Who's the Decider?

About a year ago, I was hired to name a new product. It was a fantasy project. The product was not only innovative, but entirely ground-breaking from an environmental perspective. I plunged into the job, learning everything I could about the industry, the competition, every technical aspect of the technology involved.

I developed a presentation that outlined all of the thinking that went into my final name choices. I presented them all, noting which I one I recommended most and why. The key to success, I was told by the marketing team who brought me in, was swaying the product developer, a marketing skeptic who loved to chew up agency types and spit them out.

After my presentation, I looked to The Skeptic. He rubbed his chin, seemed nonplussed. After an interminable silence, he finally spoke. "I'm warming to it," he said. By the end of the meeting, he was excited, animated, riffing on all the ways the name could be used. It was a huge success. I was on top of the world.

And then it all died.

Getting past the product developer, I was now told, was only the first hoop. The real key was getting past Person X, who served as gatekeeper to the CEO. Person X didn't like my name.

"Can we get the name in front of the CEO directly?" I asked. No, it has to go through X. "Okay," I said. "But can I at least talk to the CEO, since he's the ultimate decision-maker?" No, only X can talk to the CEO. "Can I meet X then, so I know what he's looking for?" No, only we can talk to X.

As you can imagine, the process quickly descended into chaos. Gone were the well-thought-out ideas and slick presentations. Names were just words, and words were commodities. "We need 15 more names by the end of the day" became an almost daily request. Alas, a name was finally chosen, and it wasn't one of mine. By the end, the entire company was involved, so it could have come from Marty in Accounting.

I see this situation often, and I always feel for the marketers. They're trying to do their job, but they often serve as little more than gatekeepers, or gatekeepers to other gatekeepers. One day they're trusted implicitly; the next day, they're told not to even decide on the trade show booth carpeting without 10 approvals.

But from the creative perspective, there's simply no substitute for direct access to the ultimate decision-maker. As much as you'd like to think that you're developing ideas for the real audience (the consumer), the hard reality is that if the person writing the check doesn't like it, you're not going to get anywhere.