CLOSE-UP: ON THE CAMPAIGN COUCH ... WITH JB.(Jeremy Bullmore answers questions)

Q: I have to deal with several layers of clients, who are very decent people. However, it is difficult to get buy-in from them all, as they don't agree with each other (and mostly don't even like each other). Plus they are rarely in the same room at the same time. We know that disregarding the junior members of the team is foolish but the senior person is, not surprisingly, the decision-maker and usually right. What should we do?

A: How is it, I wonder, that all these decent people don't like each other much? Decent people usually rub along pretty well with other people, particularly if they're also decent. However, I'll take your word for it - and indeed hope you're right because your clients' distaste for each other offers you your best chance to cope with this most ancient of agency predicaments.

It requires, I'm sorry to have to tell you, an element of deceit. But since the outcome will be better work, I hope that both you and the Almighty will be prepared to forgive some temporary disregard for morality.

The key to the solution of this problem lies in its own origins: the existence of layers. The only way to deal with layers is to match them.

Creative people often wonder why the standard ratio of suits to copywriters is 8:1. The existence of client layers and the agency need to match them is the explanation.

Do not, however, fall into the common trap of simply matching your senior layer against their senior layer - and so on throughout the entire Battenberg cake. What you must do is deploy your senior layer (viz. you) not only against their senior layer but also against their most junior layer.

Junior clients are so accustomed to being treated contemptuously by senior agency persons that, if listened to deferentially and taken to lunch at The Ivy, they become putty in your hands. Confide in them the difficulties you face. While never overtly critical of their superiors, imply that they, the junior layer, are far more intuitively in touch with the target group and therefore far more ...