I just walked out of a meeting to go over a project pitch for one of our largest clients. The presentation was entirely too copy heavy, so I mentioned to the creator of the pitch to add more visual elements, less text. His response to me was:
“Fine. Fine. Fine, fine, fine. FINE! FINE FINE FINE! You add your fucking pretty pictures. I communicate using words.”
Okay.
Day started out badly with my boss in one of his bi-polar moods, and then went from bad to worse. Or so I thought. I left a pitch for an AOR relationship thinking I completely screwed it up only to get a call an hour later saying how pleased they were with us. And we’re going back for round 2. And another client, who we’ve been courting across the country for a couple of months, called to say they want to ink the deal on Monday. Means a lot of travel for me and my team, but the company’s in a fabulous city, so I won’t mind too much. Now if I can just get my hands on a couple of martinis, my day will be complete!
A friend of mine told me the other day that I’d do fine on my pitch this morning if I laid off the sauce the night before and had a salad. I thought half of that was terrible advice. I should have taken it. Salad was good, though.
Our office is currently working on a half-ass guerrilla campaign and I can’t imagine that we’ll ever be close to the impressive one Publicis Prague did for a Czech film called Restart. Hire Publicis if you need this kind of thing, because we’re too lazy.
The pitch was done in an hour – from 8:30 to 9:30 and goddamn that was easy. I’ve never had a client agree to a relationship that fast. I did have my strategic planner there, who can talk his way into any situation, so that’s definitely what sold it. I lend nothing to a pitch but bad manners and bagel distribution. But whatever goes up, must come down and not 10 minutes later I snapped the heel of my favorite shoes sprinting up the stairs while trying to evade my boss in the elevator.
Big pitch today and the target is a bunch of perverted old Republicans, so I’m all set with my favorite black suit (read: I look hot) and GOP lapel pin I stole from the guy down the hall. Feminism be damned, I’m going to get this client come hell or high hem lines. I guess I should not bring up Karl Rove. Hopefully, I will not need outside creative help on this project as our Managing Partner sent out 5 very long emails last night, one which included:
“Further, there are to be NO freelancers of any kind until further notice — or unless approved by me with the most dire of circumstances.”
The most “dire” of circumstances. HA!
I can’t take client pitches anymore. There’s the endless droning of our strategy director who seems to think the more words he puts in a sentence, the more credible he seems. Then there’s our managing partner who sighs uncontrollably every few minutes and taps his pencil on his knee when he thinks things aren’t going well. What I hate most of all is when we go around the room and introduce ourselves and I have to make myself sound like I’m some superhero who’s saved the world from many imminent advertising apocalypses. And what I don’t get is the clients eat it up. They love the dog and pony show. I need to reapply my lipstick after kissing 2 hours worth of ass. Wish I had that lighted lip gloss thingy.
A national promotions agency wants us to partner with them on some microsites for professional sports teams. We went to their offices this morning to show off our stuff and it was possibly the most embarrassing presentation of my life. Our senior managing partner, our new biz manager and I were there, with our senior guy (Jack) doing the talking. He couldn’t even set up the projector. It took him 17 minutes (I timed it). He looked like a total retard. I didn’t help because I’d just have been in the way. Right. I don’t think we’ll be getting the business.
Jack would never be able to play Guitar Hero. iFood did this killer expandable/interactive banner for Guitar Hero II – I love the KISS looking guy. And it loads quickly and actually does something when you interact with it. Novel!
(courtesy of BannerBlog)
I just totally nailed a pitch to a client and I’m positive it’s due to the four chocolate cake donuts I ate an hour before. Everything that poured out of my mouth was liquid gold – almost like cocaine with the added 1000 calories. The client literally told me I could up our estimate by $300k. I peed in my Hudsons a little at that point.
With the bonus I’ll get from this, I’ll trade in my car for a Volvo. Hah! I’ll do that right after I buy my summer wardrobe at Lilly Pulitzer. But the new Volvo video-rich microsite is pretty neat (Forsman and Bodenfors) – check out when the guy is giving the speech at the beginning and points to the movie screen. When I clicked on the Joyride section, I had a flashback, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.
You know you’re SOL when the client starts talking about competing agencies during the pitch. Even our surgically-enhanced project manager (complete with one too many buttons undone and her unmentionables peeking out) couldn’t grab their attention. It all started out so well – the CD brought his uncharged Mac sans power cord, the projector died and the client’s brand police gave us a shakedown. It totally made my day! Our new business manager seems to think we still have a chance. I think when you get hired for that position, HR issues you horse blinders along with your insurance package and laptop. Try making your own horse/co-worker analogies – it’s fun!
Agency Tart 