And so to the Bridge Inn – where else I hear you ask? – for the Decision Marketing pre-Bank Holiday weekend summer night out (we don’t need much of an excuse to have a knees-up round here).
All the usual suspects were there, of course, the dynamic duo of McKelvey and McCawley and the rather more attractive duo of me and Roxy, with our special guest on the night Jonathan Spooner, the gorgeous, witty, brainy and übersexy proprietor of Spoon Creative Ltd. Roxy simply can’t get enough of him, and I must admit I am pretty smitten too.
One for the road and next up we sampled the delights of the Indian Cottage Tandoori, where owner Abdul is always on hand for a warm welcome. Oh how we laughed and laughed, and laughed some more. Spooner was on particularly good form, despite the fact that it transpires he has a rather large hole in his diary on account of being let down by some feckless agency or other. Still, their loss is our gain as we have managed to persuade him to join the burgeoning ranks of McContent & Design (remember them?). Sadly, we haven’t secured enough clients to pay him just yet, so anyone out there in need of a multi-award-winning content genius, you know where to find him>
Mind you, with summer in full swing, we don’t want to work too hard obviously. And we also have to keep to our principles of not working for wankers (sadly that rules out most – but thankfully not all – of our prospects).
Talking of which, this still being Masturbation Month, I simply can’t stop myself from visiting the ad industry’s very own spank the monkey mag, Campaign. Now some of you may think I am obsessed with the scribblings of Claire, Jezza, Gideon, Maisie, Omar, Simon, Gurit, Fayola, “Staff” and… bloody hell how many monkeys do they have working over there? Well, it’s a messy job but someone’s got to do it. It also saves you, dear Foxy fans, from having to endure such nonsense first hand.
Anyway, there I was trying to find something at least vaguely interesting when suddenly up popped an article entitled “Farewell, Adam & Eve/DDB”. What was this, I wondered, as I hacked my way through their rather pathetic paywall (email my esteemed boss for details). Was it going to be one of the first articles – promised back in 2016 – that would bring together their “specialist journalists and commentators from across the advertising, marketing and media industries to track, analyse and inspire creativity that builds brands and businesses”?
Er, not quite.
In a nutshell, it is a gloriously vainglorious puff piece, penned by departing Adam & Eve/DDB co-founder David Golding. And I quote: “I firmly believe Adam & Eve/DDB will continue its astonishing journey for some time to come. And I believe this not just because of the amazing leadership team we have assembled and the team behind them already in place. I believe this because being brilliant is just what Adam & Eve/DDB is.”
There’s a man who is full of spunk that’s for sure. Funny though that on Glassdoor, that marvellous website where you get the inside track on companies, there is an alternative view. As one former staff member writes: “The management can be very rude. Despite the open plan office you know not to approach certain members of management as they see themselves as very superior.”
Another adds: “Narrow minded management…18th century mentality in terms of employer-employee relationship, sacking people because of personal issues, trash talking after people who have left ages ago, pointing fingers at everything that goes wrong…”
A third advises the management team: “Stop thinking of your employees as your slaves, they are individuals with personalities. Valuing creative department staff above everyone else and never listening to anyone else’s opinion won’t take you anywhere in the 21st century. The more people you sacrifice, the more future you will waste for the entire company.”
So, Adam & Eve/DDB? Amazing and brilliant – or a bunch of complete tossers? I’ll let you be the judge of that…