Ad Agency Launches ‘Strategic Silence’ Division, Offers Premium Client Ghosting
AUCKLAND, NZ — In a bold bid to innovate the client-agency relationship while doing noticeably less, Creative basement juggernaut PlanB+ has announced the launch of a new premium service called ‘Strategic Silence™’. The offering promises clients enhanced brand ambiguity through purposeful, prolonged periods of unresponsiveness.
“We’re not ignoring emails. We’re engineering intrigue,” said Felicity Grove, Head of Post-Responsiveness Strategy at PlanB+. “Clients are tired of answers. They want emotion. Tension. That sense of being ghosted by someone who once seemed really into your quarterly campaign metrics.”
Packages start at $12,000 a month and include services like ‘Deliberate Delay’, where senior creatives sit on feedback for two weeks before replying only with ‘hmm’, and the much sought-after ‘Inbox Abyss’, where the client’s input is acknowledged with a read receipt and then never mentioned again. For premium-tier subscribers, the agency offers monthly one-minute Zoom calls where an account manager stares meaningfully into the middle distance in total silence before logging off.
PlanB+ claims Strategic Silence™ has already driven up click-through rates on emails trying to check in about timelines. “We’ve doubled client anticipation—we call it CPM (Cost Per Mystery),” said Grove. “In an industry that loves disruption, nothing’s more disruptive than sheer, glorious vagueness.”
Industry insiders say competitors are taking note. Rumours are swirling that one agency in Ponsonby has locked its strategists in a sensory deprivation tank until they ‘feel the next trend’.
“We’re not ignoring emails. We’re engineering intrigue,” said Felicity Grove, Head of Post-Responsiveness Strategy at PlanB+. “Clients are tired of answers. They want emotion. Tension. That sense of being ghosted by someone who once seemed really into your quarterly campaign metrics.”
Packages start at $12,000 a month and include services like ‘Deliberate Delay’, where senior creatives sit on feedback for two weeks before replying only with ‘hmm’, and the much sought-after ‘Inbox Abyss’, where the client’s input is acknowledged with a read receipt and then never mentioned again. For premium-tier subscribers, the agency offers monthly one-minute Zoom calls where an account manager stares meaningfully into the middle distance in total silence before logging off.
PlanB+ claims Strategic Silence™ has already driven up click-through rates on emails trying to check in about timelines. “We’ve doubled client anticipation—we call it CPM (Cost Per Mystery),” said Grove. “In an industry that loves disruption, nothing’s more disruptive than sheer, glorious vagueness.”
Industry insiders say competitors are taking note. Rumours are swirling that one agency in Ponsonby has locked its strategists in a sensory deprivation tank until they ‘feel the next trend’.