A matter of prepositions

“Words may show a man’s wit but actions his meaning.” said Benjamin Franklin at some point. Now, we’ll be able to reflect a bit about words and their close relationship with actions…

When I started my work in communication and advertising, I used to say: “I am working on a project for brand X” or “we did a campaign for such and such other brand”. Up to this point, nothing strange to be highlighted. The issue came up many years later, when subconsciously (or perhaps not) I found myself saying (and hearing others say) “we are happy with the campaign we launched with brand X” or “we have to move the campaign that we did with such and such brand”. Without realizing it, I had changed the preposition. From an initial, na?ve and distant FOR to a more personal and close WITH.

If we leaf through the dictionary, we will see that FOR “indicates the object, aim, or purpose of an action” while WITH is “a function word to indicate a participant in an action, transaction, or arrangement”. What a difference, eh? One points towards taking something for granted, and the other one concerns the way in which something is obtained or achieved.

In the FOR environment, the relationship is clearly colder, focuses on achieving a certain result and many times to some degree its own plan moves you forward to the detriment of quality, consistency, impact, surprise, or involvement, whereas in that environment everything seems easier and easygoing, where everyone does his part and that is it. The world of WITH can appear to be more complex: as the approach is to work in a closer and united manner, criteria and opinions will be agreed upon, extreme positions and passionate discussions will be avoided, but you can be sure that the more “uncomfortable” you feel or when things look more difficult, it is precisely then that something different is being produced, something that will generate talk and will not go unnoticed. In this world there is no place for “each one to his own” because his own is their own and belongs to all those who are part of it.

And what is this all about? Good question. In these times of convergence of media, users (it’s about time to stop calling ourselves consumers) super-producers of content, commoditization of products/services, and atomization of messages; the campaigns and projects which manage to give a step ahead and stand out, to be remembered, to be talked about and to be shared (even if for a short time), or even giving a touch-up of fresh air to categories or sectors with a new business approach, are, (coincidentally?) the result of WITH.

The examples are at hand and we all know them: the alignment of Nike with its agencies (R/GA and AKQA) to conceive in its moment NikeID, then Nike+, or more recently, the Fuel Band. These innovations, which at the same time transformed into product and communication, are not born from working FOR, obviously. It is not a simple brief written by the brand independently with a number of days and budget for the agency to work independently as well only to check if at the end everything fits and you can tick off the points on an established checklist, only to then start the cycle all over again with another client brief. By the way, let me recommend (again, I know) Velocity, the book written by Ajaz Ahmed, founder and chairman of AKQA, and Stefan Olander, VP of Digital Sport at Nike, where it is delightfully difficult to distinguish when it is the agency or the client who is talking.

Another example: the launch of Chevrolet Sonic in the USA, the result of the joint work of GM and the people of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. A campaign which did not go unnoticed both domestically (USA) and internationally, which generated multiple and diverse experiences and talks about the launch of a car. And please, many cars are launched each year….! This WITH resulted in Jeff Goodby, of GS+P and Joel Ewanick, of GM being invited to present a seminar at the Cannes Festival, titled nothing but “Can your client be your friend?” (instead of “When will it be ready what I asked you for?”).

Let’s give some thought to the words and the way in which actions (like the ones described in the two previous paragraphs) give them their real meaning. Two prepositions, used sometimes without distinction, or as if one was the synonym of the other, when they really convey and express different ways of facing challenges and different ways of living a working culture.

Speaking for myself, I can assure you that actions / projects / campaigns in which I was lucky to participate which have been satisfactory both for the client and the agency, have been the result of those occasions in which we all sat around the same table and moved things forward WITH. Agency with client, and vice versa.

And you, what would you prefer? If you work in an agency: to work FOR or to work WITH the brands?

And if you are an advertiser: that they work FOR your team or that they work WITH your team?