I hear it’s all change for our friends over at Centaur Media, the only publishing company which managed to shut down a data magazine just as the £240bn industry was taking off – not that it needs it now as, apparently, Design Week and Creative Review are going gangbusters.
Anyway, according to Fatty and Fatter (my larger than life bosses, who used to ply their trade at this one-time publishing colossus), not that long ago, Centaur used to have more magazines than you could shake a stick at – anyone remember Brand Strategy, No Strategy, Strategy Strategy and even something called Taxbriefs? – but now you could count their publications on the fingers of one finger.
Whether this mass sell-off, which has accelerated in recent months, has had something to do with them having to downsize their offices from the palatial home at Wells Point, London W1, into a cupboard near Waterloo is not known. Maybe we should ask Marketing Week Monthly’s “hilarious” Marketoonist to explain.
Still, at least they have got some swag back – the wondrously named Swag Mukerji to be precise, who has taken over the helm now that outgoing CEO Andria Vidler has flogged everything in sight.
Talking of wondrous names, they trip off the tongue lusciously at my new dating site, Chocolate Lovers Passions, which claims to be the go-to place for people who share an appreciation for milk chocolate, dark chocolate, hot chocolate, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake and more.
Within seconds of signing up, my inbox was bulging with messages from fellow CHOCOLATE lovers, although, as always on these sites everything is not quite as it seems.
Hershey Harry looked quite cute but a bit too desperate, Cadbury’s Mr Big didn’t quite live up to his own billing, Marathon Man was hot but slightly too old (he didn’t even realise it’s called Snickers now) and the Milky Bar Kid, well, he just looked like a wrong ‘un.
In fact, I was beginning to think that maybe I was wasting my time (for a change) when up popped a message from Mars Bar Mick, with his very own strapline “a Mars a day helps you play, play, play”.
Anyway, it transpires he used to work at Mars and he has promised to give me all the goss about their plans for data-driven marketing in exchange for a “coffee” – I just hope he’s not expecting a skinny latte, because, as we all know, I am extremely full bodied.
The things I have to do to get a story…
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