Life in the Fast Lane: The Media Bash, Act 1.

by Norman A. Lowe

Curtain rises on a creative department office in a BIG ad agency. Two associate creative directors (i.e. just about any copywriter or art director with more than a few years’ in the biz) are chewing the fat and doing a bit of work between times.

Curtain rises on a creative department office in a BIG ad agency. Two associate creative directors (i.e. just about any copywriter or art director with more than a few years’ in the biz) are chewing the fat and doing a bit of work between times.

Enter scene left a junior art director who has just spent most of the day on an initiation rite... his very first shoot! “Hey guys”, he chirps, “why don’t we shoot that blackboard with ‘Smokey Joe’s; Take One’ on it, clack that scissor thing to wake everybody up and… well, I only er, well er.” Strolling in while reading a commercial storyboard (to disguise ulterior motive) the agency’s creative director languidly asks who’s planning to crash the media bash that evening and, learning he has enough time to fill in his time sheet and still leave early for the big do (so as not to miss the lobster) sits down to put figures beside client names. Which might just be the most creative thing he’d done all day.

Meanwhile a cute little media planner (hired straight out of kindergarten since she had nice curls and could count) is being grilled on the party credentials by three members of the client team, namely the account exec, account supervisor and account group supervisor) who eventually dash off en masse to fill in their respective time sheets.

Meanwhile, the two ACDs (associate creative directors, remember?) refuse to expend invaluable brain energy recording how they spend their days, preferring to separate wheat from chaff by a process of cranial osmosis, this to take place at the beginning of each following week or month, whichever comes last. And, carefree, did they mentally prepare for an evening of wit and jollity.

Light dims; all exit; sounds of revelry offstage.

Epilogue: Now for the big question: How much do you figure found its way into the client billing? Mmm? With each annual salary divided by 1,510 to arrive at an hourly rate on an annual base (allowing for vacations, holidays, sickness et al) multiplied by an overhead factor of let’s say 2.65, we’re talking gross dollars. You mean gross as opposed to net? That too.

Last question: So when do irony and satire descend into farce? Answer, perhaps never – since there are those who would judge the above, and its ramifications, as being not in the least funny.