Mike Hughes of The Martin Agency

When someone mentions a guy named Mike Hughes you might first think of your next door neighbor or your real estate agent, but when you work in advertising and someone mentions a guy named Mike Hughes who is President and Creative Director of The Martin Agency, you sit up and take notice.

For those outside the advertising industry who are reading (Hi Mom), let me frame the Martin Agency in terms more familiar: Geico (the cavemen, the talking gecko), UPS, ESPN X Games, Discover Card, those strangely catchy Free Credit Report.com ads, and of course, Walmart, whom the Martin Agency inherited from... ahem, DraftFCB.

Those are just some of the recent pop-culture nuggets from an agency that has been around the block, and has been impressively strong throughout its existence. So what of the guy who's the creative head of that agency? He's a remarkably normal and humble man.

Mike Hughes began by letting us democratically choose what we wanted him to talk about from an assortment of topics. No agenda. No ranting or longwinded lecture. He let us determine what was important. Of much interest to the group was the topic of clients. Creatives tend to rail on our clients, despite the fact that they pay our salaries. Mike notified us that despite all our bellyaching, you can make a great client without them ever realizing it. Once we come to terms with the fact that clients may not always want what we consider "great work" we can embrace that they will always be interested in effective work. The challenge is connecting "effective" with "great creative" in their minds. Once we get there, we have a great client. I was struck when he pointed out that early on, Geico was not exactly a gem in the Martin Agency crown. They directed them to their direct mail department and intended to be done with them. Years later, they are one of the agency's most widely recognized clients. With time, they were able to create a great client relationship that produced great work. It's not impossible.

I'll finish this post with Mike Hughes in his own words. The same sentiment he shares in this video is one he shared with us. Once ALL clients and agencies are seeing it that way, there will be a lot less bad advertising out there.