I like to believe most client–agency relationships start with good intent. You reach out looking for help. We listen. We all agree on the next steps, then we go do the work that proves we heard you and we have a shared vision for your brand to move forward.
I was chatting with a client this week about some tagline options, and it got me thinking … most taglines try too hard to sound important without saying anything at all. My position is simple: a tagline should be a signature sign-off. A brand line. A clear statement of what you do or believe. It should feel like something you’d stamp on the bottom of everything you That is exactly what our team did over the past two weeks. We built a complete campaign for a brand that felt like a strong fit. Strategy, media mix, creative platforms, design routes, and an eighteen-month plan that stitched everything together.
But we never got a chance to show our work. This is what happened …
The first discovery call went well. We had an honest conversation about goals and constraints. Then came a detail that should have made us pause.
“We started with twenty agencies and narrowed it down to five or six.”
If you have ever run an RFP, you know the difference between five and six matters. You should know the number. You should also know that five or six still asks every team to invest with less than a one-in-five chance. We accepted the risk because the budget range seemed workable and the mission was something we could get behind.
The team spent two weeks going through every single detail of the plan, mapping out a strategy that could be turned on the next day and be in market the next afternoon. It was that detailed.
We kept emailing to schedule the presentation. No response. Then this arrived today:
Subject: Thank you
[Name Redacted],
Thank you again for taking the time to put together your proposal and share your ideas with us. We truly appreciate the thought and effort the entire [Agency Redacted] team brought to the table.
After careful consideration, we’ve decided to move forward with a different agency for this campaign. This wasn’t an easy decision for us. Your creativity and perspective were made clear, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to learn more about your expertise.
We’ll be cheering you on from afar and hope we can cross paths again in the future should another opportunity arise.
All the best, [Name Redacted]
It praises work they never saw. We never presented. That disconnect stings because it reduces expert labor to a checkbox. It also wastes time on both sides. When the pitch becomes the project, but the presentation step never happens, no one learns anything useful, and the trust you need for real work evaporates.
It was probably AI generated, but that’s not the point. Even with AI, the end user should be able to [checks notes] remember if we actually showed them our “creativity and perspective” and the “thoughtful effort.” I have a deck that hasn’t been presented that would disagree with your blanket rejection.
Respect People’s Time and Experience
We run a business, and like any focused company, we invest our time and money with care.
We decided to put our best people on this because we believed we could help shape a real movement and deliver results. To be declined before we could walk through the thinking is disappointing.
It is also instructive.
Here is what I took from this experience.
A selection process should be tight and transparent. Define the number of finalists. Share criteria and decision makers. Put a presentation on the calendar with the people who will sign. If you want heavy strategy and a media plan, fund a short discovery or offer a stipend. You will get better work and you will move faster. You will also show respect for the craft you claim to value.
Free strategy is rarely free (except for prospective clients who never intended to see the work). It costs agencies hours, opportunity, and focus. It costs clients clarity because work built without access to data and stakeholders is guesswork with polish. Pretty decks do not replace shared understanding. In this case, we should have known better.
Great Work. No Audience.
So what do we do with the deck we built? We hold it. If the door reopens with clear criteria, the right people in the room, and a path that covers strategic lift, we will present.
Basically, if their competition rings our doorbell, we will be ready. If not, we will archive the work, reuse the thinking where it fits, and keep moving. That is not bitterness (although it feels like it), but rather stewardship of a team that showed up and did the work.
If you are a client who wants strong partners, run a better process, with fewer finalists, clear criteria, and respectful and real timelines. More importantly, the key decision makers are present. Pay for discovery when you need depth. Give direct feedback and not AI-generated rejection letters. This is how you build trust before the contract and how you turn your selection process into a partnership.
Did we know this was a possibility? Yes, there were a few red flags we ignored. That’s on us.
But with my history in the agency world, the agency that takes the moral high ground in these situations and walks away early on is always replaced by someone who won’t mind the narrow odds or the chance that the client is just shopping for ideas.
We would have loved to present our work. We believe it is strong and would have helped define the movement they described. The rejection decision arrived before that important step. That sucks. But it also sharpens the standard we hold for how we engage, how we scope, and how we protect the team’s time.
I am curious how you would handle this. Do you present the full deck anyway to close the loop. Do you hold it and move on? Do you ask for a reset with clear criteria, decision makers, and an explanation of their process? If you have sat on either side of this table, your experience helps the whole industry get better.
