The JAS 360
Friday, February 10
Yorkshire turned on a spotless winter’s day for the drive down to Leeds, a seamless, spirit-lifting sky suspended high over the land. Even the traffic was in light mood, our journey south on the A1, fast and uncluttered, Fergus Blaine beside me in the Volvo rehearsing our presentation, nerves healthily jangled, double act rote-learned down to the word. It felt slick, professional. And Blaine’s idea wasn’t too awful either. We were as ready as we could be. Now we just had to hope we were better than everyone else.
‘Okay, Bailey,’ Blaine said as automatic doors opened to JAS 360’s white tiled interior. ‘This is it.’ He held out his hand and I shook it. We exchanged a moment. ‘Good luck,’ he said.
‘Good luck to you too, Fergus,’ I said. And we went in.
*****
The meeting was going well. Four teams had already presented. Badly, I thought – their efforts greeted with a smatter of polite applause and underwhelmed looks from Sepalika. In a democratic gesture, each of the nine teams had drawn a number from a hat from one to nine to decide the presentation order. We were Team Seven.
Team Five presented. Very well. Team Six presented. Even better – clearly a senior team, heavyweights of the JAS 360 world. No doubt responsible for a goodly number of the plaques and trophies adorning the walls and shelves of the boardroom, no doubt accustomed to success and expecting to find more here. Team Five’s presentation had been bad enough – or good enough depending on your stance. But Team Six was a disaster. Clearly, they were now frontrunners.
Sepalika stood. ‘Well done, Angela and Damien. Again, we’ll save any comments til the end.’
‘No, we bloody won’t,’ said John King draped over his leather chair like a bearded bean bag. ‘That was fucking magnificent!’
‘Up next we have our freelance team, Bailey Harland and Fergus Blaine.’
We went to stand.
‘Whose idea was it to bring in freelancers?’ John King again.
‘Mine,’ said Sepalika. ‘These boys have done some excellent work. Eyes to the future, John.’
‘Eyes to the fucking bottom line, Seppie. We’ve got creatives coming out our fucking ears! All of them working on this job, I might add, at the expense of our existing clients who are all wondering if we give a fuck anymore. I tell you what. If we don’t win this bloody business…’ He left this ominously open, sat back shaking his head.
‘Can the boys present now, John? Is that all right with you?’
‘Yeah. Whatever. How much are we paying you two?’
I looked to Sepalika who gave a tight smile. ‘The going freelance rate?’
‘Well, present and go…Bloody freelancers.’
And so the scene was set for our presentation. We moved to the head of the table like convicts to the stocks.
‘Swerve it like Sandham,’ said Fergus Blaine facing his largely hostile audience and reiterating the unique selling proposition, perhaps unnecessarily, already off script and clearly nervous. He was back in his Mendicant Makeover linens for the first time since we last visited JAS 360, uncomfortable enough without the bearded bean bag bagging his every move. His hands were shaking in his lap and mine weren’t much better (for entirely different reasons) as I stood to his left and waited to reveal the first frame of Fergus’s masterfully, laboriously sketched and coloured TVC story board.
‘It doesn’t get any more single-minded than that,’ said Fergus referring to the aforementioned unnecessarily mentioned unique selling proposition and saying this to people utterly qualified to make this assumption for themselves. ‘It’s a lovely succinct message opening endless creative opportunities.’
‘Just one will do, Fang,’ said the heckling bean bag at the other end of the long table.
‘Well, as it happens, one is exactly what you’ll get, John.’ Don’t veer from the script, Fergus. ‘And I don’t mean to sound overconfident, but we truly believe this idea hits the nail on the head.’
John King shot amused looks around the room and chortled ‘Do you now, Fang? I hope your ads are better than your fucking dental hygiene!’
I winced by the storyboard and wanted to strangle John King. I’d seen so many advertising men like him, CEO figureheads, pencil heads, eggheads and dunderheads who had bludgeoned their way to the top through their own form of ‘charismatic’ terrorism, then led like Third World dictators wining and dining clients with brazen familiarity, only appearing amongst the workers when pissed, cantankerous and flirtatious. The bigger the agency, the worse they got. It seemed impossible to be a highly successful agency without having a wanker at the head. I pined for the bumbling, blissfully unassuming ways of Charlie Chabot.
Fergus Blaine meanwhile was in an early presentation crisis. ‘I don’t mean to be funny, John,’ he said, voice shaky. ‘But if we ordered pizzas, do you think you could shut up and give us a chance?’
I heard a whoop at the table and saw hands clapping above a head. It was Sepalika. Blaine had scored an unexpected point with the person who mattered most and it buoyed him immensely. The bearded bean bag John King settled back like he had a puncture. ‘Fire away, Fang,’ he said with intended menace.
‘Thank you.’ Blaine peered around at me. ‘Ahm, we have some indicative music if Bailey wants to…’
Bailey did want to. I pushed play on the JAS 360 stereo and indicative music poured forth. The indicative music was on a CD, my only real contribution to the presentation – a looped version of all the instrumental and semi-instrumental bits from John Lydon’s Sun (Leftfield Mix) – an indicatively European club mix with an indicatively head nodding beat and much less indicative sprightly piano accordion riff to juxtapose the grimy New York locale of Blaine’s ad with an intrinsically English feel. As indicative music, it was only really indicative of my suspect attitude.
This track was now playing at a level Blaine could comfortably talk over while I manned the storyboard, ready to reveal each frame one by one according to rehearsed cues: not too hard for even a mug with a suspect attitude – I simply revealed the next frame when Fergus said ‘Cut to…’
He readied himself, one hand on a scrawny hip, the other clutching a script, nodded at me and I revealed the first frame.
He began: ‘The scene is a concrete outdoor basketball court somewhere on the bad side of the Bronx, New York City. There’s thick gauge chicken wire all round the court, steam rising from drains, old beaten up cars, dirt and stray dogs. Three huge Afro American guys are playing half court basketball ala the movie ‘White Men can’t jump’, two against one. In other words, they need another player.’
‘Cut to one of them seeing a white guy sitting on the bleaches watching. Cut to them talking to the white guy. It’s Andrew Sandham. They’re clearly asking if he can play basketball and he just shrugs. Cut to him pulling a football out of his bag with an ‘I dare you’ raised eyebrow. Cut to the three black guys looking down at him with Bronx-style ‘Are you serious, mutha fucka?’ faces. Cut to them playing frenetic two on two football on the concrete basketball court with an improvised goal spray painted on the chicken wire. Cut to Sandham getting fouled. Cut to him hands on hips, head tilted – he’s readying for an angled free kick and he’s unhappy with the wall. Cut to the wall – two black guys with their hands over their privates. Cut to him gesticulating for them to move back. Cut to them moving back. Cut to him gesticulating for them to move left. Cut to them moving left. Cut to him gesticulating widely, left, right, back, left again, right again – all the usual gesticulations you’d see him use in a match as he tries to get the wall just the way he wants it. Cut to him giving the thumbs up. Cut to behind him as we reveal the ball placed for the free kick, Sandham about to take the free kick. And, in front of him, we can now see the wall…’
Heart in mouth, I revealed the frame – the punch line of Blaine’s ad.
‘The wall is a twenty foot long, twelve foot high, five deep wall of people Sandham has called in off the streets of the Bronx, all of them with hands over their privates, even the ones sitting and standing on shoulders. That’s the wall he wanted. That’s the challenge he wanted in his magic boots. We cut to Sandham as he moves in, strikes…Cut to logo and side profile of the boot and slogan: Asok Marauder. Swerve it like Sandham. We briefly cut back as people are climbing down off the human wall looking bemused and in the foreground Sandham is running around with his arms wide, his shirt pulled over his head.
‘The end,’ said Blaine taking a bow to polite applause, applause which petered out into one booming repetitive clap…
We turned to John King who was slapping his great fat palms together. ‘Bravo, Fu and Fang. Like it!’
Fergus sat as fast he could. I stayed standing.
‘Mister Fergus Blaine!’ I said arm outstretched his way. Blaine looked down the table at me bemused. ‘Yeah, thanks John,’ I said. ‘It’s a nice ad, isn’t it?’ I stuck my hands in my pockets and slowly paced around the table, eyes to the floor, heads turning as I went. ‘I’m going to come clean. I had absolutely nothing to do with that ad. It was Fergus’s idea through and through. So if there’s to be any credit, please direct it at him.’
I stopped opposite him, eyeballed him. Blaine looked aghast. Sepalika looked concerned. Everyone else just looked as ad people looked in such situations – wide-eyed, expectant and praying for a car wreck.
I continued on my circuit. ‘So feeling like a spare prick at a wedding, I decided I’d better throw an idea of my own into the mix.’ I turned at the head of the table. ‘I’ll quickly show it to you now. And, if you don’t mind, I’ve brought someone along to help me.’
Murmurs around the room as I went to the boardroom door, opened it and peered out into reception. I nodded at a figure on a couch and they made for the door. Leaving the door open, I went to the head of the table. All eyes were on the door. ‘I’d like you all to meet a dear friend of mine. Mister Charlie Chabot.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ blurted Blaine as his old boss took a few tentative steps into the room.
‘Hello. Hello,’ said Charlie, nodding about like a priest at a children’s picnic. He was carrying my Sony Vaio laptop – open and running, paused at the start of a DVD. He placed the laptop at the end of the long table.
John King aimed a finger at Charlie, amused eyes on Sepalika. ‘Who the fuck is this?’
‘Ahm. Sorry. Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘A brief introduction. My name is Charlie Chabot, that’s C-H-A-B-O-T. Managing director of Creative Solutions, York, specialising in real estate, but branching out into what you might call the mainstream as we speak. So there we are.’ He rung his hands and smiled reverentially around blank and bemused faces.
‘Ahm,’ I said, ‘No background required – this will be fairly self-explanatory. But to ensure you really get the idea, we’ve created a sixty second animatic. I hope you like it. All cued up, Charlie?’
‘Sorry!’ He dived for the laptop. ‘Indeed it is!’
‘Fire away.’
We both slunk back against the wall as the animatic began.
And I have to say the studio at Creative Solutions had done a pretty decent job of it. The audio was actual football commentary from Arsenal versus FC Barcelona, the video cut directly from Killing for Kicks – roos being felled; joeys torn from pouches; a little boy stomping on a joey, thrashing another against the side of a truck, raising the dead baby triumphantly above his head; the shocking juxtaposed with the frenetic. You’ll get a feel for where the main images go, as loose links are provided by the commentary.
Melancholy violin underscored riotous crowd noise as famous English commentator Martin Tyler began: ‘Sandham gets past Giggs…past Dixon, who comes back at him…It’s a wonderful run by Sandham! Sensational shot by Andrew Sandham in the second period of extra time! He’s cut them to ribbons and the team with ten men go back in front, two one!’ A new voice now, the fever-pitched tones of eternally co-commentating Scotsman, Andy Gray over the same melancholy violin: ‘Well, words fail me, words fail me! Stunned Arsenal fans!…Joyous Barcelona fans! He just bobbed and weaved and when he needed a finish, my God did he give us one! Beating three, four, five…Wonderful, wonderful! Fit to win any football match!’ The screen faded black. A caption dissolved up: ASOK MARAUDER. MADE FROM KANGAROOS. WORN BY WOMBATS.
‘Thanks for watching,’ I said stepping forward to stunned silence. ‘I hope you will seriously consider this ad in the final analysis, the beauty of it being, of course, that it can go straight to air. Thank you, Fergus. Your idea’s excellent and I hope your lack of a writer doesn’t hinder your chances of employment here. Thanks Sepalika. I’ve appreciated the chance to do something really worthy for a great agency. And John? If there is any moral fibre buried beneath all that lard, you’ll seriously rethink your association with Asok.’ I flicked a beer coaster across the desk with Marcus Friend’s handwriting on it. ‘Here’s a web address for anyone who gives a shit. Thanks, you’ve been a wonderful audience. Charlie? Get me out of this cess pit.’
And with that I marched out of life as it was forever.
