Know-it-Allers versus Learn-it-Allers

'Since I am back to running an ad agency full-time after many years, I have witnessed a new breed of clients', says the author

Next week, I will complete 36 years in the advertising business. Much has changed in the three-and-a-half decades since I started my innings at HTA’s famous 35, Rani Jhansi Road office in New Delhi. The business itself has been re-contoured in more ways than one. But clients haven’t.

My first boss, Sanjay Sehgal, gave me my initial mantra in figuring out client types. He said clients broadly fall into two broad baskets. There are those whose measured “professional” response to any new idea presented to them is always “who else has done it?” — seeking validation, endorsement and affirmation from others