I didn’t manage to catch Roland Emmerich’s effects-riddled $200million bonanza, but plenty of others did. The picture pretty much broke even on its first weekend, grossing $225million worldwide. Given that marketing costs of these movies generally end up being around a third of the budget, the next few weeks’ activity will see Sony Pictures soar into profit for this release.
It’s not that I didn’t want to watch it. These blockbusters are exactly the kind to see at the cinema, blown-up to eye-watering degree. I was, however, taking a slice of that event marketing pie. To tie in with the movie’s release, myself and a colleague were part of an elite task force (okay, I’m jazzing it up like a twisted Miles Davis) projecting a mini-teaser in and around the auditorium, foyer and outside the cinema.
Given the nature of our beast, we had quite a few questions directed our way, to which we would reply with a John Cusack smile and a voice like gravel:
I recently went on a BEcause and Staff Republic Interview day! I loved doing the interviewing – I felt a bit like Simon Cowell sitting between Phillipa (Danni) and Sophie (Cheryl) from Because HQ!
BEcause are one of the few agencies out there that are particular about who they employ! They like to meet all the staff face-to-face, and develop a good working relationship with their staff! I remember my interview with Because and I was quite nervous – but I got through it! (Thank’s Sally).
My life would be different if I hadn’t have gone to my interview with BEcause. I probably wouldn’t still be in the promotions and field marketing game game! Lets face it – its a tough industry to do long term! At that point I had been working as a Divisional Event Manager on a HUGE campaign for a supermarket – but I felt undervalued. They hadn’t budgeted properly – and in the space of six months cut my day rate by £30 – in £10 increments – while at the same time increasing my work load! Its not a great moral builder! No praise when things went right and less money for it too!
Then came along BEcause – who swept me off my promotional feet! They restored my faith in Brand Experience and Promotions! My first campaign was The Biggest Round and I was territory manager! The training day way in Warwick and we stayed in the Hilton – but I would have been happy with anything after months of staying in ‘barely’ hotels!
I met the BEcause staff, and was amazed at how nice and friendly and helpful everyone was. The campaign started off – and in the 13 weeks that I was on it – not once did I feel like I was on my own. If I needed to double check something, Phillipa was on the phone to help me out! It was a new world!
From there, things have got better, and I work for BEcause whenever I can! On occasion if i’m offered a job with another agency – I have been known to check if BEcause have anything for me before I book on just so I can work for them!
Then came along The Staff Republic – and when they brought me and the other guys in to talk about what we would want from an agency – it was great to know that they cared what the people who worked for them thought – to the point of naming the agency (that was me!).
I was going to talk about how to get through a BEcause and Staff Republic interview! But that will have to be next week!
I love BEcause…. BEcause they Care, BEcause they are loyal, BEcause they make me feel valued, BEcause they listen and BEcause they respect me, (and BEcause they always pay me on time)!
So here I am, suddenly reminded that mother nature clearly has the upper hand and boy does she spank hard sometimes!! I know and not a chequebook in sight!!
I am currently managing a campaign for the Central Office of Information, ( Government dept. BIS !!, need anymore coded info!! ), where myself and a small team are ploughing and seeding the beautiful land of this country with much needed information about the new Pay and Work Rights Helpline.
So geographically we find ourselves in Tom Jones’ Green Green Grassland of Wales last weekend, with a tune in our voices and an eeeeeerrrrnnnormous gale/storm plunging this part of Great Britain back into something biblically fantastical!! Of course the metereologically minded were having the time of their lives, flood warnings, excessive excitement on the weather reports on tv, exageration no longer being part of their vocabulary!!
Well, they were’nt wrong as I travelled back with my fellow workers in a van and trailer along the M4, negotiating the flyovers from Swansea ( and when I say flyovers I do quite literally mean something from the Wizard of Oz!!) and of course the tentatively and optimistically opened Severn Bridge!!
OMG, it bears repeating…. OHHHH MY GOOODDDD!!!, as I was driving across the said bridge, both the van and trailer were thrown into the next lane and there was nothing I could do as Mother Nature gave me a spanking!! , thankfully there were no other vehicles in that lane, but there was that moment where we all grabbed each others hands and said how much we loved each other!! , it was the stuff of Airplane the Movie!!
A clean set of underpants and a nervous larf later I regained my composure, reassured my passengers that they were in capable hands and the journey continued, all of us feeling that turning up the radio was the solution whenever there was a problem whilst driving!!
Wow, so there you have it, a moment whilst out spreading the good word of the Pay and Workers Rights Helpline of sheer white knuckle hysteria, overcome by quite obvious heroism by myself and my team, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the world of Showbusiness, it’s that the Show must go on and you gotta leave your audience Blown Away!!!!!!!
My God! What a week! Not that I’m complaining. Business cometh and goeth, so when it cometh thou shalt not bloweth in its face, sayeth the man who puts “eth” as a suffix to everything. Eth. Thems the rules, baby cakes (on a slight tangent, what are baby cakes? Are they those bitesize mini-muffins you can get? Or is it the doings of some evil lady in a gingerbread house in the forest?).
Anyway…Beyonce. Her and I go way back. Well, way back to last week in fact. I was a team leader with the wind in my hair and the world at my feet. She was a Diva with massive hair and an ego writing cheques her body had absolutely no problem whatsoever in cashing.
I stood there, marshalling my More! troops when a gust of wind blew the doors of the Echo Arena open when there she was. She looked right into my brown eyes, before telling me that she was crazy in love with me. If I were a boy, rather than a happily married man, I would have crowd-surfed across to her pleading arms. As it was, I had to leave her a broken-hearted girl with a fever, left to mingle with the other single ladies.
Okay, you got me. It’s all fantasy. Well, the part about me being there with More! promotional staff is true. Pretty much everything else is lies. Have I got anything left in the tenuous barrel to suggest that I’m just a beautiful liar?
I received an alert from Shooting People regarding Penny Woolcock’s latest film, 1 Day, which rolls out across 84 UK cinemas this Friday. It’s a provocative drama based around gang life in inner city Birmingham, and in which Woolcock decided many of the cast should, where possible, come from within the realities that the film portrays.
So far so good. But then arrives the time to exhibit of the movie, which is a deep and involved process in any circumstance, but even more so when tackling such potentially far-reaching subjects. Having gone through months of consultation and achieving a 15 certificate from the BBFC you’d think that all the boxes had been ticked and audiences nationwide could sit down to make up their own minds about the movie (we do live in a democracy, after all).
Wrong.
In all of the planned screening venues across the region the West Midlands police warned the owners against screening the film. This is despite having told Woolcock at a private screening that the film should be shown in every school across the UK.
When Woolcock finally managed to organise a screening at The Custard Factory the police turned up 15 minutes into the film, stopped it, “counted” the audience and took all the film crews details.
The next day, when challenged by Woolcock on Radio 5 Live, the superintendent claimed that his officers had turned up “because we heard there were problems with the projector”. This is despite the fact that the film was not projected, but shown on DVD.
The question remains at what point did the police decide for themselves that the film was a danger to public health and safety, without consultation with the filmmakers and despite being passed by the BBFC? At what point are democracy and free speech suppressed for “The Greater Good” as decided by some guy sitting at a desk somewhere? Is this Terry Gilliam’s Brazil? Are we in 1984? If so, why is Nick Griffin allowed to appear on Question Time to defend his racist views? Surely for parity we could have expected to see angry constables marching onto the set and barging David Dimbleby out of the way before carting Griffin off and hurling him in the back of a van before “counting” the audience.
The beauty of all this is that the subsequent publicity has heaped exposure upon 1 Day. In attempting to quash this film, the West Midlands police have only helped to make it stronger. To paraphrase a classic, “If you shall strike [it] down now, [it] shall only become more powerful”. I urge every single one of you to go and watch 1 Day. It rests upon one of the pillars of our society. Don’t help to knock it down.
There’s something endemically wrong with mystery shopping when the great thing about it isn’t necessarily the mystery. Let’s face facts: it sounds a tad more glamorous than is actually the case. The term lends connotations to sitting in a shop somewhere, dressed in a Mac, hat and dark glasses, holding up a copy of the Guardian with holes cut out so your eyes can peer through. Or, even better, Private Eye.
I’m fairly certain that 99% of the people reading these bogs will know that 99% of the time that is just not the case, apart from those rare occasions when the MOD needs to check up on its operatives. I could tell you when and where to get these assignments, but then I’d obviously have to kill you. There are only so many gold-painted ladies to go round, you know.
So for the most part we shall have to content ourselves with occasionally getting to eat for free, maybe buy a beanie hat from a well-known high street store or staying overnight somewhere that you would normally never consider. There’s a pun in there somewhere about Dire Straights, but I’ll let you find your own. Otherwise, where’s the fun?
Many years ago I served in the Royal Air Force as an Air Traffic Controller, my first posting being RAF Chivenor and this was the final phase of training for fighter pilots in the Hawk aircraft.
As this was a relatively small airfield we the Air Traffic Controllers had a great relationship with the trainer pilots, let’s say there was much banter!! Early each morning there would be a weather sortie carried out to determine the local area’s weather ( big surprise!!) but also the ranges, cloud cover, visibility, assesment of which training sorties could be carried out each day etc etc. Now the fantastic thing about knowing the pilots so well was that you could blag a Jolly ( free back seat flight ) when the pilots took the aircraft up for the hour to check out the local area. How amazing was that, to be able to fly at up to 550kts and 48000ft and acceleration that would make your eyes water was the bees knees!!
I was lucky enough to be able to fly 6 times in the back seat, briefly taking the stick on one occasion, so as to be able to show-off that I had very briefly taken control of a fighter jet, but that was it!!
Hats off indeed to the guys who fly these jets for a job both in combat and non combat missions.
Which brings me to a great story which has recently emerged, that finally the Red Arrows who coincidently fly the Hawk aircraft have just recruited their first female pilot. Flt Lt Kirsty Moore is her name and watch out for her at a show near you, girl power…..
Muchos grassy ass to Liam for his how to guide on Twitter (September 8th), for I am now also a convert. I can see how most tweets are down to a fraction of tweeters – it took me ages to find the words for my first one (what do you mean, you can’t believe it?).
I think the reason why can only be due to the press that Twitter has been attracting. Like Liam says, it’s a great marketing tool, but, just like Facebook, it has it’s pitfalls.
Having been subjected to some jocularity from his teammates a “fan” decided to upload a less-than-flattering image of him with an expanded waistband. Bresnan’s retort on Twitter got him into water that you could have made your coffee with.
Likewise Lily Allen, although to a somewhat less-villified and much more reasonable degree, had a pop at all those filesharers out there who fancy getting their hands on music for free on her MySpace blog:
This is the beauty of the digital age. If it’s worldwide immediacy you’re after, here’s your chance. Clearly someone with Allen’s profile has a perfect platform from which to launch such a tirade. Will it make a difference? Frankly, I doubt it. There will always be people out there who want to get something for nothing and, to paraphrase Portishead, those trying to stop them might have to try a little harder.
So for you and I, the pawns of this galactic game, I guess the bottom line is this: if you’ve had a bad day at the office, just remember that on Twitter everybody can hear you scream.
So here it is…, I have friends in very high places and when I say that I mean those who are over 8ft tall. He may be made of very soft material but give him a call and you won’t be disappointed….
All sounds very menacing does’nt it, not so , this is the campaign for the COI, promoting the Pay and Workers Rights Helpline
It’s a fantastic campaign, we have something really valuable to hand out, only a few days into the campaign and it has quickly become evident that many employees just don’t want to rock the boat and having a Powerful friend who can speak to their employer so that they don’t have to is the light at the end of the tunnel that for years was perceived to be the glint in the eye of their unreasonable employers.
So for the next 10 weeks we will be touring the length and breadth of the country spreading the word and the new Helpline which has just been set up, would seem rude not to mention it, so if you need any advice or assistance drop them a line 0800 917 2368.
A thousand people bouncing to the sound of the beats thrown out from the flaming lips of the man on stage; a crowd wowed by the twilight sounds, feet skating on the floor as though they were in the clouds; promotion people serving Sourz like it was going out of fashion - their only vow for the hours that flew like minutes to make that first moment Zing to the last. And boy did they do that.
