Christmas on Primrose Hill (15 page)

‘Jamie Westlake was three feet away from us and we missed it?’ Daisy wailed, off on her own riff of missed opportunity.

‘What was he even doing in here?’ Jules asked Nettie.

‘You heard the man. He thought it was the gents’.’

‘Yeah, right. He missed the massive picture of the Victorian lady on the door, did he?’

‘Well, I don’t know, do I? I was more concerned with trying to stop him seeing the outfit.’

Jules gasped as she looked down at the inflated bag on the floor. ‘Did you tell him who you are?’

‘No.’

‘He asked her name, but she was too star-struck to remember it,’ Caro said, rolling her eyes.

‘I wasn’t! I was just—’

‘I don’t meant that,’ Jules interrupted. ‘I meant, did you tell him that you’re Blue Bunny Girl?’

‘No, of course not!’

It was apparently the wrong thing to have said.

‘Why not?’ Jules wailed. ‘He’s following you! You’re one of his eighteen. He thinks you’re a crazy chick. He thinks you’re cute.’

‘Not so cute that he recognized me, though, huh?’ Nettie said sulkily.

‘Oh, get over yourself. You were only visible on the clip for a few seconds.’

Caro wandered over to the bunny costume and unzipped it from the bag. ‘Hate to break up the party, girls, but the man’s gone, and if he’s here, you can be sure all the other A-listers are arriving too. That means we need to get you out on that carpet pronto.’

‘Oh God, yeah, I totally forgot,’ Jules said, checking the time on her phone. She pulled a face. ‘Damn. It’s nearly seven thirty. We need to get on with it.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ Daisy whispered to herself, wandering over to the basins and staring at her beautiful reflection in the mirror. So near and yet . . .

Caro held out the bunny suit. ‘Daise, go and guard the door. We can’t have anyone else barging in. Come on, Nets, hop in.’ She winked and gave an enormous grin. ‘Ha! Get it?’

Chapter Nine

‘So, ladies and gentlemen, this is how we do it,’ Jules said with a flourish as she let the newspaper spin into the centre of the French-polished conference table. All eyes came to rest on the photos of the giant blue bunny photo-bombing Daniel Craig and Ralph Fiennes as they had stood, suave in their dinner suits, eyes slightly narrowed to the cameras.

Even Nettie had to smile at the sight of her blue ears protruding behind their heads, her large paws held aloft as she had suddenly popped into view and the cameras had gone wild for it. Craig and Fiennes . . . Mmm, rather less so, but by the time they’d realized what was happening, she was already sprinting down the carpet, dodging security, who were slow off the mark and hadn’t anticipated a rogue blue bunny in their security briefings.

Up till then, her notoriety had been an Internet phenomenon, known only to those hipsters and geeks who cared about the tech zeitgeist – Caro was over the moon, for example, that YouTube likes of the clip she had filmed and posted were at 844,000, and crucially, #bluebunnygirl had trended on Twitter for three hours afterwards, delighting Jules. But this was bigger than a Web trend now. It was becoming a cultural tour de force, hitting the mainstream. She had made the local London news at ten o’clock last night and was on the front page of every red-top paper today.

Jeremy Maxwell, the head of CSR at White Tiger and chairing this latest emergency meeting at their plush offices in Mayfair, sat back in his chair. Pleasantries over the Nicaraguan coffee and fresh, warm almond croissants – Mike was making mental notes to upgrade from the biscuit tin the next time they hosted their important guests – had revealed he was tanned and lean from a week’s cycling holiday in Croatia, and he exuded the kind of low-key confidence that comes from undisputed power. His company’s contract was worth more than £6 million to their little firm; his suit was worth more than their annual stationery budget; his tie cost more than Mike’s suit – and as such, Mike was a nervous wreck.

‘You’ve done well. I take my hat off to you all. Especially you, Nettie. What you’ve been asked to do this last week, it can’t have been easy.’

‘Thanks,’ Nettie smiled, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at his understatement. Easy? She’d like to see
him
whale off the Shard or photo-bomb James Bond. Dressed as a bunny.

There was a small silence and she saw Mike sit forward, leaning his forearms on the table. Everyone sensed the ‘but’ – it was as present in the room as the Chinese rug and rare orchids.

Jeremy smiled as he looked at him. ‘But where’s White Tiger in all of this? We’re paying you to link us with charitable causes that mesh with the brand, and you’re doing a fine job of fundraising and highlighting the works of these charities, a fine job. But I see no mention of White Tiger’s involvement in all this.’

‘Well, obviously the branding was in place at the Ice Crush clip, and we got the kit on the powerlifters for the Ice Bucket Challenge,’ Mike said hurriedly.

‘But since then . . . ?’ Jeremy gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘As much as I want our charitable partners to benefit from their link-up with us, we are not in this merely to provide free marketing for them. That’s the quid; where’s the quo?’

Mike looked sick and for once Nettie felt sorry for him.

Jules leaned forward. ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head, Jeremy. Absolutely. Where
is
White Tiger? Yes, we’ve created that most elusive of things – a trend. You can’t hold it or touch it or capture it. It’s just fleeting, an irrational, collective sense of want or need, and
we’ve
got it. Right now, in the space of a week, we’ve snowballed a one-off, freak event into a daily happening that’s got people logging on especially to get the latest update. There is nothing hotter or funnier or cooler than “hashtag ballzup” right now.

‘But that’s only phase one. That was just creating the appetite for this campaign. We had to get that ball rolling first – bringing in the corporate element too early would have scared people off. No one likes to feel they’re being bought. The only reason these things mushroom like this is if people feel that they’re in on the secret, that
they’re
manipulating it – sharing it to their friends, retweeting, liking. It’s got to be organic. They want to be the ones in control. Not you, not us.

‘Now, we’ve got the momentum on our side – it’s hit the mainstream – but that means the bubble is going to burst at any moment. Timing for what happens next is crucial. The hipsters are going to fall away
unless
we ramp the campaign up again, raise the stakes somehow and keep it fresh. And this is where we need to actively draw in your brand. The public has already made the connection between the blue bunny and the “ballzup” hashtag, which in turn is connected to Tested. They like it; they share it; they donate to it.

‘But in phase two, when the public thinks of the Blue Bunny Girl, we want them to think White Tiger too. She’s your product, your do-good mascot. Everyone loves her.’ Jules’s eyes twinkled. ‘And as you can see from these headlines, they want to know more about her.’

‘Actually, this is something that’s been emerging in our meta-data. They’re all beginning to ask the same question now: “Who is the Blue Bunny Girl?”’ Scott Faulkner murmured. As White Tiger’s UK head of media strategy and Jeremy’s deputy, he was fiercer than his boss, the snarling pit bull to Jeremy’s sleek Weimaraner.

Jeremy smiled, rubbing his hands together. ‘So then we put her out there. Roll her out at the big events. We’ve got the World Diving Championships in Sydney next month.’

Nettie gripped her own thigh hard. If they thought she was going to dive off a cliff . . .

Caro shook her head. ‘No, no, that’s too far away, dates-wise. We’ve got another week left, tops. We need to go out on a high. And anyway, we have to build up her mystique. The last thing we want is to unveil Nettie and have everyone see she’s just a normal girl-next-door who still lives with her parents . . .’

Nettie felt her cheeks burn as the suited men’s eyes slid over to her quizzically. She looked adult enough in her black trousers and red jumper today.

‘Your consumers are thrill-seekers, and right now they’re loving the thrill of the chase: what’s she going to do next? Where? Who is she? It’s Banksy for . . . not-artists. They’re loving that kind of guerrilla element to it.’

‘Exactly! We’ve kept her identity secret till now . . .’ Jules paused, ‘mainly to stop her getting arrested again, I grant you’ – everybody laughed – ‘but we should use this as another marketing tool. The public loves a mystery, and it gives the press a game of cat-and-mouse too. Therefore, on no account now should her name get out there.’

Jeremy looked at Scott. ‘We’ll need to get legal to draw up confidentiality contracts. Anyone who knows her identity needs to sign.’

Scott nodded in agreement.

Caro narrowed her eyes, deep in thought. ‘In which case, we’ll need to re-edit the clips too. You can see her face for a second or two in the Ice Crush and Ice Bucket shorts. I’ll see if I can blur it out.’ She made a note on her iPad.

Nettie sat quietly, pleased by this development at least. It suited her very well not to have anyone know who she was. The bigger this thing was becoming, the more she wanted to hide herself away. It didn’t feel like it was her out there, doing those things, anyway, and Blue Bunny Girl had an identity that was far removed from hers. Caro was right – it would only be a disappointment for people to see what she was really like; it could even lose her followers, damage the campaign.

‘OK. This is all great, but exactly how are you going to make the public link the blue bunny to us?’ asked Scott. ‘They’re logging on to see what she does next; they’re donating to the charity as exposure goes up, but where’s the benefit to White Tiger? Where’s the connection?’

Everyone was quiet. Mike was looking panicked that what he had assumed was a glory parade had turned into something more worrisome. They needed a
plan.

Nettie’s phone buzzed with an incoming text and she surreptitiously slid it under the desk to read.

She frowned as she saw who it was from.

‘
Tried to call but keeps going to voicemail. Just checking in. Nothing new to report here. Call me if you need to talk. Gwen.
’

‘Well, to my mind, she’s going to have to go back to what started this off in the first place. She’s got to do these pranks at our events,’ Jeremy said. ‘That way, the branding is there and we’re bringing the spotlight onto our community.’

What? White fear prickled through Nettie’s veins, emboldening her. She was
not
going down that ice course again. ‘No, I’m not a stuntman,’ she said quickly. ‘What happened was an accident, and not one I wish to repeat – not even to keep my job.’

Jeremy put his hands up in a ‘whoa!’ gesture and laughed. ‘Nettie, Nettie, nobody’s going to lose their job. We’re in a position of strength here. There’s a positive way round this fix. Let’s take a moment – we’ll think of something.’

But the universe was against her, and time spun slowly out like a thread on a spool. No one had anything to offer. The room fell silent, some people beginning to doodle on their notepads, others chewing on their pens as they stared at the ceiling, and Nettie began chewing her thumbnail, her legs jigging anxiously.

‘We’ll get a celeb on board,’ Daisy said, her eyes brightening with the sudden idea.

‘Why? It’s hardly subtle, and certainly not cheap,’ Scott said dismissively. ‘What would be the point? We’ve already got a mascot in the bunny.’

‘Yes, but you’re known for sponsoring big-name athletes and thrill-seeking sports teams – people doing even more extreme things than the bunny – as well as attaching your brand to the wider lifestyle interests of that community: festivals, rallies. So, your person, who encompasses all that, becomes an ambassador for the charity. And you can use someone already under contract to you so you wouldn’t need to pay out.’

Jeremy and Scott swapped looks. Everyone’s backs straightened.

‘And if we have some big, splashy press conference to announce the link-up . . .’ Daisy said. ‘We’ll introduce them with Blue Bunny Girl on the stage so that the connection is subliminally made between them all, creating a trinity of sorts – White Tiger celebrity ambassador, Blue Bunny Girl, Tested.’

‘Could we get the celebrity to do some of the crazy stuff with the bunny?’ Scott wondered.

‘Depends who it is, but in theory, why not?’ Daisy shrugged. ‘If they’re game for a laugh. Fans of the celeb then get exposed to Blue Bunny and vice versa; meanwhile White Tiger reaps the goodwill and, by extension, brand loyalty.’

Scott looked across at Jeremy, nodding. ‘I like it. I like it. That could work.’

‘I agree.’ Jeremy looked thoughtful, pressing his fingers together into the steeple that Mike always copied. ‘Who have we got?’

‘Where do you start?’ Scott asked, blowing out his cheeks. ‘I’ll have to get on to the special relations team. It could be anyone from the White Tigers to—’

‘But they’re in New York. They’re your soccer team, right? The ones you sponsor?’ Jules cut in. ‘We’d need someone who’s in London right now if we’re going to tie it in to the “hashtag ballzup” campaign. We’ve got the momentum; we need to stay with it.’

Scott frowned. ‘Well, that’s going to knock out a lot of them. Most are in the States.’

‘Any of the F1 boys?’ Jeremy asked.

Scott pulled a face. ‘Not sure. Maybe. The next Grand Prix’s not till March . . . I could make some calls.’

‘They’ve got to be outspoken and fearless,’ Mike said, puffing out his chest and feeling his moment had come to make his mark on proceedings. ‘The problem Tested has come up against in the past is that celebs don’t want to be associated with something like testicular cancer. It’s just not’ – he held his fingers in the air and made speech marks – ‘“sexy”. Now, if we were working with one of the breast cancer charities . . .’

Scott frowned. ‘Eighty per cent of the athletes we endorse are male, Mike. Testicular cancer concerns them, therefore it concerns us.’

‘Exactly. Exactly my point,’ Mike said, quickly sliding into a U-turn. ‘We’ve
got
to break this taboo. Men are literally dying because of embarrassment.’