Holding Back the Ideas

One thing that I find very frustrating about working in adland is how ideas are routinely ignored or discounted, and yet crop up later on; or how agencies are burdened with restrictions that lower the standard of their work (despite vigorous argument against), when follow up agencies are given free reign.
I've seen this recently. [Obviously I am not going to say who for.]

A client for whom I recall discussion stating that we 'have to do X' and 'Cannot do Y', no matter how much we gave convincing arguments and details they said there was nothing they can do.

Suddenly their new agency work comes out... no sign of X, lots of Y.

Well hang on just a minute...

It's less about the individual frustration of one piece of work, more that it makes it look as if we weren't even trying. "Why didn't we think of that?" ... Well we did. We argued and created and debated, we had even better work but it was never allowed to see the light of day. I feel bad for the creatives, planners and account people who worked damn hard to come up with great ideas, even harder to create something from within the stifling restrictions... only then to see an agency given a much better creative opportunity.

Now either they had incredible account handlers (that they would better than these particular ones I doubt though)... or the client changed their mind. Either way it’s disappointing to see your hard work go to waste.
This has emphasised a point I always strive to remember, work isn't always bad because the agency is bad. New work isn't always better because the new agency is better. Creative work is NOT made from a level playing field, even sometimes with the same client.