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Scott Banks/Principal, Creative Director
BAD Studio
How would you characterize 2001 in terms of your business or industry in general? Unusual and unpredictable. All of our clients and business leads seem to want to do work, but there is a wait and see attitude that has prevailed since the summer.
What has most affected your ongoing business in particular? Have you taken any drastic steps or gone through any upheaval? Have times been better than ever? Are you maintaining business now or moving forward or moving backward? Is there a rainbow at the end of this storm? We’ve cut back on staff due to several factors including: too much investment in growth and technology, a slow down in client receivables, tighter budgets, and an apprehension for business leads to try somebody new.
How has the financial drama of 2001 affected your business, from the highs to the lows? This year will be one of our best on paper, but the cost of working with new clients who have extremely high expectations of how ideas are presented in the early stages have made us have to invest in a lot of expensive technology and levels of redundancy.
What do you see changing for your business in the year 2002? How will your industry change? For us, there will be a stronger focus on running a business to generate profit.
Some say better times are in store for Atlanta agencies, claiming that the heyday of the dotcom was bound to fall and now things are stabilizing rather than plummeting. Do you agree? Yes. Though I think it still has some time to go before things completely stabilize.
What do you think clients will want to see from you? How are clients changing the ways they spend and what they want to see for their dollar? What do you think are the lowest dollar, highest bang ways your client can market themselves? They will want to feel like they are getting more for their money. The irony is that in better times with bigger budgets we were more lenient with clients pushing projects overbudget. One big help would be a client giving us a budget versus asking for an estimate. Even given the value of design, there is still a huge range in what someone might charge for a brochure, for example.
What new accounts have you won over the last year? This is one area we would have probably answered thoroughly last year, but with the market being so competitive, it is now something we keep secret. One cool project we worked on was a men's bath line for Blue Q called "Balls."