pay no attention to that man behind the curtain

In this land of marketing, so much depends on the wizard behind the curtain. Or at least, a whole lot of flying monkeys.

Case in point: we've done a couple of big presentations recently, each of which meant several hours of writing by several senior people, then meeting for at least a couple of hours with several senior people to examine the deck and go over how it will be presented. Account, media, strategy, production and creative all have to be taken into account not because we feel like it, or because we don't have anything better to do, but because all these things impact our clients' business and as professionals we have to deal with that.

Clients may not like the fact that all this takes time (and money), but the fact is they like things a lot less if all this time is not taken.

And after the meeting, in the weeks after the our big important presentation, we might not like the fact that clients take so much time to mull over what we as an agency take as large, throbbingly obvious facts, but they too have multiple experts and POVs to talk to, they too have to assemble in large groups to think through what we as agency weasels have spent an equally long time generating. Turns out they too are professionals.