Navigating the annual ritual of the seasonal client greeting.

One of the more unexpectedly fraught tasks facing any creative studio at the end of the year is how to acknowledge clients with a seasonal greeting that strikes the right note. It’s a recurring dilemma, part tradition and part creative challenge, and it often leads to a good deal of navel-gazing and the occasional bout of self-flagellation.

There are a few familiar approaches. You can go fully festive, send a client gift, or use the opportunity to demonstrate the kind of thinking you’re actually known for. For us, that last option always feels like the most honest and the most fun.

That particular year, the brief came with some clear parameters. There was no budget for external costs (so we had to keep it cheap), it had to be timely and relevant, it needed to showcase creative thinking, and it had to encourage clients to engage with us in return.

The context was impossible to ignore. Donald Trump had just been elected to his first term. The phrase “fake news” had entered the mainstream. Headlines were full of strange new language, and the way people talked about politics, culture, and media seemed to be shifting by the day.

We decided to respond to that moment directly. The idea was to help clients navigate this emerging post-truth world by offering a playful way to predict the buzzwords of the year ahead.

We built a website that invited people to submit their predictions for the words and phrases likely to define 2017. Some reflected the national mood, others were clever twists on existing terms, and all were offered with tongue firmly in cheek.

It was interactive, it generated a strong response, and it became a real conversation starter. More importantly, it felt like us—curious, responsive, and a bit subversive.

And in the end, that’s what a good seasonal greeting should be. A reminder of the relationship, a little spark of creativity, and something that sticks in the mind long after the tinsel has come down.