Category: Fish In A Barrel Page 18 of 23

To: Trevor Stephens, Marketing and Communications
cc: Paula Hennings, COO
Subject: TV Advert

Dear Trevor

Many thanks for sending me a preview DVD of the new advert. I gather we’ve booked a series of TV slots for this one, mainly during programmes aimed at the female viewer.

One question, though: are you actually aware of what an advert is meant to do? In case you’re not sure, it’s meant to make people want to buy the product, which usually involves actually saying what the item is, what it does, and minor details like that.

Instead, you seem to have wasted our ten seconds, and the not inconsiderable budget we gave you, on stating the company name, and doing a little play on the name – which might have been quite witty if you’d actually made the name up, but you didn’t, and we knew full well that there was a homonym element to it when we named the company.

As I don’t know what you think you’re doing, or where the money’s gone, I’ve instructed IT to disable your system logon as of noon today, and security have been told to remove you from the premises if you’re still at your desk then.

Please make it easy for all of us and leave with some dignity, and we’ll all pretend that this never happened – I can’t imagine it’s something you’ll want to include in your showreel.

Yours

Derek

… but it’s worth sharing, I think; just to give the background; Barack Obama suggested it might be quite a good thing to talk to the USA’s enemies, and various people – including, I gather, Bush – accused him of appeasement, and referred to Neville Chamberlain.

Cue one of Bush’s supporters repeating this sentiment, and then demonstrating the perils of swallowing the party line and not actually knowing what you’re talking about.

(Hope this works out all right, my first time embedding a Youtube video…)