The Big Reveal Is Dead. Long Live Collaboration.

When most people think about working with a creative agency, Don Draper's nostalgic, cinematic client presentations come to mind immediately. When I was watching that show I always thought to myself: this is great, but it's doing more harm than good. That dog and pony show needs to go away. Thinking that agencies should put on a show and pitch ideas needs to go out of fashion just like typewriters and rotary phones. I don't see business coaches, scientists, or other professional services companies doing that with their clients.

We don't do big reveals anymore; after more than a decade of client work and a lot of reflection, we realized they are a colossal waste of our client's valuable time. There is nothing worse than burning a whole bunch of hours working on a design concept for a website, campaign, or brand without any input from our clients or their end user.

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