The Blackpool of Lancashire
Monday, October 3
‘Creative Solutions, Hariot speaking…Who, sorry?…Charlie Chab-bow?’
‘I’m Charlie Chabot!’ called a voice from the front office.
‘Hi, Bailey. Nice of you to show up.’ Fergus Blaine was at Creative Solutions’ reception as I stumbled in off a biting wind tunnel of a street into a biting air bag of an art director. Aside from the obligatory black beanie, he wore black sack-like track pants, an orange v-necked t-shirt and a purple denim jacket so short and tight he must have stolen it from a child. The overall effect was of a colour blind matador on his day off. He was chatting to yet another new face at the front desk and searching through messages on a spike. Messages for him. There weren’t any.
‘Any for me?’ I asked.
‘I don’t mean to be funny, Bailey, but why would there be any for you?’
I glared and grinned. ‘Same reason there aren’t any for you I imagine, Fergus. Actually no. Because I have what’s called a mobile phone.’
‘I’m not a fan of technology, Bailey. You know that.’
I did know that. Fergus Blaine was an utter technophobe. He couldn’t even use email. Which begged the question: How did people get hold of him during the day? Answer – they called Creative Solutions. And nobody ever did.
‘Hi Bailey,’ said Charlie Chabot leaping from his office like a frog. We both shot him a look. ‘Sorry. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’
‘Not at all,’ I said looking him up and down. ‘What’s with the frog?’
‘Mmm. Oh! Sorry. Just bored really. I don’t feel like being a managing director today. Anyone want to go for a cup of tea?’
‘I don’t mean to be funny,' Blaine said moving both himself and halitosis into Charlie's personal space. 'But Bailey and I really need that Blackpool brief this morning. If you really and truly want a complete brochure mock-up to the client by the end of the week, we should have already been working on it.’
Charlie Chabot tapped his temple. ‘It’s all in here,’ he said before discreetly seeking the sanctuary of a reception chair for reasons that would be lost on Blaine.
My turn to rail on him. ‘I thought you were going to write it up? We need proper written briefs, Charlie! We can’t work like this!’
‘Sorry. It’s all a bit new to me, this brief business.’
This professionalism, more like. Such was life at Creative Solutions. A managing director with no concept of management. And an art director with no concept…whatsoever.
Thus far there had been four briefs for one tedious brochure or another – all of them vitality sapping variations on the same theme of apartment developments – cavernous, characterless concrete chicken coups for humans. All of them briefed verbally, haphazardly and inadequately by Charlie Chabot. All of them requiring us to find some spark of stand alone creative wonderfulness where there simply wasn’t one. But, as we true admen did when there wasn’t a sellable feature, we made one up.
I was vehemently opposed to verbal briefs – if a suit (translation: account manager; the liaison between client and creative department) at McCarthy Ellison had dared to give a verbal brief for anything – even a piddling single line banner headline for some obscure website – it was a sackable offence. Verbal briefs always came back to bite the creative department on the bum. If you presented an idea off a verbal brief, a suit could say ‘That’s not what I asked for,’ and, when it came to having it out with the powers that be, it would be your word against theirs. And you were the one with the long hair and tattoos.
Such was the culture in multinational agencies where systems and procedures ruled. If Creative Solutions had a culture it was an unsightly yeast infection in a petrie dish. It was time for change.
***
‘Bingham Court, Blackpool,’ Charlie Chabot began, pacing the boardroom five minutes later, ‘is, as I understand it—’
‘Whoa, whoa. Hold it right there.’ This was me, hand in air. ‘What’s with the “as I understand it”?’
Charlie looked perplexed.
‘It can’t be “As I understand it”, Charlie. We can only work with absolutes. It either is or it isn’t.’
‘Mmm,’ said Fergus Blaine teepeeing his fingers. ‘I think what Bailey’s trying to say, Charlie, is—’
‘I did say it!’
‘Bailey. I really appreciate your passion. I’m sure Charlie does too. But what I think you’ve got to keep in mind is that this is a really important transitional phase for all of us. It’s not going to happen in five minutes. Charlie has been doing it his way for a long time and while it’s important for him to take onboard new ideas, new processes, new procedures, you and I as top flight creatives, need to show a little patience, a little compassion for what Charlie’s trying to do. Carry on, Charlie.’
Charlie Chabot snapped out of a momentary stupor and continued tentatively.
‘Bingham Court, Blackpool is…’
‘Fine so far,’ I said.
‘…a brand new seventy-two property apartment complex overlooking Blackpool Beach. The owners are planning to target the retirement market with—’
‘Sorry Charlie,’ said Fergus Blaine. ‘They can’t plan to target the retirement market. They either are or they aren’t!’
‘Fuuuurk!’ said Charlie. ‘I’m going to write this up!’
And with that he stormed from the boardroom.
***
Charlie Chabot’s first ever written creative brief was an abomination. No target audience, no tone and manner, no communication strategy, no clearly defined objective or competitive analysis. Not even anything vaguely resembling a single minded proposition.
‘Sorry. We can’t work with this, Charlie,’ I said holding up his one page document of random notes.
‘I disagree, Bailey.’ I glared at Blaine. ‘I think all the salient points are in here. Well done, Charlie. If I can just clarify a couple of things. The name of the complex is Bingham Court?’
He nodded uncertainly.
‘There are,' Blaine continued, 'fifty one bedroom apartments and twenty two bedroom apartments in the complex?’
‘Sorry. Ahm, that should be fifty-two one bedrooms.’
We both marked the change with pens.
‘Would I be right in saying the entire complex is still empty?’
‘You would.’
‘And there’s been no prior promotion?’
‘There hasn’t, no.’
‘So we’ve got a clean slate. That’s really good, Charlie. And ahm, retirees? Our market is retirees?’
He nodded with more certainty.
‘And is there any real point of difference we can home in on?’
‘Any which?’
‘Any prime feature that sets Bingham Court apart from its competitors.’
‘Sorry. Ahm…well, it’s in Blackpool.’
‘A positive feature, Charlie.’
‘Oh! Ahm, I don’t know.' He taps fingers on lips. 'Each apartment has a nice big balcony and nice views over the beach.’
‘Mmm, fairly generic, but good.’
‘Ahm…wheelchair access to all floors, ramps, lifts et cetera.’
‘Better.’
‘All the bathrooms – bath, shower, toilets – are fitted with disabled rails. Ahm, oh and there are nurses on site twenty-four hours to assist with their ablutions, medications et cetera and an onsite kitchen can prepare all their meals – breakfast, lunch, dinner – if required and bring it to their apartments.‘
I gaped at him. ‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’
Chabot flushed. ‘I didn’t think of it until now.’
‘This is excellent, Charlie! These are real features!’ Blaine said. He thought about this. ‘So, on the basis of that, this is like a retirement home with proper wheelchair-friendly apartments for people who want the facilities of a retirement home with the comforts of a proper home!’
‘I suppose it is.’
‘With balconies overlooking the beach.’
‘They’re certainly overlooking the beach, yes.’
‘So you could say our target market was elderly semi-independent, semi-affluent cripples who like to watch able people swim in the sea.’
I laughed.
‘Why not, Bailey? That’s a real point of difference! Why just target old people when there are a million generic retirement complexes out there, all the same and all targeting old people. We can really set this place apart. We can create an entire beach community of cripples! How beautiful would that be?’
It took me a while to realise he was serious. Then again, Fergus Blaine had no concept of humour, let alone irony. And the more I thought about it, dissected it down into a slightly less patronising and euphemistically positive message, there was something to be said for Blaine’s thinking. If nothing else, we could have some fun creatively at others expense.
‘So we’re in agreement then?’ Charlie said at length, acting as if the whole thing had been his idea.
‘We are…I think,’ I said. ‘One other thing though, if I may. Ahm, I suspect there’s going to be about three days solid work here with visuals and copy et cetera. Say…twenty hours each, including copy and layouts?’ I looked at Charlie who shrugged and nodded. I got the feeling I could have said sixty hours and he would still have shrugged and nodded, such was his grasp of creative realities; such was his vulnerability to exploitation were we of a mind to exploit. ‘Would it make any difference to you if we worked on this outside the agency? It’s just I’ve got two dogs and my fiancé’s working as well. I don’t like leaving them on their own all day.’
Charlie Chabot’s face lit up. ‘Bring them in!’
‘In here?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, I could. It wasn’t what I meant though. I was thinking that maybe we could work at my place this week. Can we try that first?’ Now I was looking at Blaine. I hadn’t discussed this with him.
‘I haven’t got a problem with that, Bailey. Where do you live?’
‘Ah, well…’ I said. ‘That’s the problem.’
