15 Luv

A long time ago in 2013 the office was in some turmoil as we were due to move buildings the next day. Whilst normal work duties continued, desks were empty and large boxes were everywhere. As was customary at the time, due to the slightest disruption of equilibrium everyone hit the pub that lunch time. It was also Thursday. It was also December. This meant it was basically Spring Break without the funnels and beer pong. If there was one thing you could say about the people who worked in the media side of adverting it was that they had a wonderful sense of occasion. Christmas (ie December and some of November), St Patricks Day, Friday, The Summer, Pancake Day and someone you’d never met before’s birthday, were all seen as perfectly good reasons to extend lunch (sometimes indefinitely) to celebrate properly.

Tom had asked to speak to me in private. I’d worked with him for years and sat opposite him but this had never happened before. He wasn’t the “quick chat” type.

Turns out someone from my team had made a complaint to him about someone in his team. This was not Tom’s world. A fantastic operator but with no interest in the softer side of management this was likely to be an irritating distraction for him. That said – he seemed oddly engaged with proceedings.

Turns out that a young woman in my team (who’s confidence and maturity completely defied her youth) had complained that a not young man in his team (who’s shyness and immaturity completely defied his years) had slapped her on the arse while she was putting something into a box. This took her by no little surprise because she was in an office, it wasn’t the 1970s and we weren’t in a Carry On film.

She had emailed me to let me know she wanted to speak to me but Tom had got there first.

Tom explained the crime. We sat together in puzzled silence.

“Was it a forehand or a backhand?” I eventually asked. I’m still not 100% sure why that was important but I was pleased to see Tom nodding grimly while confirming he didn’t know thus confirming it was a relevant detail. We decided the best thing we could do was cross-examine the defendant to establish the facts.

We summoned the slightly drunk accused in for a chat. He clearly had no idea what this was about even though the crime was committed less than 20 minutes ago.

We decided on bad cop bad cop and gave him the Sweeney treatment.

The first thing that became clear was that he had no intension of denying it or claiming it was an accident. His entire defence rested on two key points. One explained motive. One offered mitigation.

  1. (Motive) She was bent over.
  2. (Mitigation) He didn’t take a run up.

His defence needed work. While both points were left unchallenged the jury was still ready to convict. Confused he left the meeting wondering what had become of the world when women take offense at an unsolicited public arse slap. I mean she was bent over. She really was.

We still weren’t quite sure whether we needed to bollock him, fire him or slap him back so feeling more Judy than Dredd we rode back into Mega City One hoping that this shit would blow over. However the accused had another surprise for us.

His defence strategy moved from casual admission with a reliance on loopholes to an appeal for clemency. A bold switch and in a move that might of worked for a cannier operator he decided to email a cack-handed apology which was slightly more invasive than the slap itself. The surprisingly long email narrated the full story complete with motive (You were bent over) and mitigation (I didn’t take a run up) and was signed off with assurances it wouldn’t happen again. Weirdly and hilariously he had copied Tom and me. Weirdly and creepily he had written it while sat opposite his victim and trying to catch her eye with sloppy, can you forgive me, Benny Hill, grin.

Tom and I still had the challenge of coming up with a suitable punishment. We had a meeting with HR first thing the next day which afforded me the time to canvas opinion from several unconnected female friends I happened to be meeting that evening. This was not helpful as their hypothetical reactions to a similar offence ranged from “nothing” to “he’d be fired by the end of the day”. It also became clear from my female advisors that how attractive he was played quite a large role in assessing the severity of the crime. Sadly this loophole offered little in the way of hope for the accused.

HR couldn’t help. There was no precedent and he’d apologised. The expert’s view was that an official warning was disproportionate. That said, he had only been with the company a couple of weeks so he was completely fair game and we could fire him if we wanted to. Frustratingly this put the onus back on us to make a decision which was something we were desperate to avoid.

Pressure was mounting because the plaintiff who was not known for her discretion had told most of the English speaking world and only Benny was unaware of his new infamy. If news reached certain people at the top of our organisation, Tom and I could well be in just as much shit as he was due to the lack of public flogging. We’d actually considered that as some kind of restorative justice (with or without run up – plaintiff’s choice) but HR stepped in with the wise logic drop that that was probably not cool. Shitballs! Sentencing was due and the reluctant judges were well out of their comfort zone.

Time was short but an unlikely hero saved the day. Benny stepped in, bravely took one for the team and completely fucked up something else and Tom fired him for that. Everyone was a winner. Speaking of which, it was a forehand.

It’s Cool

A long long time ago in 2004 things were not cool. I say that, some people were cool. But then, some people were not cool. That was usually cool with most cool and not cool people. A small sub-category of cool people were those who were not cool and didn’t care which made them cool but they didn’t care about that either. The group which fascinated me however were the people who tried extremely hard to not be cool (and succeeded) in effort to be cool (and failed). Basically Napoleon Dynamite had a lot to answer for and the advertising industry was crawling with them.

The hero of our story fell foul of the “making a gargantuan effort to be so not cool I’m cool” paradox and was named Matt. A few brief examples:

  • Matt wore three watches simultaneously. One analogue, one digital and one Action-Man.
  • Matt claimed to have never watched a film other than Back to the Future.
  • Matt thought going on holiday was a cliché as was the notion of breakfast.
  • Matt claimed to be a DJ (while rejecting the term DJ) who never prepared a set but randomly bought and then randomly played, records he’d acquired in a charity shop. Presumably at “so not cool they are cool” venues.

You get the idea – harmless but so preoccupied with cultivating this ludicrous persona a lot of his life missed out on some much needed attention.

For inexplicable reasons Matt was allowed to client meetings. One fateful day a combination of illness at both the client and Matt’s company meant that Matt was filling in for both his boss and boss’ boss who had flu. Meanwhile a very powerful and terrifying client was filling in for his underling and underling’s underling who were struck down with minion fever.

A vast weekly meeting of 30 to 40 people was usually chaired by the head minion who was a truly lovely man. He ruled with a rod of toffee and excuses and failure were accepted currency to the point where it was a mystery to me why anyone showed up. Chit-chat and biscuits were the priority and when it finally came time for everyone to report on what they’d been up to all week it was usually time to go home.

This week was different. It was as though Darth Vader had replaced a Care Bear and minions parted like the Red Sea as the Head of Marketing walked in to his first ever weekly status meeting.

There was no chit-chat and the biscuits were left untouched.

Darth took out an immaculate leather bound meeting book and two fountain pens. It was 2004 but the internet had been invented by then. Laptops, PDAs, Blackberrys and Biros all existed but Darth just relied on quills and fear.

We flew through the agenda with remarkable efficiency with minions and suppliers coming swiftly to attention to answer questions about a new car launch.

Darth was pleased. The new car launch was his magnus opus and his master had foreseen its success.

More questions around press-packs, PR and advertising spots were all answered satisfactorily. It was Matt’s turn to answer a question.

Unfortunaly for Matt another person was missing from the room. This man’s weekly contribution was a source of great amusement to the rest of us as he never did any work but simply presented the lack there of in a weekly update. He once opened with a chart that simply said “I’ve not been well”. This basically meant that if you showed up to this meeting and didn’t shit yourself you were in little danger of being its worst performer. This time Matt bravely took up that baton.

Inexplicably Matt was in charge of the website. I cant remember what his views on the internet were but given that a lot of people thought it was cool he probably loathed it (or claimed never to have heard of it).

Anyway – Darth wanted to know what reply visitors to the website would get if they made an enquiry about the car that was about to launch (Magnus Opus, high on the Emperor’s agenda etc).

Matt didn’t know. He should have said he didn’t know but he didn’t know he should have said he didn’t know. Similarly Matt wasn’t cool. He should have been happy not being cool (like the rest of us) but made the uncool decision to try and make being uncool, cool.

Perhaps that was why instead of saying “I don’t know” he casually said “It’s cool”

Darth was not pleased. He was a suspicious chap. Was this twat openly defying him in front of his minions or worse was he sabotaging the car launch by ignoring enquiries? He could be sending anything. Hand drawn pictures of cars? Dick pics? Random mixes of records he found in a charity shop?

“It’s not cool, Please answer the question”

Now to say it once was fucking stupid, the second time was borderline madness. Matt was in pieces. He was fumbling though papers knowing full well they didn’t hold the answer. He reached for a biscuit. His brain had long since given up on him and instead of helping, offered up two fateful words.

“It’s cool” (with his mouth full of biscuit)

Darth was not pleased (I was, Darth wasn’t). With terrifying calmness he removed his glasses and over a few long minutes (which Matt filled with a another nervous biscuit) explained the importance of the launch and the fundamental nature of the question which he duly repeated.

If one was to compile a list of two word responses that Matt could have selected “Who cares?”, “Fuck You” and “Broom Broom” would have served him better than the two he went for.

A puzzled look came over his face as he wondered why he was about to do what he did.

Would he? Could he? Did he? – He did.

The meeting ended immediately. Everyone left but Matt. I literally never saw him again. But we never forgot him. He and the story became the stuff of legend and the candle of his career burned out long before the legend ever did. Matt was cool.

Only Obeying Orders

A long long time ago in the early 21st Century, clients were making questionable demands. Marketing Directors really started to believe their own bullshit and started making ludicrous claims to anyone who’d listen. Didn’t matter if it was true. Didn’t matter if it was moral. Just mattered that their ads enhanced their reputation. There would often be a wonderful disconnect between adworld and reality which the public understood but marketing directors missed because they had fallen in love with their own creation.

For example my Stella client believed that a Stella Artois (as he alone called it) drinker was a sophisticated, bilingual, continental character equally at home in an art gallery or Debussy recital and for whom Summer was a verb. That’s what the ads suggested so naturally life imitated art. When research reflected that the filthy hooligan soup was actually guzzled in vast quantities by the more fighty gent, these facts were dismissed as heresy. That said, the ads worked and the police would want forewarning of their airing so they could lay on extra troops. (Cue mournful harmonica). Eventually the reputation of Stella (or Wife-Beater as it was called in the real world) dropped so low that action needed to be taken. The proposed solution was wonderful. We’d bring out an even stronger version which would encourage people to emulate our continental friends and drink it in half pints! Genius! Football terraces and EDL rallies would retire to the nearest bistro for a half pint of paint stripper and a crepe. Weirdly it didn’t work and Turbo-Stella was wisely removed from the shelves to protect society.

Complete delusion was one thing, total immorality was another.

A credit-card wanted us to target those who were in serious financial peril but weren’t going to go bankrupt. Essentially a game of black-jack for the debt-mongers. The deeper the shit you’re in the higher the interest rate you’re charged. Hoorary! But – as soon as it got too much and you claimed bankruptcy the good people at the bank lost their stake. Booooo!

A cough sweet brand had done some research and discovered a high value consumer. Very heavy smokers (40+ a day) who went through an unbelievable three packs of cough sweets a day. These poor bastards had enough on their plate without having their daily TV marathons interrupted with exaggerated claims about the benefits of eucalyptus but the client saw it differently and wanted to try and bump them up to 4 packs.

Another beer company wanted us to increase the average consumption of their “super-users” from 3.7 to 5.1 pints a day. Of course this being an average for every “super-user” who didn’t get the memo meant that a “super-duper user” would need to pick up the slack and get their daily sessions towards double figures to hit the team’s run rate. Good at maths – shit at life this client couldn’t see the irresponsible nature of the request but saw the light when we introduced a death curve and the subsequent income loss that would result.

The most remarkable brief I ever received was for a war. Gulf War 1 had been a roaring success for everyone involved (except Iraq) and ITV were keen to cash in on the sequel. 2003 was not an Olympic year, there was no Football and the Rugby World Cup wasn’t until October. This meant the Summer had a bit of a gap in the schedule which the war would fill nicely and might allow ITV to make some hay in the desert sunshine. At this point the war hadn’t started but Saddam Hussein had to produce some non-existent WMDs by a deadline to avoid a disproportionate retaliation for a terrorist atrocity he was not involved in so war was on the cards. Saddam was in a bit of a pickle, as were we because we had to produce a trailer for the invasion should he fail.

The client wanted a “stirring, patriotic Henry V feel” to an advert to ensure ratings success. This posed a problem as while Henry invaded France without a good reason, that was where the analogy ended. Also, Shakespeare played heavily on Henry’s underdog status to preserve the romance. Had Henry been able to carpet bomb Agincourt without having to look up from his laptop the prose might have lost its impact.

“I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start, the game’s afoot. Follow your spirit and upon this charge hit ctlr alt enter and we’ll have the shit kicked out of them by lunchtime”

Bit of a creative challenge so the creative agency consulted the TV advertising playbook.

  1. Write a jingle:

“Have a seat, cup of tea, watch the war on ITV”

2. Rework a famous song:

“But I still saw the

First gulf war. This is good as before. Prob’ley wont be a draw….

And Saddam’s hiding..”

3.Use a celebrity:

“Nice to bomb you, to bomb you…..TWICE”

The playbook was empty and to be fair to them the creative agency finally produced some scripts that focused more on the journalism than the impending massacre, much to the client’s disappointment. Where was the blood, the noise, the endless poetry? He realised he was on his own in his view which got worse when his bosses turned against him and rightly pointed out it was a shit idea to do prepromotion for a war. His last plea to give war a chance fell on deaf ears and with its arms raised to the sky in a final moment of hopelessness, the idea was cut down in its prime.

Good God Y’all.

They Drink it in the Congo

Thanks to everyone who’s been in touch.  Here’s our first guest contributor to Diaries of Media. If anyone else has a similar story to tell, send them in.

A long long time ago in 2006, after racism had finally been eradicated from society, I attended a ‘kick-off’ meeting for the launch of a new chewing gum campaign. Proper bucket-list shit. The brief contained the usual blather – “here’s why this chewing gum is incredible, here’s how much money you’ve got to make ads telling people this chewing gum in incredible”, and so on.

The meeting took place at an advertising agency in an eye-wateringly expensive, not very creative part of London. The agency had a reputation for being very white, very male and very traditional. To avoid any graphic sexual misery, I wouldn’t want to speculate where they typically put their fingers, but ‘on the pulse’ was clearly near the bottom of the list.

The most senior client leading the meeting (marketing director/chewing gum chief) absolutely fucking HATED the company I was working for at the time – he’d fired us while in his previous job. This created what’s known as ‘a bit of an atmosphere’ between us, and not the Russ Abbot kind.

Around 20 people from various advertising, media, PR and digital agencies gradually shuffled into the windowless meeting room, most of them wearing an expression which suggested they weren’t entirely sure they were in the right place or career.

A grim tactical seating game unfolded, like a cross between chess and musical chairs, except with enough chairs and no music. Slippery looking account handlers, almost certainly called Rupert or Pandora, jockeyed for position next to the senior client (who, lest we forget, ABSOLUTELY FUCKING HATED the agency I worked for), while offering up displays of toadying that would be the envy of Toad of Toad Hall, while tucking in to some toad-in-the-hole.

The marketing director lapped it up, and with a swish of his hand, beckoned a Rupert to start the meeting. Rupert (textbook rugby shirt/chinos/deck shoes/luxurious proto-mullet combo) picked up a piece of paper, stood up, and strode to the front of the room, confidence exuding from every pore.

He cleared his throat, composed himself, and finally realising his life’s dream, bellowed out a script for a chewing gum TV ad – in a thick, entirely unnecessary Jamaican accent that would make Jim Davidson blush.

At this point, it’s worth mentioning that Rupert was very white and very posh, just in case the rugby shirt/chinos/deck shoes/mullet ensemble didn’t clue you in. Like the classic Faith No More song, the accent came from out of nowhere. The script was for a 60 second ad, but Rupert’s racist rendition made it feel a hell of a lot longer, in much the same way that time seems to slow down during a serious car accident.

With silence levels comfortably at ‘stunned’, the marketing director/candy captain gestured at Rupert to read another TV script. Everyone else in the room shot panicked glances at each other. Which accent would he attempt now? Was this a weird prank? A psychological condition? A cry for help?

We braced for impact.

The opportunity for Rupert’s redemption was spurned, as he doubled down on the same Davidson-esque accent for script two. To be fair to him, you couldn’t fault his commitment, although his judgement was another matter.

After an even longer silence, the marketing director/confectionery commandant asked the question we were all dreading.

“So…what does everyone think?”

Most people suddenly found their shoes to be incredibly interesting and worthy of their undivided attention. Someone eventually piped up with the politician’s favourite ‘answer a question with a question’ technique, and asked about the status of the scripts. This was a kick-off meeting after all, so presumably this was a very early and woefully misguided idea, with plenty of opportunities to ‘course-correct’? Perhaps towards something a bit less racist?

“They’re approved”.

So…the person who hated the company I worked for had already signed his name next to a racially offensive advertising campaign, and made it my agency’s job to spend millions of pounds to broadcast it on TV.

Months rolled on. Many meetings happened. Despite everyone else’s strong misgivings, it quickly became apparent that the Jamaican-ness of the campaign was incredibly important to Rupert and his gang, despite having absolutely fuck-all to do with chewing gum.

In one of these meetings, another agency was explaining their sampling campaign. They wanted to hire students and out of work actors to stand on soap boxes, declaring a ‘chewing gum revolution’, while giving out free chewing gum samples at train stations and the like. Yes, there are companies that specialise in this sort of caper.

I was sitting next to the creative director from Team Rupert. The very source of the Caribbean controversy. The idea was his brainchild, and as such, was probably an orphan.

 “Can they do the accent?”, he yelled at no-one in particular.

A very polite and measured chap from the sampling agency explained this would be a problem for two good reasons:

  1. Hiring students/out of work actors who can do accurate Jamaican accents, or preferably Jamaican actors, would cost more and take more time to find. This was a fair and logical point, sure to appeal to the more practically-minded people in the room.
  2. Given some of the locations they were going to be working in, such as outside Brixton tube station, the students/actors were very likely to be assaulted for taking the piss. This point was more of an appeal to basic human decency.

Team Rupert’s creative director was crestfallen. “That’s a shame. It’s just such a funny accent.”

When I consulted my notes the day after the meeting, “it’s just such a funny accent” turned out to be the only thing I’d written down.

Eventually the campaign launched, and to the surprise of no-one other than Team Rupert and the marketing director/gum guru, the complaints started to flood in. After the first wave (choice quote from one Jamaican viewer of the ad: ‘they’re portraying us as objects to be laughed at’), the accent-obsessed creative director was interviewed by a trade magazine about Gumgate, and said ‘I would never have set out to upset anybody. I have good friends who are non-white’.

When has the old faithful ‘I can’t be a racist, I’ve got some black friends’ gambit ever failed?

Oh.

The complaints continued to pile up, with the ad variously described as ‘patronising’, ‘demeaning’ and ‘having the potential to cause serious offence’. It was reaching the point that the campaign was looking likely to get banned, which would mean millions of pounds had been wasted. With the ban-hammer looming, I received a desperate call from Rupert, which went something along these lines.

RUPERT: “We’re trying to find examples of other high-profile advertising campaigns featuring African or Caribbean characters (because apparently there’s no difference, dear reader), which weren’t banned. To help our case, can you tell us how much they spent on media?”

ME: “What campaigns have you got in mind?”

RUPERT: “Lilt?”

ME: “OK…I mean there’s a reason they’ve used Caribbean characters, because of the flavours of the product, as opposed to mint chewing gum, but we can look into it. What else?”

RUPERT: “Kia-Ora?”

ME: “The one with the cartoon crows?”

RUPERT: “That’s the one.”

ME: “Right. I really don’t think a 20 year-old squash ad featuring cartoon crows will help to prove you’re not racist. Any others?”

RUPERT: “Well…we were thinking of Um Bongo.”

ME: “CLICK. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”

The Um Bongo Defence was unsuccessful.

CEOMG

A long long time ago in 2006 CEOs were a strange breed. Always were and still are but they were allowed to hit peak nutbag before the financial crisis. I’ve worked for many. Nice ones, nasty ones, louds ones, quiet ones, introverts, extroverts, all sorts. One thing they all had in common was an ability to function at a very high level and obsessively drive the company forward while dealing with a level of pressure the rest of us mere mortals can only imagine. I say, all. One was useless and this is her story. We’ll call her Lisa.

So how did Lisa fuck things up so quickly? One of her first initiatives was a companywide live Q&A in which she would stand on a desk and read out and answer pre-submitted questions in-front of the whole company. Best bit – she didn’t read the questions first! All in the name of honesty! The result was fantastic. The very first question was:

“Who do I go to if I’m being bullied by someone in HR?”

Boom!

After we’d all turned around to look at the HR department for a speedy game of bully-Cluedo (my money was on Claire, in the kitchen, with the kettle) we’d moved on to question 2.

“Can we drink wine in the office if we are working late?”

The answer was yes and it was met with cheers of support – a reaction Lisa was not used to but clearly enjoyed. Her brief (and possibly solitary) moment of success was cut short by the next question.

“Someone keeps hiding wine in the ladies toilets, this is not hygienic, can you make them stop?”

Shit! Who would have thought that this sad revelation of someone with an obvious problem would come straight after the former question and the jovial reaction to allowing wine after hours. We all noticed it but weirdly Lisa didn’t and started laughing. She was the only person laughing and we all noticed that too because she was standing on a desk.

“Now I know we all like a drink and this job can drive you a bit crrrrrrazy”

“Oh fuck me no! – Really?” The whole room thought. Even Claire in HR was horrified and she’d just been outed for steeling some graduate’s lunch money.

Lisa had no empathy. An instinctive lady – she spoke first and though occasionally which often resulted in catastrophe. He prided herself on being a shoot from the hip kinda gal but she frequently shot herself and others with the lack of aim that she was so proud of. She could be amazingly offensive without realising it, sometimes being even most offensive when she was trying not to be. This weakness was universal but particularly acute when she was speaking to people who weren’t white. Let the record reflect that there was no evidence of racism but her brain and she were on different sides and the latter could rarely rely on the former in social discourse.

Example.

Random black person on the street: “Excuse me – do you have the time?”

Lisa: “It’s 4:30 and by the way if I’d been alive 200 years ago I wouldn’t have been OK with slavery even if I could afford one of you and had some jobs I needed doing. Have a good day”

Admittedly a made up story but a plausible one as I’m sure you’ll agree once I explain what happened when she was introduced to a black woman who also happened to be one of the most senior and important figures in our company’s global organisation.

For all of Lisa’s faults and to her credit, she was quite happy to talk about them (or this story might not have seen the light of day). That said – because she didn’t realise they were faults which is obviously worse, it was only a matter of time before she said something stupid to someone more senior than her.

Are we sitting comfortably? Than I’ll begin.

On the afternoon in question the whole company was on edge as we were effectively being inspected by our American overlords. Floors were polished, inductions were written and Claire was on hand with the kettle in case anyone said anything they shouldn’t.

Staff and examples of work were paraded past the Americans like North Korean missile carriers before they addressed the troops with “Hey Guys”, “Good jobs” and “Awesomes” from the one and only American work-place speech that was available at the time.  The “I’m a Maverick” and “Sustainability rocks” speeches wouldn’t be written for a few years yet.

Someone had made the wise move to lock Lisa away in her office while all of this was going on knowing full well that she would probably greet the Americans with “That 911 was a bit shit wasn’t it” before regaling them with stories of our company’s alcohol addition and HR flushing people’s heads down toilets. This plan was a good plan but it only bought time. We all watched terrified as the aforementioned powerful lady was led into Lisa’s office.

Lisa jumped to her feet and her brain left the office. She successfully introduced herself without bringing up the Iraq War or Rodney King which for her was some achievement. Sadly her success was short-lived and with completely undeserved confidence she searched for something innocuous that she could use to create empathy between the two of them. She noticed the lady in front of her was holding a pair of black gloves. She had a similar pair of black gloves. Before she knew what she was doing she had reached into her draw and was putting on her similar black gloves. This was the point where normally one’s brain points out the lunacy of what you are doing and steps in but as I said her brain and she were not on speaking terms and the former was not invited to the meeting.

The gloves were on. Lisa was waving. Fuck knows why.

Lisa broke the silence with what she thought was a tension relieving jovial observation while continuing to wave.

“Look at us, we are two black ladies of the night”.

Fuck me – she’d just called her African American boss a black prostitute while waving at her.

She’s meant “We ladies have got the same black gloves” which was inane and stupid but so so so much better than the racial hooker reference.

Obviously Lisa was completely unaware of her mistake but to her credit she did realise she was still waving and wisely decided to stop. She removed her gloves, put them back in the draw and smiled across the table hoping that it was someone else’s turn to speak. It was but no one did. Her boss simply left the room, building and country with the correct assumption that the UK office was under questionable leadership.

When she told us of the story she thought the mistake she made was simply putting the gloves on and that because they were too small, they took a while  to take off. Maybe she was right. If the gloves don’t fit you must acquit.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

A long long time ago in 2007 a war had broken out in the world of advertising between the established order of powerful and traditional creative agencies (usually known by initials) and new and funky digital agencies (usually called something stupid).

In one corner “AMV, BBH, JWT, ETC” all claimed superiority because they could make expensive TV ads and their CEOs were often knights. In the other corner “Spunky Badger” and “The Unicorn Jockeys” put the fear of Christ in clients with a presentation about lots of people using the internet. This proved to be the biggest threat to creative agencies since cynicism. Small offices adorned with exposed brick and motivational quotes, mostly staffed by children, popped up all over Shoreditch and took a massive bite out of the establishment’s action. These young upstarts rocked up to meetings in hats and told clients that no one watched TV anymore and if you didn’t put your entire advertising budget into Myspace the world would have forgotten you existed by Tuesday.

As an outsider this was hilarious to watch as the truth was somewhere in the middle. The creative agencies could only think in TV scripts and the digital agencies didn’t realise that some people lived past 25 and the fact that their blog had 100 readers (ludicrous!) didn’t make them an authority on how to sell Domestos.

The thing was – there was a lot of money to be made flogging internet soothsaying and lots of people were giving it a try. Some were good. Some were shite. I worked with both. You’ll be surprised to know I’m going to tell you about the latter.

Spunky Badger had been losing their grip on one particular food client and had decided to hold an “inspiration day” to try and both win back some favour and flog some ideas.

The client (a wonderful man) fucking hated them and confided in me that he had been fantasising about firing them for ages. He particularly hated their patronising tone and the way they wasted his time. I’d seen the day’s agenda and it was mostly going to patronise him and waste his time so fun was a comin!

The client was a proper meat and potatoes kind of marking chap with a vast experience. His formula was to cut the price, buy as many ads as he could on TV and then go home. It had worked for decades and last week so he was pretty comfy. I could put a TV plan together in 20 minutes leaving us the rest of the day to laugh at the latest shit the badgers were peddling so we got on famously.

Putting together an all day meeting for 30 people that isn’t a complete waste of time takes a lot of careful planning and empathy for the attendees. Lacking in both Spunky Badger kicked off with the usual horseshit:

By 2010 Lycos will own Norway.

By 2012 babies not born live on the internet will not be accepted as real by their grandparents.

Human’s next evolutionary step will be to have their mouths replaced by a twitter feed.

You get the idea – wild unscientific supposition used to set up the importance of the day and channel more advertising budget in their direction.

Oh I forgot to tell you. It happened to be Red-Nose day but by then no one gave a shit much less did anything about it except the person chairing the meeting who was dressed as David Hasselhoff in Baywatch. Wig, flip-flops, red shorts and holding a red inflatable don’t drown thing. If there was anyone left in any danger of taking him seriously they soon joined the rest of us as he gesticulated with the don’t drown thing and foretold that the internet enabled toaster would be everywhere by the end of the year.

We were about an hour in and the client was justifiably irked because we’d achieved fuck-all except play an overly elaborate introduction game. He was more interested in his next big launch which was for a Thai Green Curry cooking sauce. He was thus far unconvinced with Spunky Badger’s expensive  micro-influencer route and wanted to cut the price and buy a fuck tone of TV ads and go home.

The Hoff had another route that he was extremely excited about. This was a huge idea called “Paint the Town Green” and involved taking things that weren’t green and painting them green to promote thai green curry which was also green. Not the worst idea they’d come up with but it fell well short of deserving the excitement they were displaying. They were acting as if they had the preliminary sketches of the Mona Lisa or an early demo of Hotel California in their back pocket which is why they felt justified in wasting everyone’s time to “flesh out the idea”.

We spent the next hour listing things that weren’t green.

This displeased our client further but gave me and others some puerile pleasure in the listing process as we embarked on a game of “get the Hoff to write stupid shit on a flip chart”.

“Mars”, “Ken Livingston” and “Joni Mitchell’s big taxi” were all accepted as good suggestions while someone I’d never met but instantly liked took the game in a wonderful new direction by suggesting “Kermit the Frog” and looking hurt and confused when it failed to make the flip chart.

Then someone came in a with a massive bag of balloons.

Importantly the client had made neither good or obtuse suggestions and had presumably gone to his internal happy place which probably involved firing Spunky Badger.

After lunch the Hoff explained the balloons. As it turns out they were in 3 colours. Red, Yellow and Green. He wanted everyone to talk about the various ideas that 30 people had spent a morning crafting but with a fun twist. If you wanted to say something positive you had to hold a green balloon, something neutral a yellow balloon and something negative, red. Fuck knows why.

After a chronically awkward silence with no one wanting to say anything with or without a balloon a young badger cub reached for a green and effused painfully. It did serve to brake the ice however and a few more views followed, mostly green and the occasional yellow.

With impeccable timing the client reached for a red – his first meaningful contribution to the meeting. He thanked everyone for coming and said the meeting was over. It wasn’t but it kinda was.

Everyone who wasn’t a badger filed out of the room happy with an additional hour that we’d been gifted. I nodded at the Hoff for what I think we both knew would be the last time.

It’s not easy being green.

You’d Better Watch Out

A long long time ago in 2004 before sexism was a thing, the company I worked for celebrated the birth of Christ as tradition dictated with secretaries dressed in school uniform and men from the office dancing completely naked in front of them.

In the afternoon.

In the office.

In the nude.

In schoolgirl uniforms.

In 2004.

In real life.

In full knowledge of HR.

In fact, HR was there for some of it. He left quickly and in a cloud of rumours. He wasn’t replaced in case his successor was one of these modern, pedantic “no school-girls or strippers in the office” bureaucrats.

In those days secretaries were all female, all were young, most were hot and their role was to look after the board. In those days the board were all male, all were old, most were not hot and their role included sexism. Old school sexism. Not today’s “I respectfully disagree with you madam” sexism. Proper, old fashioned “while your down there love, what she needs is, look at the tits on that”, sexism. Mansplaining wasn’t really a thing back then because women didn’t really need to know stuff….is the kind of thing men from then would be saying now if they were still sexist.

Someone on the board had the nice idea that at Christmas time and to say thank you for a year of hard work, the secretaries would have a sit down lunch in the office and in a Trading Places style role reversal, the men on the board would serve the food. That was what happened on the first Noel and that is where the idea should have stayed. But it didn’t. By year 2 some after-lunch entertainment was provided to go with the marked YOY rise in alcohol on offer. This consisted of a Partial Monty set piece performed by some of the lads in the office. Year 3 saw a further  increase in booze and a completion of the Monty, admittedly at the baying request of the audience. A sharp raise in stakes from the year previous but tame compared to Year 4 which was also the final year.

The first change from year 3 to 4 was the new edict that the secretaries would all come dressed as schoolgirls. Now some of you armchair employment lawyers might call foul on this one but of course you are wrong and here’s why. It was their idea. Now some of you armchair anythings might call bollocks on that one but it was the party line and the party was in full swing. Speaking of swing, the warm-up act was three boys from the TV department doing helicopter impressions. By the time the Helicockters finished their set it was only 1pm as having covered both clockwise and anticlockwise they had reached the natural boundaries of the genre.

All of us left in the office that Thursday afternoon who were not secretaries, board members or Helicockters could not escape the cacophony from five floors up. Sounds of a cocaine fuelled hen-night, Tom Jones and stamping and clapping in triplets to “Take It Off” made conference calls and internal meetings a challenge.

After the Helicockters landed it was time for the main event. The organisers had turned pro. A vast Spaniard dressed as a fireman was shown into the meeting room and with one rip of velcro trousers had the Helicockters quietly retreating to the hangers of inadequacy. More of an interactive performer, Magic Manuel encouraged (mostly) enthusiastic audience participation through a subtle combination of baby oil and grabbing. It would appear that “Take it off” and “Beat me in the face with it” sound very similar in Spanish. A true pro, Manny focussed on those who enjoyed his act and those that longed for the more innocent times of Helicockters with equal measure. When the baby oil and performance were finally concluded, Manny was bid adios and the schoolgirls were left incorrectly assuming that the festivities were over.

Let’s just pause the story to take stock.

It’s 2pm on a normal working Thursday and a meeting room full of hammered girls in their teens and early twenties, all dressed as school girls (because they wanted to) are being entertained by some men in their 40s and at least 4 penises have been on display.

At this point my female boss returned from an external meeting having missed all of this. After I told her about the school uniforms and the cocks her immediate question was “then who’s on reception?”

So far you’d be forgiven for forgetting that this was a Christmas party. That was immediately remedied by the final performer. With the soft jingle of sleigh-bells and aroma of chestnuts things took a turn for the magical when the CEO entered the room dressed as Santa Claus. Now things were back on track. “HO HO HO” had replaced “Take It Off” and the true meaning of Christmas was about to be felt by one and all. God Bless Us..Everyone.

Santa was shown to a seat that had recently been wiped of baby oil and the schoolgirls were encouraged by the elves of the board to form a line. Slightly unusually Santa had two sacks rather than the customary one. One was labelled “Naughty” and one was labelled “Nice”.

The class of 2007 waited in line to sit on Santa’s lap and..

Hang on – I’m hearing “Objection!” from your inner, armchair employment lawyer. Again you are forgetting that it was the girls’ idea. Ok not their actual idea like the schoolgirl outfits but they wanted to, like the Spanish cock slap. Ok not all of them wanted to but some did and the others well it was Christmas and stop being all PC gone mad. Objection overruled. Continue with your next question Mr Claus.

“Have you been a good girl?”

Objection! – Overruled, the witness will answer. One more word out of you PC fun hater and you’ll be held in contempt. Your witness Mr Claus.

There were only two answers open to the girls and as luck would have it, they correspond to Santa’s two sacks.

“I’ve been a bad girl” said the president of Manuel’s fan club nearly slipping off poor Santa’s lap from the levels of baby oil and prosecco that she was covered in. This seemed to be Santa’s preferred answer which again was a brake from tradition. From sack Naughty he produced a tubular wrapped present. She unwrapped it whilst still on Santa’s lap to much excitement in the room and an occasional Ho Ho Ho from her human furniture.

A dildo! Isn’t that nice? A massive dildo. To be honest I can’t talk that intelligently about the scale of dildo but this was not small.

The line progressed and sack Naughty was dipped into time and again. It would seem there was a correlation between girls at the front of the que, Manuel appreciation and the propensity to have been a bad girl that year which in turn resulted in a *thrust of dildos being distributed.

*I’m unaware of the collective noun for dildos so took the liberty of inventing one.

Our first good girl arranged herself on the very edge of Santa’s knee. Again for you data-lovers out there – there was also a correlation between being towards the back of the que, not wanting Manuel’s cock in their face and having been a good girl that year.

What was in sack Nice I hear you cry.

More dildos!

Objection!

OVERULED- If you’ve got a problem, take it up with HR. Oh wait you can’t.

The next year we had a new CEO (female) who appointed a new Head of HR (modern, pedantic “no school-girls or strippers in the office” bureaucrat) and oddly enough they objected to this particular festive tradition and put a stop to it.

Objection Sustained.

The Walls Come Crumbling Down

A long long time ago in 2013, companies pitching advert ideas to potential advertising clients in the hope of winning their business had reached their apex of theatrics. Designers, actors, caterers, musicians, celebrities and Christ knows who were brought in to try and “land the idea”. Sometimes this worked and multi-million pound accounts changed hands, raising the individuals responsible up to illustrious status (financially and egotistically). Sometimes it didn’t. This meeting was an example of the latter.

I had been asked to attend a creative pitch for Kingsmill bread, purely in a consultative capacity and as a neutral in a competitive tender process. 3 separate agencies had pitched a variety of advert ideas and this 4th was to be the last. This meeting was make or break. It was not their first attempt. Their first go was a hideous attempt to get the room singing along to famous songs with the lyrics altered to be about bread. “Muffin Compares 2 U” was easily the pick of the bunch. “Bagel over Troubled Water” was a low point and  “Always Look on the Bread Side of Life” didn’t rhyme either. For some reason “Crust for life” and “Bread-ringer for love” didn’t come up. Ever the professional, I kept my opinions behind a poker face and aside from pointing out that we’d need Prince’s approval rather than that of “the bald Irish girl who hadn’t had a hit in a while” and suggesting Toastbusters, kept my head down all meeting. Anyway, the idea couldn’t be done which was lucky because it was shit and the clients were correctly disappointed and a bit angry but for some strange reason offered its authors another crack at it a week later.

That week the MD of the creative agency called me most days to try and get an angle on how to play the next meeting. It was clear he saw this as a risk everything, go big or go home, shoot from the hip, turnaround jump shot, Hail Mary string of cliché that basically meant they’d fucked up the first meeting. His plan was to bring in actual creatives. Now to those of you unfamiliar with the industry, creatives were the people who actually wrote the adverts. Most people who work in creative agencies don’t write adverts they simply sell the advert concepts to clients and are the polished, expensively educated, legitimate face of the organisation whose two reasons for living were to buff client’s egos and above all…..protect the proposed advert from any erosion of the creative’s initial vision or God forbid, from being rejected.  Creatives on the other hand were deified geniuses who worked in pairs and seemed to only have first names. They sat in offices surrounded by space hoppers, signed sporting memorabilia that they’d drunkenly bought at charity auctions and awards from the 80s. They wore Converse All-Stars, skinny jeans, took smart casual as two separate instructions (think Avril Lavigne or Green Day) and had haircuts (sometimes plural) they were too old for. They supported obscure football teams to highlight their individuality and named their children names that people don’t use any more or flowers that aren’t names. They were rarely allowed in front of clients at all let alone new clients but due to a combination of the Hail Mary status and the fact that “Roll with it” would have won if it had been pitched right, meant the rule book was firmly out the window.

Creative agencies always brought too many people to a meeting so the room was full to bursting. There were 5 people from Kingsmill including the Head of Marketing (top dog), Head of Procurement (top dog of another department, no interest in advertising, didn’t like other dogs), Kingsmill brand manager (top dog in a slightly smaller pack), Head of Research (sniffer dog) and a teenage girl on work experience (shy puppy). Then there was me and 45 or so people from the creative agency including the unmistakeable creatives who’d made a huge effort to not dress for the occasion. One of them was carrying a waist high, long trumpet the type of which would seem at home in any film set in a castle, possibly with a crested flag hanging below it and to be used to precede some kind of announcement. The trumpet you have in your head right now is probably correct. One of either Dave or Kev (can’t remember their real names but they only had one each) placed it in the corner and successfully (up to a point) drew attention away from it by making some comment about the picture of his two kids (clad in Bracknell United and Orkney Island Rovers away kits) on his desk top.

After about half an hour of hand-shakes, biscuits, plugging and unplugging of cables and painful small talk about how great bread is we were ready to go. Apparently, toast is the best thing about bread. Someone actually said that to five people who work for a bread company. Anyway – such high level displays of empathy would never be reached again in this meeting. 

So the big idea was centred around an hilarious character, a Spanish Conquistador. Me neither I had to look it up but the image Google offered was familiar.  A 16th century soldier, metal hat, musket, sword, possibly with a waist high trumpet. Anyway, he would come running into a room where there was some food that wasn’t Kingsmill bread in it, blow the trumpet and say  “EEEEZE THEEZE THE KING’S MEALLL?” Fucking funny I think you’ll agree. Because if you get the mild racism right it sounds a bit like Kingsmill. I can’t remember what happened in the ad after he said that. He probably then got out a sandwich. Or maybe toast because that’s the best thing about bread.

Now to say the room fell flat was to exaggerate silence. Momentum was being lost and I was the only person enjoying the meeting. In the spirit of Hail Mary, Kev (or Dave I forget) stood up and without saying a word, clumsily but dramatically manoeuvred through the crowd, picked up the trumpet and left the room.

The suspense was terrible – I hoped it would last.

The door banged open. In strode Kev. “EEEEZE THEEZE THE KING’S MEALLL?” he bellowed before raising the trumpet, puffing out his cheeks and …..making no sound at all.

There was no time to notice that the trumpet should probably be played before the mild racism because the red faced Kev had already left the room probably cursing himself for having not worked on his 16th century trumpet chops prior to the meeting.

The suspense was terrible – it did last

The door banged open. In strode Kev. A new Kev. Hail Mary Kev. “EEEEZE THEEZE THE KING’S MEALLL?” he bellowed before raising the trumpet – now at a proper 90 degree, trumpet angle rather than the previous oboe effort. This had the unfortunate consequence of placing the business end of the sonic shot-gun in work experience’s face. With a momentary glance at Beryl and Rhododendron for inspiration, he unleashed hell.

I can’t describe the noise, mainly because it was drowned out by work experience’s scream suffice to say it was loud and a horrible bass frequency that literally ruffled its victim’s hair. The retaliatory scream on the other hand was eight or nine octaves higher. Screams in meetings are rare at best but this was a proper, fear of death, reflex, blood curdling, Janet Leigh in Psycho, scream.

Lesser men would have left this deafening, sonic tennis rally at 15 all but not Kev. Not Hail Mary Kev. Clearly running on adrenalin rather than reasoned judgment he took aim again. Work experience was having none of it. She grabbed the barrel on the inhale and with a swift wax on wax off, got her self out of harm’s way. This had the unfortunate consequence of placing the business end of the sonic shot-gun in top dog’s face. Top dogs don’t scream. “Don’t fucking blow that again” he barked.

By now I was definitely the only person enjoying the meeting and I was fucking loving it but was in danger of losing my poker face. Fortunately the two fog horns, scream and threats had been sufficient for people outside the room to feel the need to check we were ok so ever the professional, I took the opportunity to calm the masses outside and laugh in secret.

After shorter pleasantries and thanks than was customary, 45 people and a trumpet left the room.

“What…(10 second pause)…the fuck…(10 second pause)…was that?” asked top dog.

An hour later my phone rang, it was the MD.

“How do you think it went?”