's one thing to know a language that you weren't brought up on very well (and many non-natives who get to this level will understand the rules of the language better than most natives); it's quite another to speak it so you seamlessly fit in with the native-speaking group in question.

Even among speakers of the same language, this can be challenging. For example, look at Chilean Spanish versus Colombian Spanish or Indian English versus Irish English.

On the opposite side, we have the novices, the beginners. In the same way with the horse racing example, if the expert tells beginners to go for X, it's highly unlikely they'll question it. They'll bow to the pro's better judgement. Most of the time they'd be right to do so. Most of the time.

"Google translate trumps the native speaker."

Then there are the intermediate-level learners. They won't always take what the expert tells them as gospel. On occasions, they might be right to do so; their doubts prove well-founded. Nobody gets it right all the time.

However, sometimes they get a little too ballsy, they think they know best, to heck with the experts. This, more often than not, leads to silly mistakes.

Now, in the classroom sphere, that's OK. Live and learn — one is in the classroom to learn, after all.

In the professional world, it plays out a little differently.

All-encompassing experts 

Take the case of a Colombian company (it may be its national airline), dominated, naturally enough, by Spanish-speaking folk. 

From a marketing perspective, it would appear that those calling the shots have an OK level of English, as many high-up people in such big companies do. Perhaps like my Spanish, fine but far from perfect.

As an airline that flies around the world, it not only advertises in Spanish but in English as well, with this advertising being an outsourced job (the vast majority of its advertising is). The final say on what goes public, though, and rightly so really, comes from management.

This is when know-it-all intermediate-level English speakers wielding power are dangerous. They want it their way, in their English (well, with the help of a poor translation from Google Translate).

Fair enough, changing an adjective here or a turn of phrase there isn't a big deal. Yet, when it's grammatically incorrect or confusingly written, and not in a smart way (think of Apple's "think different"), then it's just wrong.

But hey, they know best. "Thems are the experts."

The thing is, being an expert in one field doesn't make you an expert in all. Too much time spent on that high horse can damage the brain.
______________________________________
Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan - The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".