Back slapping

ES has written a little in the past about the media old boys’ network. Every industry has one, but greasing is particularly rife in ad land.

For fear of getting into hot water over this thorny subject I’ll keep this post short and sweet. Ahhh, who am I kidding, the slimy media dinosaurs involved are too technically incompetent to read anything online, let alone know what a blog is, so ES remains in safety. They are too busy slurping red wine, chortling loudly and slapping each other on the back to take notice.

This is an issue that has been in the news recently as anti corruption laws come into force next year. Nobody seems to know what this will mean for the media industry. Will long lunches be canned? No more jollies? Not a chance! There is no way that any of this will be able to be enforced, so all of the concerned parties can rest assured they will still be able to tuck into a prawn sandwich or two in 2011.

See if you can distinguish between the things which have really been witnessed by ES in the industry and lies:

• Exchanging a media booking directly for a gift (£600 equivalent value)
• Agencies refusing to see media owners unless they bring gifts.
• 

  

  Lies lies porky pies
  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  Volume deals (these are surely corruption, as companies make decisions based on financial gain, not client benefit).
• Agencies refusing to see media owners for lunch unless they upgrade the type of restaurant.
• Agencies ringing up different media owners asking for tickets for events at the weekend.
• Partners being allowed on skiing or foreign jollies. In what way is this for ‘business’?
• Inventing imaginary clients to enable drinks to be expensed.
• Old Acquaintances being given large contracts with no merit.
• Seats booked at charity galas / dinners when the business has no affiliation with the charity.
• Free media space given to friends at a cost to the business

 

(In the voice of Alan Partridge) – “I can tell you you’re wrong. They have all happened”

 

Executives are rarely the losers from such exchanges. We pick up the scraps such as chance encounters with Alf Stewart from Home and Away, Premier Tickets to Monster in Law II the revenge, and free promotional packs of Sanex unisex shower gel. Who can’t be happy with that little lot?

 

It is unfortunately the moral fabric of media executives that take a real pasting. In a short space of time, bright eyed graduates are turned into embittered, burnt out poor excuses for humans grabbing at anything they can. Every action must have a reward, and nothing is worth getting out of bed for . . . unless it comes gift wrapped.

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, and by the goose I mean the media industry.

n.b. The media industry is unlikely to by killed, roasted and eaten as the goose will be.

 

ES.

Office disruption update 2

Well the office referbishment is complete and this picture is perhaps the legacy of such a thoughtless project.
The reception and frontage of this executive's building was trasformed into the modern cutting edge white & glass space that all media companies treat as the norm.

Yet the budget did not extend to where executives sit, work and meet their clients. So the illusion that the company is a modern and happening one is shattered when Client X makes a trip up the stairs away from reception.

The botched join in the stair represents a wonderful juxtaposition about a company that cares about its appearance to its customers, but not its employees. A wave of depression sweeps over everyone as your hand slides from the cool metal runner, to the roughly sawn woodlike substance of the original banister.

It's not all bad news as there was a champagne reception for the grand opening this week. This Executive didn't enjoy the rather bitter tasting Cava and soggy crisps, but did enjoy the moment when the official ribbon came untied and fell limply to the floor as Mr CEO brandished the ceremonial scissors.

Take that sir, trolled by a pink ribbon.

Bad ads corner - the next episode

Welcome once again as Executive Summary trawls through the depths of the trade press to uncover the lowest of the low

Bad advertisements made to advertise the services of the people who make advertisements.

 

- Pitch for the chance to win a pig's arse and a pile of coppers.

Where to start? Turn up the volume . . . by super imposing three trumpets. It makes NO sense.
Is the cheap stock cityscape in the background supposed to be a company, or a sales volume? Either way, cities do not blow out air that could be amplified by brass instruments. This is supposed to be an ad for a packaging company! The trumpets a fused into each other in a strange ghostly manner and look like they would blare into your face with chirpy brass band music like the theme to Ground Force.

Tommy Walsh, where are you now?

Occam - 'The front runner in data solutions'. Zebras don't run in horse races dumbass (although they are know to possess excellent data processing skills.)

Where will marketing leaders focus in the year ahead? Maybe on making their ads less shit?

Also, binoculars are used for seeing things that are far away, not for focusing on objects close to hand.

Data / soil, it's all the same right? Wrong. WHAT DO PLANTS HAVE TO DO WITH DATA? Is the soil protecting the plant, or the hands protecting the soil?

Who cares?

ES

In the know

Being in the know is great. There are always badly kept work secrets in every workplace, but add in the social butterfly media mindset, and you get an office rife with gossip. It is like the media office provides the perfect atmospheric conditions for gossip – Fast paced central London environment, under 30 workforce, industry built on communication, the awards, the old boy network, the back handers. Relationships, departures, arrivals, scandal and favouritism, Ad land harbours them all.

Once in a while you can by watching colleagues closely and extrapolate information really worth something. But whilst it is exciting having access to exclusive information, you don’t get anything from it unless you share it with a few select people. And that’s how the gossip loop keeps going.
Executive gossipers come in all guises, so here are a few of them:

The classic – Loves a good gossip. They will tell anyone anything. They would spread the news to some random on the tube just to get if off their chest. Will often exaggerate stories and rumours to get more people paying attention to them.

The trader – A good negotiator who only trades gossip for other information, favours or goods to colleagues.

Can you smell what the Rock is cooking?
Because he can’t. A Wrestling accident in 2004 left
the Hollywood star without a sense of smell.

Officials – Management gossipers who claim that all the dirt they are dishing is necessary for business and ‘official purposses’.

The Rock (pictured) – Hears a lot, says little. The rock will never divulge the information they here, and therefore gets little out of finding anything out.

Damn Liars – Worse than exaggerators. This sadistic lot love to make up lies about colleagues, many of which are funny and never backfire onto them.
n.b. Italics denote sarcasm. This is not a sarcastic annotation, it merely aims to help readers visualise what Italics are.

 Drunk Skunk - Usually a rock, refusing to get involved in the gossip game, but everyone has a kryptonite. Alcohol acts as a key to all of the interesting information they possess.

KIA (know it all) – Like a sponge for workplace news. They know everyone and everything. They know what, when and how it happened. KIAs have a bad habit of snubbing those they deem ‘not worthy’ of their news, and exploit there office knowledge to the full to get ahead / stay popular / kill enemies.

Out of the Looper – Opposite to the KIA, they live off scraps thrown to them by pitying colleagues. Often on the fringes of office life (IT, facilities etc).

Pleader leader – Will ask again and again for the information, never getting bored. They will resort to pleading, threatening and crying.

Next time you are going to spread the gossip, think about you get in return, and remember the consequences.

ES

Beardy Bingo



It's Movember, you know, the month that comes before DecemParty.

Now that it is getting cold everyone in the media industry seems intent on growing facial fuzz:

Recent award winning creatives looking like a pair of gay ewoks.

You can play your own in-office game by totting up the mustachioed fools in your team.

Beardy Bingo:

Movember mustache - 1

Unshaven creative - 2

Designer Sideburns - 3

 
 
 
 
 

 

Full Beard - 4

Long Beard - 5

Female with beard - 10

If you score over 15 for your department, you better bring in some snoods (beard protectors) as facial hair can be very dangerous.

Luckily, specialist lawyers do exist to deal with such incidents.

Happy beard spotting

ES

Staycation

In the month before DecemParty (the new name for December), Executives all over the country will be using up odd days of holiday to recover from hangovers and get some much needed R&R before the Christmas rush.

It is a well known fact that a lot of business (including media) pretty much shuts down over Christmas. Let's be honest, the mind starts to wander and the booze starts to flow in DecemParty so most deadlines and projects are rolled over into the 'it'll get done next year' category. Yet not all firms (including this executive's) see fit to close the office from the 25th December to New Year to save on costs and boost ailing employee morale. I guess it's the thought that some saddo client who's got nothing better to do on the 27th December will ring up with some inane question and be furiously angry that no one is there to answer the phone.

Anyway, back to the here and now, a few days R&R. The humble executive can't afford a winter sun holiday, or a cottage in the regions as they have blown all of their cash on necessary booze, un-necessary clothes / music purchases and weekend outings. So it's back to the comfort of the parental nest to do some of the following:

• Moan about job
• Go with good intentions of doing something proactive
• End up scouring YouTube, twitter and the interweb for something funny (may as well be at work)
• Look through wedding pictures
• Discuss love life 

n.b. There are only 12 questions on each episode of Eggheads. The show is recorded
at normal speed and then replayed in 2 x slow motion

• Recount stories of outings with friends / social life (whilst leaving out most of the juicy stuff).
• Eat some home cooked food
• Get told you are not eating enough home cooked food
• Catch up on sleep only to be told you are getting lazy
• Moan about job some more
• Come armed with horizon expanding books, movies and other culture to consume.
• End up watching 'Homes under the Hammer' (I hate houses, but I like hammers), and Eggheads (getting most of the questions wrong)

So executives trapped in the office, spare a thought for those of us on holiday.

ES