Is excellence a state of being? Is it an attainable result? Or is it an attitude?

Excellence is not just a ‘crème from …’ a well-known cosmetics company. Indeed, said cosmetics company realised it was not achieving excellence with its previous advertising sign-off, ‘Because I’m worth it’, spoken by models without even a finger-tip in the real world. So, in order to get that extra sales push, the company subtly amended its slogan to, ‘Because you’re worth it’. Better, but still patronising. Had they really wanted to reach their audience but retain a link to their earlier campaign, they would have gone for ‘Because we’re worth it’. But they should have striven for excellence in their campaign as well as in their brand and they didn’t. Radical thought, but perhaps not using famous models at all and a completely different approach to the product might be in order?!

I mention this because it’s the subtle and sometimes not so subtle changes in language that really hammer the message home. And while it might seem that we dash off a paragraph here or a ‘positioning statement’ there; you can be assured that we who write the copy give a great deal of consideration to every possible nuance in our work. Our clients are undoubtedly the experts in their field, profession or industry, but they have hired us because we’re very good at what we do. And like every other PR or marketing practitioner I have ever met, we like to appear swan-like to our clients – serene and in control on the surface, with frantically pumping legs underneath! It’s all part of the performance.

So what is the answer – what is excellence? At FrogBox we believe it is an attitude. It is not taking a job because you can’t do the very best for your client at that time; it is having built a strong relationship with your client so that when they want to do something that is not in their best interests, not on-message, or a vanity project, you can advise them not to do it. Of course it is staying late in the office, at the studio, attending a meeting in New York (please!); these activities are par for the course. Excellence is achievable in every project you undertake for your client, if you have the attitude to go for it.

Lucy Thomas
Senior Account Manager

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