Last week, I did a short gig at an ad agency office. This has become quite the rarity these days. Even though I'm quite the eye candy, many creative services manager opt to have me work remotely. They're probably trying to avoid having all the women, and some of the men, so inevitably distracted.
Suffice to say, it was a little unusual walking into an office. Where I usually hear murmurs of...
"Damn, I can't believe he's 44."
That's not all I hear.
Last week I was approached by three or four never-seen-before colleagues who were testament to the phrase, your reputation precedes you.
"Hey it's the Roundseventeen guy."
"Oh, you're the curmudgeon. It's good to put a face to all that crankiness."
"Dude, I love how you slam planners. And I'm a planner."
"Keep writing about these shitty open office plans. These suck."
The last comment was whispered to me in abject fear that someone higher up the food chain would hear of her real estate gripes.
But here they were, these young kids, reciting chapter and verse all the themes I've been hammering away at for the past 9 years:
Holding company madness
Salary inequality
Impossible deadlines
Planner horsecockery
Group Unthink
Frivolous Fuckwadian Digital Knick Knacks™
Hourly check ins
and Myopic Bean Counters
I'll be honest, it was quite flattering.
If only I could've bottled it up, brought it home and showed it to my wife, who might reassess her feelings about "all the goddamn time you're wasting on that goddamn blog instead of fixing the goddamn garbage disposal. This place smells like a landfill."
But I digress.
How quaint, I thought, if we could do the same for our clients. That is, through the process of repetition, humor, empathy and thematic messaging, build for the folks who spend billions and billions of dollars on advertising, a reputation that precedes them.
I'll expand on this at a later date, right now I better get running to Home Depot.
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