They say that horse-racing is the sport of kings. Well, now it is the sport of a highly successful BOGOF king, the one and only Matthew Hooper.
For those of you with the early onset of Alzheimer’s, er, WAKEY WAKEY DEARY, IT’S TIME FOR YOUR BREAKFAST. For the rest of you, c’mon, you must remember him, he was that bloke who bought Interfocus – the sales promotion agency just off Kensington High Street – more often than most people buy a newspaper.
And, if my addled brain serves me correctly, he did have quite a knack of selling it at top dollar and then buying it back again when it was worthless. Lucky bastard.
Anyway, I digress. These days Matthew goes under the grand title of data compliance officer at the British Champions Series – the so-called premiership of British horseracing launched last month. Well, when I say data compliance officer, what I mean is – basically – marketing director, although heaven only knows how one of the darlings of sales promotion (isn’t that an oxymoron?) ended up cozying up to the horseracing world.
Back in the day all he had to do was flutter his eyelids at certain members of the marketing press and he could get away with anything; now he’s playing with the big boys.
So, when it was reported that footage of some nag called Frankel in last Saturday’s Qipco 2000 Guineas had been watched nearly 30,000 times online and attracted a host of interesting discussion, The Guardian noted that one YouTube user, ukhooper, claimed to have “come across” the website “britishchampionsseries” and its “great info on the races”.
The Guardian continued: “A scan of ukhooper’s user account reveals his first name to be Matthew – could it be the same Matthew Hooper who is data compliance officer of British Champions Series? And the same Matthew Hooper who is a colleague of Karl Oliver, the managing director of British Champions Series, at The Rights Business, who boast online of their ‘extensive experience in the management and commercial exploitation of properties and consumer brands’?” Ooops.
According to Hooper’s LinkedIn profile, his specialities include “getting my hands dirty”. Good job really, as after this fiasco Matthew might just find himself mucking out the stables.
Finally, loathe as I am to mention another marketing website for fear of incurring the wrath of my esteemed editor, but thank God that banner ad “looking through for M&C Saatchi’s eyes” has finally run its course on brandrepublic.com. Every time I clicked on the site (how dare you? – Ed), suddenly a massive pair of “Eric Morecombe’s” would appear. Mind you, that could help pay the bills on this site so I’d better shut up and go before I’m sacked…
(Got anything you’re dying to get off your chest? Email me, discretion guaranteed! ivan.idol@hotmail.co.uk)
