The office is completely empty when I get in, which gives me blissful silent preparation time. The two final creative routes we’ve got are (I think, I hope) good, and the boards (onto which we’ve pasted our branding and launch ideas) look excellent. The weekly work-in-progress ‘tissue’ (ew) meetings have gone really well, even though they’ve only been with ol’-blue-eyes Lukas, the UK MD. He looks over what we’re doing and says what he thinks, but he’s so new to the Blumenstrauße business too, so he probably has about the same amount of insight as we do. But today is different. The two most senior guys, Stefan and Felix, arrive this morning from Germany. I met them briefly about six weeks ago when they came over for a few meetings about the strategy plan, but this is the first time I’ll be speaking to them at length. Hopefully it won’t be the last.
I read over my presentation notes and thoroughly proof the boards one last time and look at my watch. It’s 8.36 am. The office is still empty. I send a quick email to Amanda The Office Manager to remind her about coffee for the Germans, and check my notebook. Yep, looks like I’ve done everything. And there’s still over two hours till they all get here. I can relax. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Zen. Zenny zen.
‘Hey. I’m here to see if you need any help before the meeting.’
It’s Danny, one of Andy’s crony-ish art directors. He’s been working pretty hard on this pitch, but all the same, he’s never
been in the office before 10 am, ever. I’m staggered. He even—I look him up and down quickly—has cleanish jeans and a long-sleeved shirt on.
‘Oh, wonderful. Yes, please,’ I say, thinking quickly about what he can do. ‘You could go over the branding presentation and check it, and if you have any time after that, more example imagery would be great for us to stuff into the leave-behind.’
‘No probs,’ he says.
For the next 45 minutes we work together in silence, with just the tinny strains of Ladyhawke coming from his iPod headphones. The rest of the office starts trickling in—first the account managers, then the creatives. Everyone’s a bit earlier than usual, probably as they know it’s such an important day for the agency.
At 9.30 am we do a quick run-through with just the team who’s doing the pitch. Me, Charlotte the account manager, Scott the account director and Cooper. We all know who’s talking, who’s introducing who, and who’s sitting where. Scott is good at this shit. He was trained at Ogilvy, and as a result has that glossy sheen that rubs off nicely on the rest of us. Charlotte’s a bit gushy, Cooper adds a stern gravitas and I—I wonder what I bring to the table? I don’t know. Anyway. It goes well, I think, I don’t forget anything in my presentation. Charlotte and Scott agree to make some last-minute tweaks to their part of the pitch document, and I go back to my desk and practise deep breathing. One hour and 15 minutes till all the work we’ve done for the past three months is rated yay or nay. I’m not dreading it. But I’m not exactly frothing with excitement either. I just want it over and done with now.
The last person in, at 9.50 am, is Andy. He ignores everyone, as ever, and walks over to his desk to noisily dump his stuff. He looks over at Danny’s computer and, seeing—I assume—the Blumenstrauße work on the screen, makes a ‘humph!’ sound through his nose and frowny-smirks. I narrow my eyes. That
little trousersnake had better stay out of my way today. If he doesn’t, I’ll…OK, I’ll probably just try to ignore him.
Now is the time to admit that since the little scuffle on the day Coop told me to talk to everyone about the pitch, I have only been—how can I put this—quasi-assertive with the whole Andy situation. You don’t start loving confrontation just because you’re on a Dating Sabbatical, you know. So I’ve kept my head down and stayed out of his way, and he’s stayed out of my way. (If you call swaggering around the office being loud and obnoxious and talking jovially to everyone except me ‘staying out of my way’.) When we couldn’t avoid each other, I stood up for myself and my ideas (which is an improvement! Right?) and then, you know, ran away.
I am really enjoying work, despite Andy. Everyone else in the office has been positive about and dedicated to the pitch work. And they’re all smiling quite a lot, which must be a good sign. Oh, and I’ve noticed something else, too: the junior creatives have been showing me their ideas for approval and feedback, or asking me advice when they’re stuck on jobs for all our different clients.
Me.
Not Andy. A couple of times, Andy has come over and loudly contradicted something I’ve suggested, and they’ve followed my advice anyway. These are all small, but very satisfying, wins.
I look back to my work for a few minutes, but look straight back up when I hear Andy saying ‘Knock knock, mate!’ loudly at the side of Coop’s Chinese screens.
‘Enter,’ he calls back.
‘Just me, mate…’ says Andy, walking around the screens.
I wonder what he’s up to. This is the problem with small offices, you know. You’re completely aware of what everyone else is doing at all times.
Ben, the second of Andy’s art directors, walks over to my desk. ‘Need any more help?’
‘Yes,’ I say, standing up. ‘Please take the boards through to the meeting room. We’re going to set up soon.’
‘Righto,’ he says.
I look at my computer clock again quickly—one hour to go exactly—and walk through to the account management room to ask Charlotte and Scott a quick question about the introductions. I’m heading back to the creative department when I hear someone shouting ‘OH FUCK!’ from the meeting room. I run in.
Ben has spilled a large silver Thermos of coffee all over the boards. The ones with all our beautiful ideas on.
‘I thought it was empty! I knocked it over!’ he’s shouting. ‘Fuck!’
Ben is brushing the coffee off the top board and basically spreading it around even more.
‘Don’t panic,’ I say. ‘And stop doing that.’
I quickly separate the boards and survey the damage. The bottom three are OK, with minimal stains at the very edge. The top three are dreadful, with coffee completely covering one and seeping badly into the sides of the other two. Fuckety fuck. It takes an age to print this much in colour on our shitty printer, and then we’ll have to laminate and re-stick them to the boards. I look at the clock on the wall. We have 52 minutes.
‘Get tissues, Laura, Charlotte and Amanda, now,’ I say, standing the three boards that can be saved against the wall to dry. Ben leaves the room at a sprint, shouting on the way, and is back in about ten seconds with the tissues. He looks like he’s almost in tears, which I guess means he didn’t sabotage the boards on purpose.
‘I’m so sorry…’ he says, as Laura and Amanda The Office Manager scurry in.
‘Don’t worry about it. Shit happens,’ I say briskly mopping up what I can. ‘Laura, I want you and Ben to start printing these three again immediately. Do you know where they are saved on the server? Check that it’s the right version, Danny will know if you’re not sure. Make sure you’re doing it on the right paper and then stick them on the boards again. I think we’re nearly
out of the adhesive backing, so Ben, please fetch some more from the storeroom. Charlotte, tell everyone that they cannot send anything to print for the next hour and send an email to the entire office to stay out of the printing studio, too. Amanda, get kitchen towels, cleaning spray and sponges. And in future, please wait to put coffee and tea on the table until the clients get here. It would have been cold anyway, and mistakes like this happen.’
The three of them, nodding like little taxi-dashboard-dogs, practically sprint out of the room. Amanda The Office Manager is back almost immediately, and, though I can tell she’s sulking at me slightly for telling her off, we quickly clean and scrub the spilled coffee. I thank Amanda and ask her to fix hot coffee, this time for exactly 10.55 am, and to use the good cafetiere, not the Thermos. As I’m heading back into the creative room, I run into Cooper and Andy.
‘Just the person I’m after,’ says Cooper. I glance quickly from him to Andy. Andy isn’t looking at me, but he’s holding a bunch of black and white scamps on small boards.
‘Andy has some ideas for Blumenstrauße advertising,’ he says. ‘He wants to present them today, throw them into the mix. It’s your call.’
‘You worked on the pitch…on your own?’ I ask. I’m astounded. This is completely out of the ordinary. And it’s a massive vote of distrust against me as lead creative on the pitch.
‘I was telling Coop how I’ve been having trouble sleeping,’ Andy says, looking at me with mild disdain. ‘I figured I’d put my insomnia to good use. So the past two nights I’ve been working up some ideas. And you know, I figured every little helps, as Tesco says.’
I can feel them both looking at me, judging my reaction. Aside from fury—how dare he elbow his way in at the last minute?—I’m also stunned that Cooper is putting me in charge of making the decision about putting Andy’s work in my pitch. It must be
a test. I have to be impartial. I’d hate us to lose the pitch and then find out that Andy’s ideas could have saved us.
‘Let’s take a look,’ I say. ‘A good idea is a good idea, no matter where it comes from, though it’s a shame you didn’t work with the rest of us, it would have been great to have had your help…’
‘Someone had to look after all our other clients,’ he calls over his shoulder, barging past me through to the meeting room again. That is so unfair. I’ve worked on all our other clients’ stuff, too. Cooper holds the door open and looks at me quizzically, trying to read my reaction. I assess my outward composure, and give myself a pass. I am professional. Cooper trusts me.
‘Let’s take a look!’ I say brightly, walking through to the meeting room.
‘Here’s what I was thinkin’,’ says Andy to Cooper, laying out his boards on the table. I glance over them quickly, but my head is spinning and I’m having trouble taking it in. It suddenly occurs to me that the past few months of hard work could be ditched for a two-night effort from Andy. That would suck. His ideas might be good. He’s a lot more experienced than me. Shit.
‘I took a look at Charlotte’s strategy on the server last night, and I’ve kept the name “Bliss” that you lot came up with, so this fits that with a few minimal tweaks. Here’s my basic insight: toiletries are for girls. So I say, let’s embrace that. Forget that boring PC shit. Girls make buying decisions, girls care about what shampoo their boyfriend is using. Men couldn’t give a fuck. All they want is, you know, sex. And all girls want is for men to want them.’
So far, so pseudo-simplistic-slash-empowering-slash-sexist. ‘Girls’ versus ‘men’. Grrr.
‘I was thinking, let’s be a bit cheeky. Let’s make this brand about the pleasure of toiletries. Sex appeal. The body.’
My gaze falls back on the boards as he reads his first board out loud.
‘“Bliss. For her pleasure…And yours.”’
My eyes finally focus on the board. It’s a black and white drawing of a woman’s body: in shadow, arched in ecstasy, enormous breasts thrust to the ceiling, as she lies in what appears to be a bubble bath. Across it he’s written his strapline, and added a secondary line ‘Show me the bubbles.’
I look at the second board. It’s another woman’s body, this time in the shower, both arms pressed against the wall, again, apparently in ecstasy. The same main line, and then ‘Show me the clean.’
I look at the third board. It’s a woman in a bathrobe, one shoulder sexily revealed, shaving her legs. ‘Show me the smooth.’ I look quickly at the rest. They’re all the same shit. The logo is a single line showing the upper silhouette of a woman lying on her back, breasts thrust skywards. The line ends in a little flower head. And again ‘For her pleasure…And yours.’ I look over at Coop. He’s looking at me, his face a blank mask.
‘What do you think?’ I ask Cooper.
‘What do YOU think?’ he replies.
I clear my throat and start talking as crisply as I can, so as not to stammer. ‘Well, let’s see. I’m…Uh, what exactly are we saying here with the main line, “For her pleasure…And yours”…that Bliss products will please a woman sexually, so it’ll save a man the bother?’
‘Sure, whatever. The point is, it’s sexy,’ says Andy. ‘It’s tongue-in-cheek. Let’s have fun with it. I think we should rename the body cream Funderwear.’
(‘Funderwear’ is the name that Andy wanted to use for a bra pitch he led about a year ago. His ‘idea’ was ordinary women doing their ordinary jobs, in their underwear. ‘Like a policewoman conducting traffic—but in a bra and knicks!’ Ah, the objectification of women. How I love it. We lost the pitch. Obviously. Cooper hasn’t really involved Andy in pitches since then, now I come to think of it.)
‘That’s not tongue-in-cheek, really, is it? It’s just…um, I think it objectifies women and it’s sexist.’
‘Just because it’s a woman’s body, it’s sexist? Come on…’ Andy rolls his eyes. I don’t think he knows what objectifies means.
‘No, it objectifies women by implying that we’re sexual objects even when we’re just having a bath; it’s sexist because we’re selling women’s toiletries to women, but the copy is talking to the man. Why is he “you”, and she’s “her”? Can women not buy their own toiletries?’ I’m talking to Andy, but staring at the boards, as it’s too hard to say this stuff to his face. ‘And the lines…I mean, I just don’t…the lines are messy. Who is saying show me? The woman? Or are we saying it to her, so she reveals her body to us? I’m all for a bit of nudity, but only when it’s done in a fresh or funny way…’
‘Don’t tow out your hairy old feminism,’ groans Andy. ‘It’s sexy and witty. And it’s aspirational.’
Oh my God, I loathe it when people start talking about feminism like it means death to all men, but I’m not going to win that argument against idiots like Andy. And what does he mean, aspirational? What am I meant to aspire to? Lying tits-akimbo in the bath? I look at Andy quickly and look back at the boards. ‘What, exactly, is sexy or witty or aspirational about these? That she’s having an orgasm or that she’s built like a porn star?’
‘Both. Everything. Look, it’s advertising 101: it’s telling a woman that she’d have a man after her, thanks to these products. You can imagine how that would feel, can’t you, sweetheart?’ I can feel Andy looking at me in disgust.