Can’t Believe it – Shezza Get’s it Right Again

It does worry the hell out of me when I find myself agreeing with old Shezza greybeard – and it’s happened twice in a row.

In his last post he ‘fessed up to being a Republican in a footnote to his nasty little piece about the failure of Duchy Originals under HRH Chazza’s stewardship. In Shezza’s case I suspect it’s sour grapes for not getting so much as a sniff of a gong. In my case I have always wanted to ditch the Royal Family for the most noble reason – it underpins the class system that says your place in society is determined by who your parents were, not who you are – a charter for chinless, witless toffs. Like most I have a great deal of respect for the Queen but after she’s gone here is my plan. Round up all the Royals who won’t relinquish their titles and stick them in a theme park near Dover for the tourists. Make Britain a Republic with a president and two elected chambers like most other places. Then anyone in society can aspire to lead their country (British Prime

Ministers are elected by their parties not directly by the people and only the Queen gets the ultimate sign-off). Who’d argue with that plan?

I often feel that part of the reason for my under-achievement is that I never had the possibility of becoming head of state. I lacked the motivation of a Barack Obama or Robert Mugabe. Take away the chance of ever getting the top job and it’s bound to undermine your work ethic.

Up yours and theirs, Stame

So That’s What Crowd Sourcing is

Well for once I found one of Shezza’s posts vaguely interesting and that’s about as rare as Rocking Horse pooh. I had heard this term Crowd Sourcing and had no idea what it meant. I thought it started with The Rolling Stones free gig in Hyde Park. With no price for entry a huge crowd pitched up to watch Mick strut his stuff in full make-up and tart’s clothes – he looked camper than a row of tents.

If I’ve got this right, you can use a crowd to solve problems or come up with ideas. Well not the Hyde Park crowd that day, you couldn’t. We, sorry I mean they, were off their faces on a cocktail of Columbian Marching Powder, Mandies, Speed and Carlsberg Special Brew.

Anyways up, I like this idea of getting a load of wannabe creatives to solve all your marketing problems. In the days I had budgets I’d have shoveled large portions in their direction and taken all the credit myself. ”Yes, the idea just came to me while I was taking a shower, I never stop thinking about work”.

Shezza mentions the slight downside if the brief is confidential (why are they called ‘briefs’, they’re normally anything but). Can’t see that’s a problem – agencies are known to be as a confidential as a bimbo who’s just shagged a Premiership footballer. Most ‘creatives’ are not even on the agency payroll. I know, I used to go and have a pint with them and hear about all the stuff they were working on that had nothing to do with advertising or marketing. In my experience discretion was not their middle name – leaky bucket was.

Yep, I like the sound of this Crowd Sourcing. Brand Managers have always been ace at getting other people to do their job and most of their thinking for them. Now they can spread the net much wider than a few local agencies and outsource even more of their job description. I can only see two downsides. First, Agencies are going to use this themselves and to be fair they will be better at picking the best ideas. Second, no crowd sourcer will spring for tickets to Twickenham or a decent lunch.

Up yours, Stame

Shezza put the Twat in Twitter

Oops, typo, meant to say put the Twit in Twitter (no, I didn’t). Shezza loves his tweets and I now see he’s trying to tout himself as some kind of expert in Social Media. I’m happy to call it Social Media, I’m even happy to call it Social Forum or Social Bollocks. As I keep pointing out, if you want to reach the true social opinion leaders, the people who can really change purchase decisions based on the respect their peers hold for their expertise, then talk to me. I don’t tweet or twat but I can take you down my local pub and introduce you to my mates who will put you right about which car to buy or phone upgrade to go for. They can even tell you the most effective insurance scams.

I’ve tried Twitter but I find this 140 characters thing a pain. If you’ve got something to say other than “@ anybody out there, I’ve had a really tough week, looking forward to the weekend, LOL” which seems to be the majority of the crap filling the airwaves, then you need a few paras. I’m sure you would agree that this post is of great value to mankind and I’m already up to 205 words.

Why doesn’t someone super size Twitter.  Keep all the easy to use bit (I will grant you Twitter is heaps better than Facebook if you are over 20 years old and acne free) but just allow up to 200 words. Less than blogging but more than 140 characters, so we get some decent ideas flowing. I’d go for that and then more of the world could benefit from my pearls of wisdom.

Up yours, Stame

A Great Idea Goes Down The Toilet

I was taking a slash in a pub toilet in the West End last week, several actually – you know what it’s like after a few pints, once you break the seal you pee like a puppy. Anyway I spotted this promotion from Toshiba (advertising in toilets is called “ambient media” so I’m told) – I should be posting a photo but I didn’t want to get caught with my iPhone out in a public lav. Doesn’t matter, I can explain it easily enough. The deal was that if you bought a Toshiba PC in June they would refund the full price if England won the Soccer World Cup.

This must have seemed like a great idea to the witless brand manager, or his/her agency, who dreamt it up. On the one hand, capture a bit of World Cup vibe, get behind the lads and all that, on the other hand, not likely to be paying out. Well that’s the bloody point isn’t it? As soon as England got knocked out they needed to get these ambient posters down. Not only did England exit early on, losing to the old enemy, Germany, they played like one legged cripples in an arse kicking competition in all their games (4 in total). England fans are pissed off beyond belief – not only has their team embarrassed them, many feel literally robbed having forked out for new tele’s or even trips to the Rainbow Nation.

So how do they feel now, looking at Toshiba’s World Cup promotion? How warm do they feel towards the brand? Do they think, “Well done for getting behind the lads, getting in the spirit of things, you are definitely a brand I have a strong affinity for”?
Or do they instead think, “You slimey bastards, you knew f***** well we wouldn’t win didn’t you. You bet against our boys and you won – well f*** you. Toshiba – Japanese innit? Only Germany’s f**** allies during the war, weren’t they? etc etc etc”

Buy Toshiba – the foreign brand who knew all along that England have a shite team who never win anything.

I think advertising, “ambiently”, a truly crap promotion in a pub toilet is somewhat ironic.

Watch this space for more great case studies.

Up yours, Stame

Plus ca change, plus c’est tout une charge de merde de taureau

Fluent in French – just another of my hidden talents.

I cannot believe Sherrington’s stupidity in thinking he can win a debate with Paul Feldwick. Even if he was arguing water was wet and Paul was arguing it wasn’t, he’d lose. Mr. Feldwick is ten times smarter than Uncle Fester (my special name for Shezza). As it is he is trying to argue that the internet has changed everything – bollocks. Name me one thing?

The internet makes marketing more interative – listen, marketing was interactive in the Coliseum in Rome. Thumbs down if you want to see the Christian fed to the Lions, thumbs up if you to want to see them freed so they can form Bible Groups and put little fish on their chariots.

The internet gives people more access to information so they can make better purchase decisions – I go down the pub and ask my drinking buddies which is the best car to buy for under 10 grand. Someone always knows.

Everyone can publish their views – yes, they can, in a gazillion dull blogs (duller even than this one). We always knew that everyone has a book in them, just not necessarily a good one. Now that anyone can publish for free the cyber space is clogged up with the most useless drivel***.

The internet has changed the nature of social interaction – wow, now a load of spotty teenagers can share their mindless ramblings and puerile pursuits with a load more spotty teenagers on Facebook. Big deal.

Oh but it’s so easy to book on-line – are you kidding me! By the time you have filled out the form 10 times because you keep missing some piece of information (which is only asked for so they can pester you with a load of useless offers later on) you might as well pick up the phone and call someone. Better still get your secretary to do it. And for secretary read search engine – much better than google.

The internet has caused an explosion of content – if by content you mean some video of a cat playing the trombone or some little kid hitting his brother and laughing ‘til he wets himself, well then all I can say is that you are easily contented. (I will acknowledge the vast improvement in quality and quantity of pornography and the ability to fill in few dull hours at work watching it).

Look how the internet has changed politics – Bush and Brown were kicked out and Obama and Cameron got in. Am I missing something?

The internet has changed the balance of power between big brands and consumers – not so’s you’d notice. And anyway do you seriously think any of these big corporations pay any attention to what you think? They listen to their shareholders and watch their competitors. If you want to influence what they actually do with their brands, give up 2 hours on a Tuesday night to sit in some bloody focus group in Staines being interviewed by a drippy moderator with a degree in Humanities. You have a much better chance of some witless brand manager concluding from the debrief that there was a much stronger preference for the apricot flavoured toothe paste just because you and the other mouthy guy gave it the thumbs up and the rest of the group couldn’t be bothered saying anything.

Access to news, sports and weather reports – buy a newspaper.

No, it’s all a load of tosh spread by the Silicon Valley geeks who want to sell you the latest Lilly Pad Phone so you can browse 24/7. Browse what? If you want to browse go to a big department store, you’ll even get a free splash of aftershave.
And if f you want to blog so that you can share your views with a large unkown captive audience, take a felt tip pen with you the next time you use a public toilet (also a useful place to meet new friends and interact socially as George Michael will tell you). I call it the Bogosphere.

*** My eBooks available on this site are of course an exception to this general rule.

Up yours, Stame.

What a load of B********

Just read Sherrington’s post on technology making us behave badly, internet etiquette etc (I do wish he’d run this stuff past me first). What a load of Billy Bollocks. The whole point of the internet is to be extreme, to drop the normal niceties and tell it like it is. That’s my philosophy. Someone can’t take a joke then f*** them (if I find someone has edited this and put in asterisks I’ll be really p**** off).

By the way, if any of you have been wondering where I’ve been I’d like to point out that I have been posting like a demon but most of them get spiked by Sherrington. If you are reading this then it means the bunch of flowers I sent Amanda has done the trick and she has slipped it past Shezza while he’s been busy with his ‘other ventures’.

Amanda is the one who converts all his ramblings and mine into stuff that can actually be posted since neither of us know one end of a computer from the other.

Up yours, Stame

How Could McKinsey Turn Down Stame Reilly?

Hi there, Stame here, once gain stepping forward to correct something the psychophantic Sherrington has said. How can anyone regard McKinsey as “the world’s best management consultancy”? In the early ‘80’s when I was forging a career in the corporate world (one that admittedly fizzled out shortly after but only because I never acquired a taste for licking arses) I was approached by McKinsey and asked to interview with them. Yes, they approached me, how cool was that? I had heard that they worked you pretty hard which was a worry but they also had the reputation for paying their people shed loads of dosh for a few years before releasing them back into a big client at a celestially senior level. I certainly fancied the extra cash but most especially I really liked the idea of avoiding ‘middle management’ and getting a fast track to the top.

So I plodded up to their offices in Mayfair where I was met by some Brigadier Ponseby-Smythe (or some such name), their head of recruitment. He looked like he’d come out of central casting for a British war movie – an upper lip so stiff you could lever a tyre off with it. He clearly had not got the memo that I’d been talent spotted and was distinctly frosty when I began by enquiring how much exactly they paid and would I be expected to work late? “We’ll get to that later” he said, “first you have to get through 7 rounds of interviews including IQ tests”.

Seven!!!!!! IQ tests!!!! I did not like the sound of this one bit. Sure enough we began with a 90 minute written test, which contained some very beastly maths and no offer of a calculator (I did ask). I was then marched off to some junior partner who proceeded to ask me how I would go about determining the efficiency of some nameless call centre. I hadn’t a clue – he had not exactly given me much information to go on and he seemed to smile as I attempted to ask a few apparently irrelevant questions like “Does this nameless company have some report by a management consultant I could read?”  “That is the point of the exercise” he said, “What information would you want to see in the report, how would you go about finding it, how would you test the validity and draw conclusions?” I suggested a few focus groups – I was a marketing boy after all – but this did not go down well and this first interview ended rather quickly.

Thankfully my next interview was with a senior partner and one who many years ago, by coincidence, had worked where I worked,  before being talent spotted by McKinsey, as of course I too had been. This augured well. He knew my boss – it was he who had put put my name forward so it turned out.

“Howard tells me you are one of his brightest managers” the Senior Partner said – it came across more as a challenge than an observation. Now my guard was up. I knew perfectly well that Howard thought I was utterly useless. He had hinted as much when he’d given me my last appraisal. “Stame, you are utterly bloody useless” he had said enigmatically. I also knew that Howard knew that I thought he was utterly useless. I’d never actually told him but he’d recognized my handwriting on the loo wall at the office.

So this was the game – Howard was trying to get rid of me by recommending me to his old mate at McKinsey. So what – there was still the chance of me getting a big fat salary and catching the career escalator all the way to the top floor if I joined McKinsey. I decided to ask the Senior Partner what I’d asked the Brigadier – how much exactly would they pay me, how many hours per week was normal, could I travel first class since the client was paying? Well I liked the sound of the salary and the perks but the workload sucked. 70- 80 hours a week? (I had to do a quick mental sum to check there were actually 80 hours in a week). Moreover, it turned out they were sticklers for details. Every number on a chart had to be spot on, no spelling mistakes, perfect graphics. Detail was never my strong point and my maths was pretty poor even with a calculator. I told him I was more of an ideas man – the kind of guy who could come up with a brilliant strategic insight on pure instinct alone. He smiled (rather patronisingly I felt) and asked for some examples. None immediately sprang to mind but I told him my last on-pack coupon promotion I ran had got very high redemption and it had been my idea not to put a closing date on it (it had come in so far over budget in fact that my boss Howard made me personally apologise to the Finance Director but I didn’t mention that).

After finshing with the Senior Partner I was taken back to the Brigadier. It was by now early evening (well past 5.00 pm anyway) and I was rather hoping to get away to meet some mates at a local west end pub for a few sherberts. So I was pleased when he told me he was not going to take long.

“Mr Reilly, we have concluded that management consultancy may not be the best career choice for you but we thank you for your interest in the firm”. And that was it – I’d been rejected after only the second of the seven interviews (and the IQ test). I had mixed feelings – the way you might feel if you saw a busload of Welshman driving over a cliff and then spot an empty seat. I was relieved because by now I was quite clear I did not fancy McKinsey one little bit but I was also annoyed that it was they who had turned me down and not the other way around.

So how can anyone say McKinsey are the best in the world if they passed over the chance to employ Stame?

Up yours and theirs

At Last a Really Useful iPhone App

Sherrington has been banging on about new technologies and some scary iPhone app that lets you get all the gen on perfect strangers. You take their photo and then the phone rummages around in their facebook account and tells you they have 300 friends and like Britney Spears and ice cream. Bollocks to all that.

I’ve found the best iPhone app ever, the one that would persuade me to actually buy an iPhone just to be able to download it.

In fact, with this app you’d find me up and down Oxford Street most days.

Up yours, Stame

Are You Reading Me?

As a cheeky young brand manager I used to add a daft sentence to some boring brand document I’d been delegated to write (like the trade marketing plan – nobody senior could be bothered with that). So on about page 5 I’d add some line like this:-

In Cycle 10 all promotional E10 packs for Tesco Tier 5 superstores will include a dead parrot as a tribute to John Cleese and because we hate Tesco and their rather common shoppers.

I’d then sit back and wait. 9 times out of 10 there would be no comments ergo, no-one had read the document, ergo no-one gave a shit about trade marketing. (The odd occasion I was found out contributed significantly to me being passed over for promotion I believe).

These days, I worry that every time I scroll down and hit “I agree” on some software download means I have just handed over the right for some wag in Apple to smear my testicles in honey and hang me over an ant hill. They could you know – they could put all sorts of crap in the agreement and you’d never know because none of us – and I mean none of us – ever read them (Eddy Izzard is very amusing on this subject). We’d find out if someone pitched up on our doorstep with a pot of honey and a smile on their face. The first time this happened I guess the on-line community – aka social meedjah – would twitter and blog themselves into a frenzy. The guilty party in Apple would be booted out by Saint Steve and they’d then spend the rest of their miserable days trying to build a following on youtube with other tales of funny japes (like that Canadian twat FLuffee).

This line of thinking leads to me to a worrying conclusion. Although downloads of my eBooks seem to have gone very well – people even Twitter about them – no-one is reading them. Or at least no-one is reading all of them.

What else explains why people from Yorkshire have not been writing letters to the Times vilifying me for vilifying them in ‘10 people to watch out for in business’. Why have none of my former colleagues (who I cruelly parody in 10 Uncomfortable truths) been on the phone to complain (this is very surprising because I owe at least half of them money). Even if people can’t be bothered to read you’d think they would have spotted the photos of Elle MacPherson buck naked being licked from head to toe by an Alsatian on page 30 (I made this bit up – the lovely Elle would never do such a thing – just wanted to check you were still with me).

I deal in valuable truths (mostly). I deserve a more attentive audience.

Up yours, Stame

Get Your Team to Write Their Own Year-end Performance Reviews

I once had a boss who through sheer idleness and bloody mindedness asked me to write my own year-end performance review. This was a really shit brief. You can’t just write endless lists of strengths so you find yourself owning up to all sorts of flaws and failures, ones he would never have spotted given the modest amount of attention he paid anyone else but himself. I ended up getting the lowest pay rise in the department.

The best way to score the top performance review is to be a brown nosed sycophant. It is very hard for a boss to rate you poorly if you are quite clearly his biggest fan (I say ‘his’ not because of my normal chauvinism that assumes bosses are always blokes but because the minority of female bosses are not so easily duped).

Up Yours.