This Picture In My Friend’s House Haunts Me.

Creative? Then you’re going to hate this too.

This buddy of mine – (who is an excellent chef by the way) – usually invites us over for the most charming hangouts that are always a joy to attend.

But he also has a framed picture that mocks me as soon as I walk into the living room.

You’ve probably seen it. I first glimpsed the horror of it on Twitter back in 2021.

It’s a rendition of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, only with modern day client feedback scribbled all over it. The feedback PERFECTLY mimics the typical client commentary and is absolutely hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

Scroll down and read some of those gems. They’re brilliant.

I even saw a hilarious variation of this idea last week by BBDO that featured Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo receiving feedback on their art. If you’re in the creative industry, you can probably relate.

The picture stands as an exaggeration, of course. First of all, this is art – not a marketing campaign. But still, the concept is rooted in the familiar:

This is that client that hires you for your professional skills but…doesn’t let you use them.

It’s frustrating for everyone involved. The client is thinking “Why on earth am I paying you if I’m the one doing the work myself?!?”

And the agency is thinking “For God’s sake, you’re paying us – just let us do the work!”

They’re many reasons this happens.

• Sometimes there’s no transparency in the creative process so the client doesn’t understand the end result.
• Sometimes there hasn’t been an agreed outcome to the brief, in which case it all devolves to this endless iteration cycle where the end result is as far removed from the original brief as possible.
• And yes, sometimes it’s a client who may not fully grasp the creative vision. The objectivity of creativity can often mean you and I could look at the same piece of work and disagree about how effective its creativity is.
• But in my experience, this kind of feedback happens because most clients THINK they already have an idea of what they want. They believe they know the best way to communicate and may even feel very strongly about what the creative work should look like. The problem with this is that what you’re seeing is often the end result of a multistage process that involves strategy, research and a ton of revisions. It might not look like it, but there’s a method to the madness.

I hate that I love this picture so much. It fills me with giddy evil laughter that probably comes from years as a traumatised copywriter.

It’s a clear message to the worrying client – summing up what David Ogilvy famously said: “You don’t get a dog and bark yourself.”