The last days of the Raj
By David MacGregor,
[ADVERTISING]
Why the sun will never set on the mind of Peregrine Northington
Watching the sun set with the last remaining few of the old brigade, it was hard for Peregrine Northington to suppress feelings of warmth and regret for days when men were men, secretaries were leggy blondes and the words ‘fringe benefit’ and ‘tax’ were never used in the same sentence, let alone in polite society.
“Advertising was a fine business to be in,” he sighed. “Media paid you a 20 percent commission and you bloody well pocketed it. Let your client in on the action you’d bally well forfeit your accreditation. Client spent a million on the idiot box, radio or in newspapers, then you pocketed two hundred thousand. My word, a five-million-dollar account hoving into view was a sight to behold!
“S’all gone now. All this rebating malarky means decent chaps are forced to drop their drawers for any client with any sort of budget at all. One has even heard of a once-proud outpost of an international battalion losing money on one of the biggest accounts on the field (holding the line for president and the old country), forcing it against the wall and into an alliance with an upstart …
“Clients were different in the good old days, the days when an entertainment budget meant something … it meant Sails, Il Casino and Number 5, it meant a good time was had by all and the time for a meeting was 4.30 in the afternoon, when the sun was over the yardarm.
“Clients were different in the good old days, the days when an entertainment budget meant something … it meant Sails, Il Casino and Number 5, it meant a good time was had by all and the time for a meeting was 4.30 in the afternoon, when the sun was over the yardarm.”
“Today, my goodness, all those serious young graduates with their eyes on the bottom line and the next posting. In my day it was eyes on the catering and the production assistant’s arse on the shoot in the South of England; it’s the light, you see, and a Geoffrey Palmer voiceover adds something indescribably international to the piece—the difference between a D&AD gold and purple heart. I must confess to welling up at the very sound of the words ‘Open on the pyramids …’—none of your ‘CGI’ or ‘motion graphics’. Creative meant creative, not some deconstructed post-ironic Channel 4 mashup. Mashup! What kind of word is that in the name of all that is good and great?
“Do you know that a client asked me about a blog the other day. ‘Down the hall and to the right,’ said I, catching a glimpse of my finely-cut chalkstripe in the reflective glass of the conference room table. ‘You just don’t understand,’ said she with curious look of resolve. ‘Ah, but I do methinks’ methought to meself, beginning to hear the swelling refrain of Jerusalem; I know of things beyond your ken young lady. I know that television is and will remain the most powerful of all media and there is no Internet doodad that does not pale by comparison with a series of three finely-crafted magazine advertisements. I know the marauding tribes of the great unwashed love brands more than they love life itself. I know that deep in their hearts the right to advertise cheap tie-in merchandising toys with a free hamburger is a fundamental human right and central to OUR VERY WAY OF LIFE and when I wriggle out of this dashed straitjacket I’ll show the lot of ‘em, starting with that bloody Naomi Klein!”
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