Agency traffic departments are when it starts to go wrong

The moment an agency begins to lose it is when it hires its first traffic manager. A traffic department acts as a buffer between the creative and account handling departments. It is designed to ensure work flows through the agency more smoothly, ensuring processes are duly followed and mistakes are eliminated.

Seems sensible, doesn't it? But it's not.

The trouble is that it becomes the moment the client is even further distanced from the creative process. Typically, account handlers have to arrange meetings with creative teams through the traffic department - even for some simple amends. The team spirit and sense of shared responsibility that often develop between account handlers, planners and creatives is fractured. Most critically, the responsibility for successful campaign management moves to people who are not directly answerable to the client. For example, a job is only urgent if a traffic manager says it is. The client, screaming for a fast turnaround, is not their problem.

Traffic departments, along with yachts at Cannes and 4 weeks to deliver initial concepts, belong in the 1990s. Nimbleness and flexibility are key to a modern agency's success and digital technology enables us to deliver on that. Creative people working directly with account handlers they trust is the best guarantee of great work that keeps a client happy. It's more fun, too. Account handlers have more responsibility and a better life. And creatives who win the trust of clients are more likely to win awards.

If you can't manage your agency so everyone works together and takes direct responsibility, it's not the size that's the problem, but the structure.

Charities are still getting it wrong at Christmas

It's time for Christmas Charity appeals. I had 2 today. One from Children with Leukaemia, the other from Shelter. The former has sent me a book of raffle tickets with a Jaguar X-Type as prize. Very little in there about Leukaemia. In fact, they give as much space to a list of their celebrity friends as they do to what the charity is doing today. The body copy, being reversed out, is also hard to read. The 2 disembodied childrens' heads on the cover of the leaflet look like aliens. The one powerful human story they feature is tucked away inside the leaflet.

I've no idea why they've written to me. Have I donated in the past? I don't think so. The letter (from Ant and Dec) is so short they don't have space for things like that. Nor much about the charity and what it does. A P.S. casually added suggests I might want to 'think about a direct debit'.  There are 20 personalised labels included too. This whole pack must have cost a few pence to produce. And yet it is a confusing, amateurish jumble. I'm not going to give just because the chirpy Geordies ask me to. There's a lot of competition around and this is not Comic Relief. It is a cause with which I have some affinity and they've blown it by not getting the basics right.

On the other hand, it looks like Shelter has gone back to basics. About 12 years ago I gave them a lot of money. I stopped giving when I felt Shelter was trying to "become a brand" rather than a charity for homeless people. No brochure this time, just a letter telling Emma's heart-rending story. They've also included a snowflake decoration onto which I'm supposed to write my name and return it with my donation. The care workers will then hang it up "to make their centre more cheerful". I'm not too fussed by this gimmick but at least they tell Emma's story properly. They also take the trouble to acknowledge my past relationship with the charity. I think I'll give.

I hope the Leukaemia pack works because it's a good cause. But with more focus on children, cancer, research and treatment and less on celebs it could have worked so much better. Christmas appeals are not rocket science. But you need to get the basics right.