Let's Keep Things Simple

4 Fuks Saké

This blog has moved and changed names.

Please head to 4 Fuks Saké for more of the same.

Goodnight and God bless.

I Beg Your Pardon...?

If someone set me a brief, with the eventual measure of success being what has come out of Suzanne Shaw's mouth, I would calmly leave the room and wish them all the best.

Suzanne - Dancing On Ice champ - was asked who she favoured between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Her response: "I'm going to be honest. I've never heard either of these names before."

How? What?

Someone please explain.

Global Sulks, Dodgy Texts And The "Angst-Ridden Germans"

I get about 20 minutes to learn something from a newspaper between Putney Bridge and Oxford Circus each morning. I usually get distracted - my brain thinking about the day ahead.

Whilst I head into an office to sell lager, video games and TV subscriptions I am acutely aware that my job is an emotional business. You can come up with all the flash ideas and strategies you like, but if some decision maker's got out of bed the wrong way, and you've not second guessed it, it all counts for shit. The success of my day ahead hangs on managing moods.

Fortunately the same tantrums and sulks exist at the summit of global diplomacy. Some lovely writing from Michael White takes us right to the heart of the daily grind of Downing Street and the Foreign Office.

Gordon Brown was on the phone yesterday, giving Wen Jiabao the heads up that he was going to see the Dalai Lama. Whilst there, he had to go through the motions about decrying the violence in Tibet. Brown knew full well the Chinese Premier would be switching off on the second half of that call...flicking through his email, having a look at Facebook, that kind of thing - whilst Gordon half-heartedly said things like 'deeply concerned.' The two of them were just going through the motions of their jobs.

But as White writes, half the job is managing moods:
"Just as the Brits need to be loved in Washington (not in Brussels) and the angst-ridden Germans 'need to be telephoned every day', the Chinese don't like surprises." I could match some clients and colleagues against those national characteristics.

If it's not moods, technology is close at hand to drag us all down. Press send too early on an email. An intoxicated SMS sent at time of stress - just a handful of syllables sent over the airwaves are fraught with danger.

So a spare a thought for the Sarkozys.  Le Nouvel Observateur has reported that the former Mme Sarkozy received a text from her ex-husband 8 days before he got married to Carla Bruni.  The President of France reportedly tapped out, "If you come back, I'll call it all off." Poor bastard. That's a tough one to work your way through even if it's bollocks.

We're all weak humans - even if politicians appear extra terrestrial at times.

Another Culture Lesson

Throughout Asia, an 'instant noodle meal solution,' is an efficient, tasty and wholesome snack. Here in the UK we have Pot Noodle. Our and AKQA's latest work for them, with more than just a nod to Guinness...

Lineker: Business As Usual

The Surrey-based millionaire divorcee's on the sniff again. This time he's learnt how to use Facebook....

Jordan Belfort

This is Jordan Belfort. Below are two paragraphs, copied directly from a feature in the Daily Telegraph.

"As a 31-year-old multimillionaire stockbroker, Belfort once landed his helicopter on his back lawn, flying with just one eye open because he was so stoned he had double vision. He sank his 167ft motor yacht, complete with seaplane and helicopter, after overruling the captain and taking it into a Mediterranean storm."

"A pioneer in promoting office bonding activities, Belfort thought it would improve morale if staff were encouraged to have sex with each other whenever they could, even under the desks. There were mid-afternoon "coffee breaks" with a troupe of hookers in the office car park. One office junior agreed to have her hair shaved off on the trading floor in return for $5,000 for a breast job."

There is much more of this here. And they'll be a book, and a film.

A truly remarkable man.

Who's Doing Mark Penn's Timesheets?

Open PR Week every week, and they're always there. Open necked shirt, just drunk a smoothie, and then a moan about "PR needing to take its deserved seat at the top table" because they're not there. 

Meanwhile in the real world, PR is deciding who will get the world's most powerful job. Mark Penn's got to be a busy bloke. We've all got meetings to go to, but being Chairman & CEO of Burson Marsteller can't see you at home for the opening titles of Eastenders too often. If you're also the man that's running Hillary Clinton's groaning White House campaign, then client status meetings are sure to be taking a back seat too. Strumpette gives an appraisal of how Penn's doing at his job-on-the-side, so I won't bother rehashing it and pretending its my own. My point is, the PR man is in charge.

Over a pint or driving a cab, your default one sentence verdict on the US election is of course,  that Obama is all mouth and no trousers - or "all hat and and no cattle" according to Hillary. (I assume Penn wrote that). Whether the Obama rhetoric is empty or rich, The Economist put together a convincing argument for allowing vapid PR people like ourselves to get the keys. Arguing that the Presidency is constitutionally weak, it said that  "the best presidents are like magnets below a piece of paper, invisibly aligning iron filings into a new pattern of their making. Anyone can get experts to produce policy papers. The trick is to forge consensus to get those policies enacted."

My job involves persuading people to consume the products I want them to, without them really knowing. The Economist says that the US President needs the same skill set. Those skills ought to be enough to get you a meeting with a senior brand manager.   

Football Is Important

I agree with Mitchell & Webb.

Yesterday

All my troubles seemed so far away.

I sat in the East Stand Lower at Barnsley FC, and watched a giant TV with 2,999 Barnsley fans. Temperatures nestled just above zero. Wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Football. Bloody hell.

Making Money Out Of Fat People

GMTV (the UK's version of breakfast TV on a sofa) is pleasant and nice. All the presenters clean their teeth, have sex once a week never stooping to use pornography, and don't do anything to upset anyone ever. A couple of weeks ago, GMTV rounded up 5 fat people into a pen and took them off to a cold island off the Scottish coast. Called 'Fat Club' or something, they were packed off to a retreat at the expense of a variety of pharmaceutical and nutritional companies. The watching population sat at home tucking into its Frosties, and thanked God it wasn't them, patting its collective belly contentedly.

Tabloid supplements, celebrity supermarket magazines are up to it too - reproducing the same seared tuna and green bean recipes plus the exercise tips, week in week out. We're a fat nation, and there's money to be made from offering up a dream of getting thin from the comfort of armchair. God help us if we have to get up and do something about it.

So surprise surprise - GMTV's lead story at 7.30am this morning was a spin on the latest piece of research from UCL saying that being fat's all in the genes. They know their market well - just the thing to put a leaden-footed spring in the step of Britain's morbidly obese. Surprise, surprise - plenty of others have jumped on it too.

There seems to be a lot of people not really talking to each other. A joining up of all the hot air is required. Perhaps a celebrity chef, a scientist, a government minister and a cuddly breakfast TV show could for once - put commercial interests aside - and tackle the fact people are fat and getting fatter. Trouble is - people getting fatter is a nice little money earner. Why bother?