March 9, 2006
A CAPITAL IDEA
And so, as these annual off-site meetings are wont to do, I was forced to engage in a break-out session today, despite the fact that I was feeling a bit peaked due to the fact I'd rassled the Grey Goose the night afore with my homeys, and only gotten 5 hours sleep. But that's just a cost of doing business, and so I was there in the corporeal sense, if not in spirit.
The mission was to find new ways to advertise our services, non-traditional ways. Now, since I consider any mission that is not about feeding me, fucking me, or fluffing my pillow to by definition involve Mission Creep I was less than enthusiastic.
I played the game though. And since it was your classic brainstorming session there were NO BAD IDEAS. Some good ideas came out. Television, which my industry normally eschews, radio, billboards, hell, these folks were really thinking outside the box. So at my turn I suggested planes flying over the beach trailing banners, and blimps. Blimps! And these idiots hallooed a bit, and added it to the flipchart! Fuck, thinks I. And so the next time around I suggested coasters with our website in titty bars. That one didn't make the flipchart, and in fact I was excoriated by the females in the room. Pussies.
Well, at some point internet ads came up, and the facilitator said What about blogs? I don't know anything about them, but they're supposed to be the hot thing. Whaddaya think?
At this point I roused from my torpor, opened my slitted eyelids, and said Hell, I knows about blogs! I know some sweet blogs with high traffic. Get us lotta eyeballs, they, if the price be right.
And so, yes. They put it on the flipchart, and the marketing budget can handle it. And evil thing I am, I just might, in the near future, be hosting a banner ad from mine own organization, and getting paid for it, and those cretins won't even realize that the company this Velocifucker bashes on a regular basis is, in fact, theyselves!
Now that is Irony with a hard-on I. Of a sudden, I've begun to take interest in my job again. Fucking Ada!
There is usually a second flipchart called the "Parking Lot" where the really douchebag ideas go, lest the fool who suggested them be stomped to death. Of course, after the Brainstorming Session (God, I could puke) is over, the Parking Lot ideas goe into the ShitCan, where they should have gone in the first place.
As for the ads, I'm in. I figure ad space on my blog is worth about three or four cents per day. After a year, I could buy a bottle of cheap whiskey.
Posted by: Jim - PRS at March 9, 2006 8:52 PMSuffice it to say the titty bar coaster idea (inspired! by the way) didn't even rise to the level of the Parking Lot. It went straight to the Dempsey Dumpster. Along with whatever credibility I still had left. Och. Well. There it is.
Posted by: Velociman at March 9, 2006 8:59 PMAt least you floated it. Like a turd in a punchbowl...
Posted by: Elisson at March 9, 2006 11:31 PMI'm quite ashamed of myself for buying into the Pravda of it all but I, too, have taken to a more optimistic view these past couple of weeks.
WTF?
And, although my suggestions were a bit more of the manipulative vein, I envy the creative flow of ideas that could produce the coaster idea.
Hell, it's where half our entertainment budget ends up anyway, right?
Posted by: jmflynny at March 10, 2006 2:31 PMIdeas come from the end users. Since our I.T. guy never involves himself in anything that's not a gadget, I have to solve marketing analysis problems on my own. I've learned to just go to the CFO and show him how I can cut hours of time out of a data collection process.
Problem is, the I.T. guy has, for the last 18 months, depended on the ignorance of the C-suite. So he overhears my proposal, and tries to jump to the front of the line with some counter-proposal solution that he's given about 30 minutes' thought to. After doing that to me twice, I got the jump on him on this issue. Down in flames with his idea!!
Yeah, like an unruly mustang, that put the bit between my teeth. Just a little longer now, and his head will be on a pike. Heh.
One thing at a time... then, blogs! Mwauhahaha!
Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at March 10, 2006 7:43 PMHey, its Your nephew... sort of. well..... Fuck thats hilarious. I think you guys should advertise in not only titty bars, but bars of all kinds! Even those wierd smelling bars with the guy behind the counter who tries to sell me boiled eggs and a bottle of bud light everytime i go to play free pool on tuesdays and thursdays "EY! Youh gonnda buy ah drink an' sum eahggs our juhst sit derh an playe dat daemn pul!"...especialy titty bars, everyone loves funbags.
Posted by: Drew* at March 21, 2006 12:10 AMHey, its Your nephew. well..... Fuck thats hilarious. I think you guys should advertise in not only titty bars, but bars of all kinds! Even those wierd smelling bars with the guy behind the counter who tries to sell me boiled eggs and a bottle of bud light everytime i go to play free pool on tuesdays and thursdays "EY! Youh gonnda buy ah drink an' sum eahggs our juhst sit derh an playe dat daemn pul!"...especialy titty bars, everyone loves funbags.
Posted by: Drew* at March 21, 2006 12:10 AM