Act like an idiot, get treated like an idiot.

Quite some well-dressed, well-groomed and well-paid consultants give their advice in boardrooms all over the world. Usually, ad agencies, branding agencies and digital agencies aren’t there. They get stuck fixing crappy products and bypassing an even worse customer service by designing a funny, horny or otherwise remarkable campaign.

Vie Blonk, again, helped me understand. As long as people at agencies carry on designing campaigns, dress and talk like hipsters and fail to understand the boardroom lingo, they stay where they are. Act like an idiot, get treated like an idiot.

Who would you listen to? The hipster in jeans and sneakers who has an intimate relationship with his iPhone and talks like he is doing the 2.0-equivalent of bullshit bingo? Or the guy in a suit, who probably went to the same (or similar) college as you did, using the same lingo and has a record of doing strategic advice for Fortune 100 companies?

So, the next time, please don’t act like an idiot. I promise I won’t anymore.

Written in 2009. Some names and links have changed since. The point hasn't. Where I took it later: Acts, not ads.

Original: Act like an idiot, get treated like an idiot, 19 August 2009. Historical links may no longer work.