Word of the day: 'spurious'.

I put a web counter on this site. You can see it over there on the right. I also put the same web counter on another - defunct - weblog which no longer has any readers and at which I have not posted for three years.

The web counter on each weblog shows exactly the same figure every time I check. I don't know how it works but I have proven it is spurious.

I might remove it. I think it's watching me.

The art director who googled.

I was briefed on a twelve page brochure. By the art director. Yes, sometimes I write long copy. The art director showed me a layout.

The art director, for some reason, had included in the layout 'real' copy - not lorem ipsem - but actual words on the subject of the brochure. Which he had lifted from the internet. Someone else's copy. He had googled the subject and lifted the copy. Write stuff like this, he said to me. Without making it exactly like this, he said to me.

Hmmm.

I wrote the copy, to the layout. Like the internet copy but also unlike it. I sent it. To the art director.

Did you notice that in this blog, over the years, I have made an art form of satirising account people?

Maybe I had the wrong target all along.

The art director said he would bang the copy into the layout and get back to me.

He got back to me. With a new layout. Fine. I can deal with a new layout.

He had banged bits of my copy into parts of the layout. And parts of the internet-lifted copy into other parts of the brochure.

Can you fix it, he asked.

Fix what, I asked. My copy? The lifted copy?

The bastard had picked bits and pieces of my copy to fit his new layout and left in bits of the stolen copy to complete it.

Sense-wise, it was now totally out of any logical flow or order. He didn't get that. It's just words. Write new ones, he said.

I didn't kill him because he is a freelancer to the agency and so am I. It's only protocol to kill people when you are both employees. Freelancers have to be nice.

I completely rewrote the entire fucking thing and sent it to him.

I haven't heard back yet.

Client even stupider in one step.

Museums Victoria (because there is more than one) is planning a new advertising campaign.

The museum clearly has a problem. While intelligent people keep visiting museums, the less intelligent among us are hardly ever seen inspecting the preserved larvae of the Australis Gigantus moth or researching the effects of Governor McJingo's Merino sheep import strategies in the early 1800s.

Which is kind of obvious; like wondering why you never have a conversation with Barry Hall and Wayne Carey about Schoenheimer's early biomoecular isotope-tagging techniques.

However, you do have to wonder about Museum Victoria's proposed concept. Their brilliant headline:

Be less stupid in three steps.

The scintillating copy reads:

Visit the museum, look at everything, go home.

Sometimes irony isn't irony, edginess isn't edginess, being brave or out there isn't being brave or out there.

It's just moronic.

Three days in a studio.

I’m sitting in the studio doing nothing because the editor totally gets what we want - isn't that a relief - and is busy cutting away.

I love it when the editor gets what we want. It makes it so much easier. Easier for him too, because we’re not hanging over his shoulder telling him to replay the last half second 58 times.

It’s just a stupid corporate DVD, which used to be called a video, which used to be called an AV, which used to be called … wait, I’m not that old.

Someone at the client has shot a bunch of footage - don't you hate that - which is complete shit (yet the guy thinks he is Spielberg), so the only thing to do is find a piece of music and cut the crap out of the vision - chop it into tiny bits and stick it against the beat of the music, which happens to be quite a good piece, a tight drum-flecked post-punk tribute to XTC, the Cure, that kind of thing. It's a royalty-free piece, but we're charging the client $1500 for the search. Don't tell him, but the search took three and one half minutes.

This is the third day and I’m sitting there being waited on hand and foot. Caffe latte? Sure. Toast? Sure. Sourdough, please. I don't eat white bread. Mineral water? Sure. Newspapers? Sure.

There must be money in production houses, because the agency gets given far more largesse at the studio than we hand out to our clients, even though clients are the source of all the money. Someone’s winning somewhere, I just can’t figure out who. I hope it's me.

Anyway, the operator is busy cutting away and even the agency production girl is kicking back. She’s early twenties, pert, spectacled, brown hair, long legs crossed, kind of cute in a too-young way. She's wearing a white sleeveless blouse over three-quarter-length denim jeans and white sneakers. She’s reading a book and is giggling. She tells me she doesn’t usually giggle while reading. She shows me the book.

Christ almighty.

Has anyone noticed what girls are reading these days? They call it chick lit, but from what I can see the word break in that expression comes in the wrong place. The book is a semi-biographical account of a New York woman’s serial one-night stands, so it has a lot of very short chapters each of which has a climax. Some have several. That's great value for a $24.95 paperback - normally you only get one climax per book.

So she reads me out the funny bits. Like most chick lit, it’s pretty much pornography with wine, roses, chocolates, $1000 shoes and expensive cars thrown in to soften the hard core. Sometimes the wine and roses and chocolates and $1000 shoes are missing; and sometimes the action is not in the expensive cars, but on them or around them. Authors.

Lunch came out before we knew it. We took the DVD - five copies - back to the agency. The client loved it. He wanted an extra copy. Probably to show his mother. She'll probably want another dozen copies to give to relatives next Christmas.

Old copywriter recalls Industrial Age artefacts.

No, not me; AdBroad.

AdBroad describes herself as the oldest working copywriter in advertising and who am I to argue?

At her excellent weblog, her panel entitled Gone But Not Forgotten contains the following artefacts from the olden days of advertising when account executives' ties were wider than their experience, but not as wide as their egos:

1) Art directors who could draw.
2) Lucy room for art directors who couldn't.
3) Sound of selectrics.
4) Spray mount.
5) When copy was mailed to the client, with stamps.
6) Yellow paper for drafts, white for revision and carbon paper used to make copies.

I've got some more (not that I remember them, someone told me about them):

1) Secretaries. (Oh, go look in your dictionary. I mean go look up dictionary.com.)
2) Typists. (MDs had secretaries; everyone else had typists. Secretaries typed and typists typed and made coffee for the MD after being asked to by the secretary. Yes, I know it's complicated.)
3) Typesetters. (No. Typesetters were not typists; typists typed copy while typesetters set copy in type. Oh, forget it. Go back to your iPod shuffling.)
4) Cleaners. (Where did all the cleaners go? My desk is a mess and there are no typists or secretaries any more.)
5) Copy files: large grey cabinets with perspex tabs in alphabetical order of client and typically containing probably 150 drafts of copy for a 10x2 press ad.
6) A timber cigarette case the size of a small yacht on the boardroom table. Go on, help yourself. Meetings were a blue blur. What else are you going to do to stay awake?

More, anyone? You don't have to be old. You just have to have heard or read about them.

Writers' strike.

There was a writers' strike in America. The studios were getting desperate. They were running out of scripts. The writers went back to work. Everyone was happy.

It must be the weather. Writers must be soft. Australia must be too harsh, or something.

I don't know. All I know is there are no writers in Australia. None at all. Oh, yes; there are people who type out scripts that other people get to read while pulling faces in front of a camera, which they call acting.

But there are no real writers.

So I would like for there to be a "writers'" strike in Australia. Because the accountants, the costume people, the make-up ladies or even the cameramen could write more convincing and true-to-life and less stilted scripts than those that drone out of our television screens daily. And, unlike the government-subsidised writers who write "arthouse" scripts, they wouldn't need endless script conferences and bottomless government funding and development grants. Arthouse? Shithouse, more like it.

I can't believe people actually watch what passes for drama in this country. They must have nothing better to do. Maybe they watch it to take away their attention from the horrible food they are eating at the same time; supermarket pizza, Chicken Tonight, etc.

The worst thing is that the world is now run by focus groups - and focus groups comprise people like that. Come to think of it, Australian writers and their audiences deserve each other.

Could we develop some scheme where they just go around to each other's houses and talk to each other and cut out the middle men? Now that would be a plot worth considering.

A Streetcar Named Acquire.

St Kilda Road is the longest boulevard in kind-of-central Melbourne. It used to be the headquarters of the advertising industry and some of the dinosaurs still remain there, like fossils stuck in a rock; McCann's and the like.

As well as being the longest boulevard, it also boasts the slowest trams. You know, those monstrous ancient metal green things like old railway carriages that clatter on tracks in the middle of the road with a power cord connected to overhead electric wires. Quite frankly, I've always wondered why tramloads of people don't get electrocuted every time it rains.

Anyway, they take about half an hour to get from the Cadbury-Schweppes building to Flinders Street station. You could walk faster. And if it rains, you won't get electrocuted. It's bound to happen one day.

One year when I was working for one of the dinosaurs, whose name I can't mention but whose initials are FCBDDBBBDOGPBYRHRME - or similar - they had an American agency boss visit - on the acquisition trail. Yeah: he wanted to buy the agency. If only he knew.

Anyway (and I must stop starting my paragraphs with anyway), he was due to visit three agencies in one morning. He must have had a good year of billings the previous year. He was at our place at nine. No-one was there. I guess a few suits were in their offices, beavering away at something or other, sending fawning letters to clients, etc. He looked around for a while and went into the boardroom with the MD, the CD and the CEO. Soon June the tea lady joined them, probably to chase them out because she wanted to clean up or something. The CEO must have been in a selling mood because they were in there quite a while.

I overheard them talking to each other as they emerged. The agency boss said to the MD he was running late and asked the MD to call him a cab. The MD replied, quite correctly, that the last thing you do in St Kilda Road when you are running late is call a cab. Because you will still be waiting an hour later. You just go out into the street, and if you are lucky, one will be going by, and you can flag it down. Or else you can jump on a tram. And that is what the MD told the Amercian agency boss, who replied, oh you mean those cool streetcars?

So that's what he did. Now it just so happened that I had an appointment at the doctor's (Dr. Headhunter) that morning and we took the same elevator down to the ground. The American guy racewalked off down St Kilda Road and I kept a respectable distance behind him. Unfortunately, no cab came and no cab came. So the American agency boss crossed to the centre just when a tram came trundling along, and he got on. And I got on. I sat down the back. He sat towards the front and leant forward and looked as though he wanted to move, and fast. The tram lurched away. Then it stopped again, having just missed the lights. I hate it when they do that. I'd rather they just sat there for the next round of lights. But they don't. They give a little lurch and get your hopes up and they they dash them again and you sit there for another three minutes and stew. The agency boss slumped back and checked his watch and stewed.

The tram did that stop start routine for the next three sets of lights and we were still nowhere near Domain Road. It had taken fifteen minutes to get from Leopold Street to the police building. The agency boss was getting antsy. He was sweating.

When the tram did the same thing again for the fourth time, the agency boss blew his stack. He jumped up and strode down to the driver. The tram was the old Z-class with open access to the driver through a mesh window.

'Can you drive this thing any faster, driver?' he asked, but it wasn't a question. It was a demand.

'Sure I can,' said the driver. 'I can drive it seventy-five kilometres an hour.'

Pause. 'But I'm not going to.'

'I'm about to buy half the businesses in St Kilda Road, driver,' yelled the agency boss through the mesh, 'and I'm late for an appointment to do exactly that. And you're telling me you're going to crawl this tram at two miles an hour for the next eight blocks. Well, I'm telling you you won't have a job when I own fifty perecent of the agencies on St KIlda Road because I'll tell my employees not to take any goddamned tram to work. What do you think of that?'

The tram crawled forward into an intersection while the driver thought about what he thought about that. Then it stopped because a BMW 7-series was late in turning right into Toorak Road and the light turned red. The driver clanged the bell and set the brake and we sat there.

'What do I think of that?' replied the driver. 'This.' He pointed to a button. He pushed the button and the front door opened. 'Get out.'

The agency boss's face was so red it was blue. 'You drive this tram NOW, driver. And fast!'

'No.'

He screamed. 'Drive it, driver.'

The driver sat, stone-faced. 'No.' He gazed out the window. The light turned green. The tram sat.

The agency boss said words he hadn't said in a boardroom since his old home-town agency lost an airline account back in the seventies.

'Get out,' the driver said, quietly. 'I think that's your stop.'

The agency boss got out. He checked a piece of paper in his pocket, checked the street number on a building. I think it was 320. He crossed the road, ran to the entrance of the building and disappeared inside sliding glass doors.

Later that day, the MD made an announcement. The acquisition had not gone ahead. 'The American agency has decided to buy Agency X and Partners instead,' he said. Agency X and Partners are at 320 St Kilda Road.

I was kind of disappointed. I wanted to see what happened when he tried to enforce the tram ban.

The biggest visual cliche in the world.

I thought he - or she - didn't really exist.

I thought he was just a figment of someone's imagination. But then, someone had to come up with those ads you see in professional magazines.

I had a freelance job at one of those agencies that are always somewhere just out of the mainstream. Where the CD is always tired and comes in late. And where the loudest noise you hear while you wait in reception for whoever you are seeing is someone out the back bashing the photocopy machine because it has jammed again. Probably the accountant. The creative guys wouldn't dare.

I waited an eternity in reception and at last the person I was to meet shuffled out. It was the art director. He was wearing a shirt buttoned to the neck like I did in 1990. Once. He took me into the boardroom and spread out some papers; briefing sheets and the like. The job was an ad for a firm of business development advisers. Kind of an all-encompassing business advice firm, from accounting to legal issues to succession planning.

No, don't fall asleep. You only just got here.

But I wouldn't blame you. I almost did. The art director explained all about the brief and then he explained what the client wanted to see. Think of the money, I thought to myself. You need to eat, I thought to myself.

Apart from that, jobs like these are usually easy. You write a bunch of rubbish and they love it.

Anyway, the art director had already done a layout. It was that kind of place.

He showed me the layout. You know what it showed?

It showed a guy in a suit juggling balls in the air. The balls were all different colours. The balls all had words on them. The words were all the things the business advice firm could do. There were about fifteen balls. And the businessman juggler was smiling, probably because if the art director had drawn him with a frown it would look like all the balls were about to fall on him and kill him.

Of course, I have seen that ad a million times in business journals over the years. But, as I said, I couldn't believe the art director existed who could come up with such an appalling cliche of an idea.

There I was sitting in front of him. Maybe he did all the juggler ads over the years.

He looked at me as if to say, Well, what do you think?

I didn't say anything. I was trying to think of a headline.

Sophie's dinner.

THE SCENE: A GRAND DINING ROOM IN ONE OF MELBOURNE'S OLDEST SUBURBS, WHERE OLD MONEY LIVES AND RARELY VENTURES AFIELD, EXCEPT TO THE BOARDROOMS OF COLLINS STREET AND THE SNOWFIELDS OF FALLS CREEK AND THE SOFT BLUE WATERS OF PORTSEA FRONT BEACH AND THE SLIGHTLY LESS SOFT WATERS OF PORTSEA OCEAN BEACH.

SOPHIE (PLAYING WITH HER SALMON MOUSSELINE WITH A CITRUS JUS AND SMUDGE OF TRUFFLE OIL): Mummy, we had a trip to the seaside today.

MUMMY (TOORAK DAME, ALL JEWELLERY AND MERCEDES-BENZ AND TANNED SKIN AND BLONDE FAKE BEEHIVE): Darling! Was it fun? Where did you go? Torquay? Blairgowrie? Brighton Beach?

SOPHIE (SIPPING A 2006 MORNINGTON PENINSULA PINOT GRIGIO, JUST SLIGHTLY CHILLED, IN A CRYSTAL WINEGLASS THAT IS SLIGHTLY TOO LARGE): Frankston.

MUMMY (WITH AN AUDIBLE INTAKE OF BREATH): You mean ... you actually went to Frankston? Or you just had a wayside stop on your way to Red Hill or Shoreham or Merricks or Portsea?

SOPHIE (ANOTHER TINY SIP OF GRIGIO, PULLS A SLIGHT FACE, IT'S VERY ACID): No, Mummy. We stopped at Frankston and had a meeting in Frankston and walked around Frankston and got to know the demographic. And this wine tastes like cat's piss, Mummy.

MUMMY (VISIBLY SHOCKED, EITHER AT SOPHIE'S ADMISSION OR HER DESCRIPTION OF THE WINE; OR POSSIBLY BOTH): Sophie! I have told you before, never get out of the car in Frankston! And your language! Really. And Sophie, Frankston does not have a demographic. It has drug dealers and criminals. Why did you have to go there? I thought going into advertising meant you would never have to go further south than St Kilda junction.

SOPHIE: Oh, no, Mummy! We even went to Kilsyth once. A horsy client lived there. Made bridles and saddles. It was quite interesting. Everyone walking around the streets was wearing a check shirt.

MUMMY: Yes, Sophie, but Frankston? What kind of client would be based in Frankston? I assume it was a client?

SOPHIE (BRIGHTLY): Crime Converters, Mummy!

MUMMY SWOONS. SOPHIE JUMPS FOR THE BELL TO SUMMON THE BUTLER.

SOPHIE (SCREAMING): James! James! Come quickly! Mummy fainted!

A TALL GAUNT MAN IN A DINNER SUIT AND WHITE GLOVES MOVES QUICKLY AND SILENTLY INTO THE ROOM.

JAMES (LOOKING WORRIED): The last time Lady Avon took a turn like this was when your older brother Garth told her he was marrying a girl from West Sunshine.

SOPHIE: Hmmm, yes. That would have been a shock to Mummy, poor dear.

LATER, IN THE DRAWING ROOM, A VAST ROOM FULL OF STUFFED CHAIRS AND BOOKSHELVES. SOPHIE AND MUMMY ARE SITTING TOGETHER ON THE COUCH.

SOPHIE: I'm sorry, Mummy. I'll never go to Frankston again. Crime Converters are coming up to St Kilda Road next time.

MUMMY: Well, that's one thing.

SOPHIE: Yes. They're bringing some customers with them so we can workshop some creative ideas.

MUMMY (AFTER A PAUSE): Are you sure neuroscience wouldn't have been a better career than advertising, Sophie? You were always so good at playing doctors and nurses with your dolls.

No, of course they're not stolen.

THE AGENCY IS BEING GIVEN ITS INDUCTION INTO THE NEW RETAIL ACCOUNT, AT ITS FLAGSHIP STORE IN SUNNY FRANKSTON. FRANKSTON IS KNOWN FOR ITS BEACH, THE FOUR PUBS ON ALL FOR CORNERS OF ITS MAJOR INTERSECTION AND ITS VIBRANT RANGE OF RETAIL STORES. SOON FRANKSTON WOULD EVEN BE HOME TO THE ST KILDA FOOTBALL CLUB, A MOVE DESIGNED TO ASSIST IN THE CLUB'S EFFORTS TO RECRUIT BEN COUSINS.

CLIFFORD IS DESCRIBING THE STORE'S BUYING PROCESS, ASSISTED BY A REAL LIVE TRANSACTION IN THE BUYING ROOM, WHERE A TRACKSUIT-CLADDED DOPE HEAD IS ATTEMPTING TO OFFLOAD A COUPLE OF PLASMA SCREEN TVS.

SOPHIE (INNOCENT YOUNG ART DIRECTOR): Wh ... what's he doing?

CLIFFORD: He's helping us stock the store. With the very latest in Europeasn technologically-advanced KP3-enhanced multi-pixel system super definition enviro-equipped electro-saving cut-out system, trademark, of course, .... TVs.

SOPHIE: What, both of them?

CLIFFORD PEERS THROUGH THE GLASS.

CLIFFORD: Yes, from what I can see. Worth $14,000 apiece. He'll get $1000. We'll sell them for five grand. Someone will get a bargain and ....

HE TURNS TO THE BOARDTABLE AND LEERS LIKE A VAMPIRE IN A BLOODBANK

... EVERYBODY WILL BE HAPPY!

DAVE: Especially his dealer.

CLIFFORD: Pardon?

DAVE: Nothing.

SOPHIE (PERSISTING - SHE STILL CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHY SOMEONE WOULD BE SELLING TVS AT 9 O'CLOCK ON A MONDAY MORNING IN FRANKSTON): But where did he get them? And why doesn't he want them any more?

CLIFFORD (AIRILY): People change their minds, Sophie. Always wanting a better model, I suppose. Those things are superseded every year. People want the lastest and the best.

WAYNE (AGENCY MD): That's all right, Sophie, we'll go through all the ins and outs of the, er, buying process in due course.

MICK: Looks like there's been a few unauthorised 'ins' overnight ...

CLIFFORD (GLARES): What do you mean? All our stock is guaranteed genuinely free from any unauthorised activity.

MICK: You mean they're not stolen?

CLIFFORD (RED-FACED, HUFFING): Stolen? Stolen? Of course they're not stolen! Every supplier of stock to Crime Converters has to sign the book!

MICK (TO DAVE): See? They sign the book. That proves it.

DAVE: Yeah. That proves it.

WAYNE: Ah, Mick; I think we might move onto the next stage, a store walkabout.

EVERYONE GETS UP FROM THE TABLE WITH THAT AIR OF FAKE BONHOMIE THAT FOLLOWS EVERY STRAINED MEETING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD OF ADVERTISING.

Daytrip to Frankston.

A COLD MELBOURNE MORNING DAWNED BLEAK AND DRIPPING IN LATE WINTER. AMONG THE HUNDREDS OF CARS PROCEEDING SOUTH ON THE NEPEAN HIGHWAY WAS A CONVOY OF THE EUROPEAN LUXO-BARGES PREFERRED BY THE CITY'S ADVERTISING AGENCY ELITE; SLEEK SILVER AND BLACK MACHINES DESIGNED TO DO 250 K/MH BUT CRUELLY DESTINED NEVER TO BREAK 110. THIS MORNING THEY WERE SULKILY CRAWLING ALONG AT A SNAIL'S 40 K/MH PACE DUE TO ROADWORKS ON EASTLINK AND AN ACCIDENT AT SOUTH ROAD.

MICK: Fucking traffic. And why do we always have to have clients that have their fucking headquarters in fucking places like Blackburn South, Ringwood, Vermont and now fucking Frankston.

DAVE: Is that a statement or a question, Mick? And cut the language. I haven't eaten breakfast yet.

MICK: You'll eat like a king in Frankston, Dave. If Clyde lets us out of Crime Converters for a pleasant walk around Playne Street.

DAVE: What time are we meeting?

MICK: Nine o'clock. If we can get through this traffic, we'll have time to stop for a takeaway cappucino and a donut from the Seven Eleven in Seaford.

DAVE (GRIMACES): I might pass. But you go ahead.

LATER. SIX AGENCY PERSONNEL ARE IN THE UPSTAIRS OPEN-PLAN BOARDROOM OVERLOOKING THE LARGE SHOP AREA OF THE FRANKSTON CRIME CONVERTERS MEGASTORE, SITUATED IN FRANKSTON'S MAIN STREET NEAR THE MONEY-LENDING SHOPFRONTS (BANKS WON'T LISTEN? WE WILL!), THE ALL-NIGHT X-RATED BOOKSHOPS AND THE CENTRELINK OFFICE. (FRANKSTON'S MOTTO: 'EVERYTHING YOU NEED IN THE ONE PLACE!') ON THE NEXT CORNER ARE ALL-NIGHT HOTELS ON ALL FOUR CORNERS. JUST IN CASE YOU WERE THIRSTY.

MR CLIFFORD KLOPPERS, THE MANAGING DIRECTOR, IS TALKING. CLYDE SITS NEXT TO HIM.

CLIFFORD: Gentlemen, welcome to the world's most advanced retail model. And ladies. (HE REALISES A LITTLE TOO LATE THE PARTY INCLUDES TWO NON-MALES)

MICK: Ah, what makes it that, Mr Kloppers, exactly?

CLIFFORD: Call me Clifford, Mick. Hell, call me Cliff! Crime Converters has developed a new age retail system that allows us to completely eliminate one entire level of personnel and thereby create the opportunity to produce a far higher ROI ...

CLYDE (INTERRUPTING): That's return on investment for those in creative.

CLIFFORD: ... thanks Clyde; a far higher return on investment than any other retail model existent in the current business environment.

We have no buyers. At all. None.

SOPHIE: How do you obtain your stock, Mr Kl ... Cliff?

CLIFFORD GETS UP FROM HIS CHAIR AND DANCES OVER TO THE FULL-LENGTH GLASS WINDOW THAT OVERLOOKS THE SHOP FLOOR. HE POINTS DOWN TO A SECTION, ENCLOSED AT GROUND LEVEL BUT VISIBLE TO THOSE IN THE ELEVATED BOARDROOM AND LOOKS BACK AT SOPHIE AND THE OTHERS.

CLIFFORD: Watch.

ALMOST BY MAGIC, BUT PROBABLY SOMETHING MORE LIKE COINCIDENCE OR SHEER FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE, AN OUTSIDE DOOR OPENS SLOWLY ON THE ENCLOSURE, REVEALING SOMEONE'S SHOE AND A SHAFT OF MORNING SUNSHINE. THE FOOT IS FOLLOWED BY ITS OWNER, A YOUNGISH BUT HAGGARD-LOOKING MAN WITH A PINCHED, TIRED, SUNKEN, SALLOW FACE. ON HIS HEAD IS A JIM BEAM PROMOTIONAL BASEBALL CAP. HE IS WEARING A TOO-LARGE HOLDEN DEALER TEAM TRACK JACKET, AND TOO-LONG BLACK AND WHITE NYLON BUTTON-LEG ADIDAS TRACK PANTS DRAG OVER HIS FILTHY OLD NIKE RUNNING SHOES. ON BOTH SHOULDERS, THE MAN IS CARRYING VERY LARGE PLASMA SCREEN TELEVISIONS, HENCE THE NEED TO PUSH OPEN THE DOOR WITH HIS FOOT.

CLIFFORD (WITH A FLOURISH): See? The world's very first outsourced department store buying department!

Clyde makes an announcement.

LOUDSPEAKER: Attention please, would everyone proceed to the boardroom immediately for an important agency announcement from Wayne. Wayne is flying interstate this afternoon so would you please move to the boardroom swiftly for this announcement. Thanks.

WAYNE IS THE MD. TWENTY MINUTES LATER, STAFF ARE STILL WANDERING LIKE LOST SHEEP INTO THE BOARDROOM. FINALLY, EVERYONE IS THERE AND WAYNE HIMSELF COMES IN. CLYDE. P. ULSTER MOVES NEXT TO HIM. HE LOOKS EXTRA PLEASE3D WITH HIMSELF.

WAYNE: Thanks everyone for being so prompt. I love the way you all jump to attention when the need arises. I have a great announcement to make today. Clyde here (LOOKS AT CLYDE) has worked away assiduously for several months on a very important project for this agency. He has dedicated himself day and night to win us a piece of business so important, so crucial for the future of this office and so vital in moving us forward as a force in the advertising industry in this city.

PAUSE. WAYNE LOOKS AROUND.

Today I am pleased to announce that Clyde has achieved what he been working away on for so long. He has landed one of the most important pieces of retail business existing in this city, this State, in fact, this nation.

This piece of business will mean this agency will be rubbing shoulders with other agencies carrying blue chip clients in all industries. Leadership clients, cutting edge clients, clients that matter, that command respect.

And now Clyde will reveal to you the identity of this prestigious account; this piece of retail business that all of you will work on, giving you opportunities you only dreamt of when we had Kmart. Over to you, Clyde.

CLYDE: Thanks Wayne. That was a very nice introduction. Thank you.

SLIGHT PAUSE

I am sure all of you understand the traditional glow of pleasure that occurs in working on prestige retail accounts. Retail was in fact the very origin of high class advertising, going back to the magnificent print productions, newspaper illustrations and high-class catalogues of the early twentieth century and even earlier.

In the USA as populations moved west, major retail houses sent their advertisements via Cobb and Co to the cashed-up settlers who purchased by mail reply. And in Europe, the grand old retail houses, especially in Paris, London, Prague and other places, sold their wares from all over the world to the rich and wealthy.

LOU (PRODUCTION GUY) - ALMOST UNDER HIS BREATH BUT NOT QUITE: Cut te bullshit and get on with the announcement, you fat tosser. And what's the difference between wealthy and rich, anyway?

CLYDE: What was that? All right, let's move on. With that background, we carry on this proud tradition of prestige retail advertising with the announcement of the arrival at this agency today of ...

(HE FIDDLES WITH THE POWERPOINT BUTTON TO BRING AN IMAGE OF THE NEW RETAIL ACCOUNT'S LOGO UP ON THE BIG SCREEN FOR MAXIMUM IMPACT)

... this great name in modern retail:

THE POWERPOINT SCREEN STUTTERS UNCERTAINLY AND THEN A MUDDY, OUT-OF-FOCUS LOGO APPEARS. IT READS:

"CRIME CONVERTERS"

A SHOCKED SILENCE DROPS OVER THE ROOM. NO-ONE SAYS A THING FOR FIVE SECONDS AND THEN THERE ARE MUFFLED COMMENTS TOWARDS THE BACK OF THE ROOM.

GEORGINA (MAC OPERATOR): You've gotta be kidding. I was expecting David Jones, at least.

PAUL (PRODUCTION GUY): Fuckin' bullshit. If Crime Converters is a prestige retail account then I'm Prince Charles.

MICK (WRITER): How's your CV looking, Dave?

DAVE (ART DIRECTOR): Suddenly a lot better, Mick. Six months of farting around and he comes back with Crime Converters. Christ.

CLYDE (BEAMING): I'm sure you're all well and truly looking forward to starting work on this great new piece of business! (HE LOOKS AROUND VAINLY) There will be a brief arriving this week; but the really good news is that we will be getting out of the agency and conducting our very first Crime Converters store visit!

I'll see you all in Frankston at 8am on Thursday morning.

The New Retail Account, Part Two.

MR CLYDE P. ULSTER, EXPERT RETAIL ACCOUNT GUY, HAS JOINED THE AGENCY TO LAND A PRESTIGE RETAIL ACCOUNT.

AT A WELCOME SPEECH IN THE BOARDROOM, CLYDE GAVE A SHORT HISTORY OF RETAIL ADVERTISING. ABOUT NINETY MINUTES SHORT. AFERWARDS, THE FEW PEOPLE REMAINING IN THE BOARDROOM GAVE HIM WARM APPLAUSE.

CLYDE (BEAMING): Any questions?

FROM THE BACK OF THE ROOM: Yeah. Can we go to lunch now?

CLYDE (MISSES THE SARCASM): Sure. I know just the place.

BACK IN THE CREATIVE DEPARTMENT. MICK, WRITER, AND DAVE, ART DIRECTOR, ARE DECIDING WHETHER TO WORK ON AN URGENT PRESS AD OR GO TO LUNCH. THEY DECIDE THE PRESS AD WASN'T ALL THAT URGENT. THEY EXIT AND CROSS THE ROAD.

IN SARATOGA'S CAFE.

DAVE (STARING AT THE SPECIALS BOARD): I'll have the angel hair pasta with crab meat, chili and ginger.

MICK: Sounds disgusting, Dave. I can't decide between the Caesar salad or the vegetarian foccaccia.

DAVE: You've got no imagination, Mick. I mean, come on, Caesar salad? Some tired cos, a few burnt bits of bacon and a slop of mayonnaise?

MICK: No, the Caesar is actually good here. They assemble it on the spot rather than dredging it from a cold bain marie like most places up and down St Kilda Road. What did you think of Clyde?

DAVE: Fattest bore in advertising. That's two great achievements straight away. He's supposed to be landing a big piece of retail business.

MICK: It better be good. I'm sick of working on industrial boltcutters, cat enemas, pest extermination chemicals and carpet glue.

DAVE: You're never satisfied, Mick. That carpet glue campaign was actually quite creative.

THE WAITER CURTLY ANNOUNCES 'ANGEL HAIR PASTA' AND 'CAESAR SALAD', PLONKS THEM DOWN AND RACEWALKS AWAY.

MICK: Yes, but because the concept was triple X rated, it never actually ran.

DAVE: Yeah. Well, carpet glue. It kind of suggests something obvious. Anyway, who cares it never ran? It still cleaned up at awards night.

MICK: I know. That's crazy. You don't need to actually run an ad to win an award.

DAVE: Of course not. But then, award judges don't go around checking minor details like whether an ad has run or not.

MICK: No. In fact, they don't go around checking any details at all. They spend their three weeks in Cannes snorting white dust up their noses and then pointing a shaking finger at a board like a pin the tail on the donkey. It's their reward for being gurus of the industry. And old and fat and almost dead.

DAVE: You'll be like that one day, Mick; and then you'll be glad of a little chemically-induced stress relief.

MICK: No, I won't, Dave. Because I won't be in the industry any more. I'll be retired. It completely escapes me why people want to continue working twelve hour days into their late fifties. I've known creative directors who don't know their own children's names because they never see them except on weekends.

DAVE: Speaking of creative directors, here's James.

JAMES APPROACHES THEIR TABLE.

Hey, James, want to join us?

JAMES (LOOKS AROUND FIRTS TO SEE WHO ELSE IS THERE) Sure. What are we eating?

MICK: Pasta and Caesar salad, James. Hey, have you got any idea of what big-name retail account Clyde is bringing in? We want to know so we can practising what we need to draw; whether it be fridges, ladies' fashions, cans of baked beans or circular saws.

JAMES: Mick, you couldn't draw any of those if your life depended on it. So why bother worrying?

MICK: Thanks for the vote of confidence in your top team, James. And I'm not worried, I'm just mildly interested.

JAMES: Well, I don't know. I haven't spoken at length to the fat windbag. Although I did see some case studies in his folder from some of the traditional fashion houses of Europe and the US.

MICK: David Jones? Myer? Henry Buck's?

JAMES: We'll see.

HE GAZES AWAY. HE KNOWS.

The New Retail Account, Part Two.

MR CLYDE P. ULSTER, EXPERT RETAIL ACCOUNT GUY, HAS JOINED THE AGENCY TO LAND A PRESTIGE RETAIL ACCOUNT.

AT A WELCOME SPEECH IN THE BOARDROOM, CLYDE GAVE A SHORT HISTORY OF RETAIL ADVERTISING. ABOUT NINETY MINUTES SHORT. AFERWARDS, THE FEW PEOPLE REMAINING IN THE BOARDROOM GAVE HIM WARM APPLAUSE.

CLYDE (BEAMING): Any questions?

FROM THE BACK OF THE ROOM: Yeah. Can we go to lunch now?

CLYDE (MISSES THE SARCASM): Sure. I know just the place.

BACK IN THE CREATIVE DEPARTMENT. MICK, WRITER, AND DAVE, ART DIRECTOR, ARE DECIDING WHETHER TO WORK ON AN URGENT PRESS AD OR GO TO LUNCH. THEY DECIDE THE PRESS AD WASN'T ALL THAT URGENT. THEY EXIT AND CROSS THE ROAD.

IN SARATOGA'S CAFE.

DAVE (STARING AT THE SPECIALS BOARD): I'll have the angel hair pasta with crab meat, chili and ginger.

MICK: Sounds disgusting, Dave. I can't decide between the Caesar salad or the vegetarian foccaccia.

DAVE: You've got no imagination, Mick. I mean, come on, Caesar salad? Some tired cos, a few burnt bits of bacon and a slop of mayonnaise?

MICK: No, the Caesar is actually good here. They assemble it on the spot rather than dredging it from a cold bain marie like most places up and down St Kilda Road. What did you think of Clyde?

DAVE: Fattest bore in advertising. That's two great achievements straight away. He's supposed to be landing a big piece of retail business.

MICK: It better be good. I'm sick of working on industrial boltcutters, cat enemas, pest extermination chemicals and carpet glue.

DAVE: You're never satisfied, Mick. That carpet glue campaign was actually quite creative.

MICK: Yes, but because it was triple X rated, it never actually ran.

DAVE: Who cares it never ran? It still cleaned up at awards night.

MICK: I know. That's crazy. You don't need to actually run an ad to enter it in awards.

DAVE: Of course not. But then, award judges don't go around checking minor details like whether an ad has actually run or not.

MICK: No. In fact, they don't go around checking any details at all. They spend their three weeks in Cannes snorting white dust up their noses and then pointing a shaking finger at a board like a pin the tail on the donkey. It's their reward for being gurus of the industry. And old and fat and almost dead.

DAVE: You'll be like that one day, Mick; and then you'll be glad of a little chemically-induced stress relief.

MICK: No, I won't, Dave. Because I won't be in the industry any more. I'll be retired. It completely escapes me why people want to continue working twelve hour days into their late fifties. I've known creative directors who don't know their own children's names because they never see them except on weekends.

DAVE: Speaking of creative directors, here comes James.

(DAVE CALLS OUT TO JAMES)

Hey, James, any idea of what big-name retail account Clyde is bringing in? We want to know so we can practice drawing fridges, ladies' fashions, cans of baked beans or circular saws.

JAMES: Dave, you couldn't draw any of those if your life depended on it. So why bother worrying?

DAVE: Thanks for the vote of confidence in your top team, James. And I'm not worried, I'm just mildly interested.

JAMES: Well, I don't know. I haven't spoken at length to the fat windbag. Although I did see some case studies in his folder from some of the traditional fashion houses of Europe and the US.

MICK: David Jones? Myer? Henry Buck's?

JAMES: We'll see.

The New Retail Account, Part One.

Clyde P. Ulster was a sandy-haired fat man who had a red face and wore a suit that was too big, because he thought it would make him look smaller. It didn't. Clyde P. Ulster looked like an elephant in a collapsed circus tent.

Mr Ulster started working at the H. P. G. Advertising Agency one day this winter. He came in like so many consultants do these days - he just kind of appeared every now and then, unannounced, and before you knew it he was boring you to death at Friday night drinks, winning the football tipping and laughing too loud at the MD's jokes.

Clyde drove a ten-year-old navy blue Mercedes 400SEL which was covered in dust and had a back seat full of junk up to the window sills. A lot of the junk was plastic-bound inch-thick photocopied powerpoint presentations, yellowing and dog-eared. That meant Clyde P. Ulster had either exactly the wrong attitude about powerpoint presentations, or exactly the right one. I couldn't figure out which. A lot of the rest of the junk was presentations to retail clients, with garish covers featuring bar charts, sales graphs and pictures of fresh fruit and slabs of soft drink.

Clyde P. Ulster was a retail account guy.

*

WAYNE (MD) TO A PACKED FRIDAY MORNING BOARDROOM MEETING: I'm sure everyone has met Clyde. Clyde is this country's foremost expert in retail. Clyde knows more about retail than any individual in the advertising industry. Clyde knows how retail ticks in this country. He knows the psychology behind retail. He knows what the housewife buys, why she buys it, when she buys it and who told her to.

DEAD SILENCE.

Clyde knows the housewife like not even her husband knows her.

A FEW TITTERS.

Clyde, say a few words.

CLYDE P. ULSTER (STANDS UP AT THE HEAD OF THE BOARDROOM TABLE): Thanks, Wayne. My reputation precedeth me, obviously. (LAUGHS UPROARISHLY.) No doubt many of you have seen me around the place, often in the photocopying room, and wondered exactly what I have been doing. I'll tell you.

But before I tell you, let me fill you in on just a little of the history of retail in this country.

HE SHIFTS HIS STANCE, HITCHES UP HIS OVERSIZE TROUSERS AND GAZES INTO THE MIDDLE DISTANCE.

Way back in 1923 ...

TO BE CONTINUED.

Death of the advertising slogan.

"Something better every day."

Better than what?

And something better every day as compared to what? Something better on Wednesdays, Fridays and Monday afternoons?

The line is Coles' supermarkets' new line, replacing Save Everyday, which itself was stunningly pedestrian. But just to be on the safe side, Coles' marketing department uses a second slogan, Love Fresh, which I guess they place where their fresh food is, as against their stale food.

The advertising slogan, or positioning line as it is now probably incorrectly known, is at an all-time ebb.

None of them say anything special about the brand any more; most are just committee-derived combinations of words dragged out of the marketing department's latest powerpoint presentation on brand attributes. Which makes it all the worse; because every marketing department on earth uses the same words to describe their attributes; responsive, innovative, customer-focussed, etc.

I visited a Coles store yesterday. There were three employees out the front, near the sliding entrance doors. They were obviously on a break. Their Coles uniforms were ill-fitting and they were puffing on cigarettes as they slumped, legs outstretched, on the seat placed out the front for customers. Blue smoke drifted across the entrance as I went in. It stunk.

Something better every day. Sure.

Back.

This started out as a comment to the previous post, thanking everyone for noticing that I haven't been around and enquiring after my health. My health is good, thank you, as I hope yours is.

I've been away and am coming back soon to hound account servants off the face of the earth, although by what I've noticed, most have already migrated to the client side, where they come back to haunt us as clients. At least they clock off at 5 o'clock.

" ... to be away all day is the most productive use of time."

Goodbye, then.

*

Source: managing director's all staff email. I think he left a word out. I think the word was 'not'. But who knows? It might have been 'definitely'.

Thieves admit crime.

News release:

"Agency creatives Marmaduke Tosser, Grenville Wright III and Daisychain Flapper created the idea after being inspired by the famous YouTube video, ‘Monkey types out Encyclopaedia Britannica in six days'."

Created the idea?

After being 'inspired' by something they accidentally found on YouTube?

Utter bullshit.

Let's rewrite the news release:

"Agency creatives Marmaduke Tosser, Grenville Wright III and Daisychain Flapper admitted they couldn't think of one bloody idea between them despite collectively wolfing up salaries close to $750,000; so, in desperation, they got onto YouTube and searched for something - anything! - to rip off.

Finally they found a spot that was bafflingly obtuse enough to be sold in as being 'edgy'; and famous enough to give their own pathetic rip-off a point of reference for the wider community.

The agency brief to the production company was a DVD of the YouTube spot and a two-word note: 'Make this'."

Does anyone else find it amusing that an advertising agency can commission a $150,000 rip-off of a YouTube spot that probably took a teenager an afternoon of arsing around and no money to make? Especially when the original was way better?

" ... tea-leaf-reading focus group driven polling types ..."

OK, it's not advertising and I know advertising people are notoriously self-absorbed.

But just for a moment, put down your copy of Wallpaper (tosser), Colors (pathetic), Black & White (photograper wannabe) or NW (complete loser) and take a look at the following link. You might learn something.

Yes, I know it has a lot of economic jargon and economic history but it's worth the read, especially when he really gets down to tin tacks:

PAUL KEATING: "... in the end those kind of conservative tea-leaf-reading focus group driven polling types who I think led Kim into nothingness, he's got his life to repent in leisure now at what they did to him. They're back, they're back. Gary Gray lost the '96 election with me and then lost '98. He's been given Kim Beazley's best seat in Western Australia."

He's right. The tea-leaf-reading focus group driven polling types are now the ones getting the glittering prizes. It's a trend across public life, not just advertising. Keating goes on:

"The Labor Party is not going to profit from having these proven unsuccessful people around who are frightened of their own shadow and won't get out of bed in the morning unless they've had a focus group report to tell them which side of bed to get out."

Well said, Mr Keating. And well might I say that, because I'm further to the right of Genghis Khan. But there's more, like steak knives, except Keating's tongue is a lot sharper:

PAUL KEATING: ... Silly what's his name, the "Shrek" whoever he was on the television this morning. What's his name?

TONY JONES: Joe Hockey.

PAUL KEATING: Yes, Joe Hockey. That stuff's all palaver.

TONY JONES: Paul Keating, we are nearly out of time, but I mean, you realise you've set the cat among the pigeons, don't you?

PAUL KEATING: What cat amongst what pigeons?

It makes you almost pine for the days when this kind of straight-shooting mixed in with street-smart trash talking was all the rage in parliament.