Badely, Darby, Didcot

Fishwick cum Hardy – the campaign begins

Tony Attwood — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 14:54:36 +0000

After its success of the Cult of the Dead ad campaign the BADAD agency now has a new challenge: to advertise some run-down holiday cottages in a small village near a town known as the English Chernobyl.

This then is the continuing story of the Bad Ad advertising agency. If you want to track it from the start, start with: Part 1: Welcome to the home of Bad Ad. This part of the continuing stories starts here. Or you can take your chance and jump straight in below.

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We now had two rustic old gentlemen learning poems (which I had no doubt they would recite incomprehensibly), and a deal with the licencee of the Ratcatcher’s Arms for a 3% cut in the increased turnover from the public house as a result of my drive to make Fishwick-cum-Hardy the centre of the UK’s poetry industry.

For good measure I had also painted a meaningless slogan on the wall of the nearby railway arches, and the local radio station had made it headline news (replacing the earthquake in New Zealand and the civil war in Libya.)

My next plan was to get young William Cardigan-Cardigan from the Bad Ad agency to dress as a poet and parade around the streets gazing meaningfully at anything that caught his eyes. For the event a I chose a replica of the wig Alan Rickman wore playing Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films, and a red cape, black trousers and boots and an Australian rugby shirt.

He was ordered to say little, mumble a lot, and write down the occasional phrase in a notebook. And wear a trilby.

Louie and I set up an office (well somewhere to shelter from the rain) in the front parlour of one of the three cottages that were available for rent. It contained a desk, three chairs, a laptop, stove, a non-functioning digital radio (digital not having reached this outpost of the Empire), a lightbulb hanging naked from a flex that emerged through the roof, and several books on neurophysiology which I assumed at first Louie was reading but which it turned out she had just brought along in case we needed a door stop.

Louie would always say that we were “work mates” or perhaps “pals”. I confess I am totally enamoured of her charms. She is pretty, lively, charming, attractive… well you know the sort of thing a fellow writes we he starts writing about the girl he fancies.

The only problem with Louie is that she has ideals and ideas. I may be wronging her, but I have an idea that she’s the sort of girl who would want a fellow to rise to the top of his profession, rather that tootle around in a diminutive Northamptonshire village setting up a party-trick that will turn it into the centre of the nation’s poetry, just to prove a fellow member of the agency completely wrong. Thus I conclude she is after a man whom others admire and look up to and call “sir”, and for whom doormen at the Ritz open the door, rather than announce in a loud voice that can be heard by the lady one is taking out for afternoon tea, “tradesmen round the back mate”.

She’s big on politics too. I know I’ve heard her speak favourably of Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (he of the French Revolution and so on), and I think she is fairly positive on the International Committee of the Fourth International (founder Leon Trotsky).

So what with one thing and the other, I have to accept that “pals” it is. I think she’s everything a fellow could ask for (leaving aside the bit about Trotsky of course), and she thinks me at best a second rate advertising copywriter, and most of the time next door to a looney.

Our first customer arrived at 0945 on the first morning our office opened. It was a young man – I would guess mid-20s.

“You’ve got two of the codgers in the bar learning poems,” he said. I agreed this was so. “For free drinks,” he said. Again I did not try to dissuade him. “I’ll do it,” he said.

I told him that I would put him at the top of the list, which we created on the spot.

Thereafter a steady stream of ne’er-do-wells, drop outs, young mothers, bankers and property developers approached us with their claims that they could make the project work for us, although most were on the indistinct side of vague when it came to understanding what the project was, and quite what they could do to enhance it. Although I must say I quite liked the chap who came dressed as Confucius, for reasons that failed to become clear in the subsequent interview.

In between the meetings we worked on the media, writing the press releases and posing alternatively as members of the international poetry literati seeking out hitherto unknown writers in the local bush, and as journalists from the national dailies who had heard there was a story and were trying to get the low-down without the bore of having to make the trip to the Midlands.

Within half an hour we had it. The Mirror had heard that the Sun was doing a piece on the way so-called poets were holding wild orgies in the previously peaceful village of Fishwick by Bottleneck, while the Star was investigating the tale that Jordan’s ex-husband had been seen reading a book by the Libyan revolutionary John Betjemn (their spelling not mine) who was proposing to unleash the holocaust on Slough. The Mirror was said to be running a piece about how 16 year old beauties were demanding that their parents take them to the village of Fusdock on Biggit where known pop stars rubbed shoulders with poets and bemused locals. The Guardian was working on a special on “Contemporary British Poets” which would be a free give away with the saturday edition.

At 11.30 the local GP arrived from Hardy-by-Slimwart, the next village, asking if we were new to the area, and would we like to be on his list? He was closely followed by the school administrator from the village primary in Hardbottle-in-the-Wold who wanted to admit our children to the school. When we said we were not a couple, and had no children, the administrator announced that she hardly thought that relevant, and suggested she would put us down “for three”.

I began to feel quite at home.

If you would like to discuss story telling as a form of advertising, please do call Hamilton House on 01536 399 000. If you want to know about the range of our direct marketing services please visit www.hamilton-house.com and if you would like to see some other examples of our humour you might care to visit www.blog.toppled.info

How to convert a run down village into the poetic centre of the country in two weeks

Tony Attwood — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:58:55 +0000

Ms Jones fixed me with a look. It was one of those looks that bores into the heart of a man. The sort that means that although you are fully aware that you have committed no crime which would warrant a spell in Dartmoor nevertheless you feel obliged to inspect one’s case for a stash of stolen loot just in case it had slipped in by mistake, while checking that one’s jeans have not been put on back to front, or that one has cat food stuck to one’s chin.

I swallowed the double whisky and signalled to the landlord of the Headless Monk for backup.

“For the next demonstration of my advertising prowess,” I said portentously, “I have been asked to work for Rural Rents. They have a string of fishermen’s cottages approximately 100 miles from the sea in Fishwick cum Hardy.

“I shall rent out these cottages, and thereafter the rest of the village, by making this village the poetic centre of the nation. For poetry as we all know, is the how’s your father of the whatnot, and the do-dah of the what-cher-ma-call-it.”

“You can’t argue with that,” said Cardigan-Cardigan, taking notes.

“Imagine the quaint Cornish fishing village of St Ives in the 1930s,” I continued. “Artists arrive raving about the “unique light”. Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood go for a walk around the town and discover that the area already possesses the most brilliant, but as yet wholly unknown artist of its own, in Alfred Wallis. Other sculptors and painters pour in. Soon you can’t move for men and women holding pencils at arms length, squinting past the elbow and talking about perspective. Tea shops and heroin dens vie with each other all along the seafront.”

“I’ve never heard of Alfred Wallis,” said Cardigan-Cardigan, but since there are some things a chappie’s mind absolutely refuses to picture, and Cardigan-Cardigan making a contribution of any meaning to a debate is one of them, I ignored him.

“So how are you going to convince the nation’s top poets to move in to a dead-end village near the site of the most notorious pollution in the history of the East Midlands?” asked Ms Jones, her normal sneer returning to both voice and facial features.

“Poets are interesting people who wear unusual clothing” I replied – “the actual writing of the poetry is a minor detail that comes later. We bring in the audience, and then real life poets will flood in once they think that there is someone in this silly little village who actually likes their work. And they’ll drink each other stupid. We’ll make money on the drink sales. It’s a cinch.”

There was a silence at the table followed by what I can only call a further silence.

“Where does the rest of the money come from?” Ms Jones said eventually, as always focussing on petty detail rather than the broad picture.

“The burning routine of sawdust on fire,” I said.

“What?” said Arkwright.

“Sorry that was a meaningless statement,” I said. “I painted it on the side of the disused rail bridge by the village this morning – just to help get things going. It’s already made the news on Corby 99.4FM.

“So your campaign is based around meaningless statements,” said Ms Jones.

I thought about it for a long moment, before agreeing that by and large that was it.

“Aside from taking a commission on extra bar sales we are renting out the holiday cottages at a low commission and signing up deals with everyone else who has a spare bedroom, so we can maximise the arrangements once it all gets going. I am now off to the village; Louie would you care to come along? A pint is in the offing.” She gave me her very best smile and agreed. My heart felt it would explode through my chest.

———-

The village of Fishwick cum Hardy is one of those rural backwaters on which modernity has had no impact and which has thus moved straight from the medieval to post-modernism, without any of the rather annoying intermediate stages. As for the intellectual capacity of the population that is, as it has always been, Triassic.

The public house in the village is the Ratcatchers’ Arms, a pleasant enough place overlooking the village green, duck pond, bus shelter and bicycle shed (that latter being a gift from Sir Igor Halfbake previous owner of the village who generously donated the area it to the inhabitants in return for the village’s two most radiant 18 year old virgins every quarter day for the rest of his life).

The Arms, as we entered was doing what one might call a trade that was verging on the non-existent side of slow. Two gnarled gents who looked like bookies’ runners who had seen better days sat staring solemnly at half drunk vodka and limes. From behind the bar the landlord’s wife appeared looking at us suspiciously, wiping her hands on a filthy dishcloth. She was a woman whom I took to be clearly up to no good and was quite possibly the most revolting specimen of humanity it has ever been my misfortune to be with 200 yards of, who additionally had all the imagination of a dead snail.

Yet despite his wife’s gaze the publican gave us a hearty welcome (meaning he neither pretended that the place was closed nor asked to see our passports, last month’s gas bill or a letter of introduction from the two drinkers across the room). His name, it turned out, was something that had no equivalent in English.

We ordered our drinks, and to ours host’s wife’s dismay, stayed at the bar.

“Much happen around here?” I asked.

He may have said, “Last year on Halloween the OAPs put a bass-drum in a telephone-booth,” although his accent was so hard to follow that he could have been quoting Blake’s epigram to the effect that, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

“How would you like his bar too be filled with customers each night?” I asked.

His reply, which was once again incomprehensible, was interrupted by the Goodwife who kneed him in the nether regions, arm locked him to the floor and took over negotiations. “How much?” she said.

“Five percent of all the additional takings I make you.”

“Three percent,” she retorted.

I would have shaken her hand on the deal but it would have meant several hours in intensive care waiting for restorative injections so I let it pass. I slipped the two old timers who had been watching the show a short poem each. “If you can recite these the next time I enter this bar, the evening’s drinks are on me,” I said. We headed for the door.

“Oxygen?” said Louie, as once outside she removed the mask and mini-tank I knew she always carried in her handbag for just such emergencies. I accepted it gladly and we took alternating gulps. I really ought to do something about the pungency of the village’s atmosphere.

If you would like to talk about creating blog stories to advertise your company please do call Hamilton House Mailings on 01536 399 000, and ask to talk to the Velocity team. We might even answer. Failing that try www.hamilton-house.com and take a look at the “How To” articles.

How to promote a village near the “English Chernobyl” as a tourist destination

Tony Attwood — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 14:42:51 +0000

In attempting to answer the question, “What is the one thing that most advertising campaigns must have, but which they often lack?” the staff of the BADAD agency have created a campaign for a local firm of undertakers invoking the Cult of the Dead. This gave them the answer: the campaign needs to be innovative, different, lively, and attention grabbing.

After the success of the Cult the agency now wants to know if the notion of “grab attention” will work in every single situation. Now the challenge is to advertise some run-down holiday cottages in a small village near a town notorious as a source of pollution, 30 years before.

This then is the continuing story of the Bad Ad advertising agency. If you want to track it from the start, here’s the index. Otherwise just continue below.

Having won the bet that I could produce an advert that worked for any business in town I had now, utterly stupidly, accepted a second challenge. To advertise another business, but without using either sex or death (the two themes I had used to promote the local undertakers – see earlier notes).

Arkwright had suggested that I do, “The one that does holiday cottages in Fishwick cum Hardy in Northamptonshire.”

For reasons of sheer stupidity, or maybe because of an excess of alcohol, or because it had bought me an extra day’s holiday for which I was not officially entitled, I had agreed. The day off was welcome, but still it was just one day. I slept through most of it.

I had boasted that I knew the secret of advertising, and that in its simplest form it was grabbing attention. Most advertisers, I argued, looked at every line, suggesting that, “we have to tell them x or y” where x or y are mere details of whatever is being sold. If those details are vital to the sale, they become part of the attention grabbing process. Otherwise they can be left for later.

So I had become known as Mr Grab Attention. And that’s what I had to do with holiday cottages in Northamptonshire.

After work we met in the Headless Monk as per normal, and I could feel the expectant hush. Ms Jones had backed off from endlessly criticising me, knowing that she had lost face by the success of the Cult of the Dead at the undertakers. So she sat and smiled at me in silence. I think I preferred it when she just snarled and called me a loser.

“The subject,” I said portentously, when the drinks were in, “is Rural Rents, a travel company in Crazybottle Beeches, Northants. They have a string of fishermen’s cottages approximately 100 miles from the sea in Fishwick cum Hardy.”

William Cardigan-Cardigan looked at me expectantly. The poor lamb really thought I was about to deliver. Arkwright was just amused. As for Louie… I was still hoping she felt this was going somewhere.

“And as you have regularly reminded me, the idea is to grab attention. We had the Cult of the Dead with the undertakers, what do we have with fishermen’s cottages miles from the sea, in a place that few people have ever considered a holiday destination? Very little; the village in question is near Corby – known mostly for its now closed steel works, which have been the subject of a 30 year legal battle for compensation over the pollution caused in the said close down. That in itself is not a major selling point. One report on the internet called the area the Chernobyl of the East Midlands. Not a promising start.

“I’ve done a bit of background research on this and I think everyone likes to identify each location with one simple concept. So we give the village that concept, we then give it an identity, and then we sell that identity as the reason for going to the village to have a holiday in a run down fisherman’s cottage that no fisherman would ever be seen dead in.”

“And that identity is…?” It was Louie. She had smiled as she said it and my heart skipped several beats thus putting my longevity in doubt. I recovered however and took a swig of the single malt brought to me for the occasion of my speech.

“Poetry,” I replied. “Fishwick cum Hardy in Northamptonshire is the centre of the largest most vibrant group of young poets in the kingdom. You can’t move without tripping over one.”

“Is this true?” asked Arkwright.

I told him not to be so gullible. “I am going to put all the youngsters in the village on a commission. ‘Become a poet and you will get a percentage of every let that is achieved’ is the message of the day.”

“But don’t they have to write some poetry?” asked Cardigan-Cardigan, with an air of one who was starting to feel that his former mentor had just lost the plot.

“Do not be naive,” I replied imperiously. “Poets are interesting people who wear unusual clothing. The actual writing of the poetry is a minor detail that comes later. I have already arranged to put one young gent into false beard and spectacles and the grounds that he is so famous he is forced to shield his identity from the public eye. I also met a young woman who is a dead ringer for a motor-car coming through a haystack. Perfect poet material if ever I saw it.”

The table was silent, save for the sound of me raising a glass to the landlord, pointing at Ms Jones and miming my need for another drink – for which she was going to pay. And that, being a mime, made no sound at all.

If you want to discuss the issue of grabbing attention in advertising (be it serious or straight) do call Hamilton House on 01536 399 000. We might even answer. Failing that try www.hamilton-house.com and take a look at the “How To” articles.

Written by Tony Attwood.

Moll Cutpurse hits the world of office furniture. And how!

Tony Attwood — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:13:38 +0000

This then is the continuing story of the Bad Ad advertising agency. If you want to track it from the start, here’s the index. Otherwise just continue below.

Moll Cutpurse was the new image of Fungus & Co, local purveyors of office equipment to the business community. The only problem was that she was somewhat too racy to appear on TV (and anyway our client didn’t have enough money to make the adverts, let alone get them shown. So we tried another approach.

We took hundreds of pictures of our new 17th century star, put them on the company’s web site, booked her into every night club we could find for a guest appearance, sold her act to any small comedy venue that was taking new acts, and then gave her a daily email and blog column which we advertised through email and direct mail to all the local companies in the vicinity.

Her first newsletter took the business community by storm. In it she described how despite her interest in cross dressing, her tendency to swear, and the fact that while no man had yet been man enough to seduce her, she did has a special penchant for office furniture. She wrote of how she would sit in the warehouse of Fungus and Co at night, and then move slowly, sleekly, from chair to chair, how she would sit upon desks, before caressing the steel legs, how she would play with staplers (she did not explain how) and ultimately would lock herself inside a security cabinet with an industrial sized container of Nescafe, and spend the next half hour sniffing, before the nightwatchman, Norman Heaviside came and threw her out.

The following day the telephone system of Fungus and Co went into meltdown, half of the calls protesting that the adverts were degrading and obscene while the other half asked if the company had a wall diary that they might be giving away for free this year and which included Moll Cutpurse in various poses.

Within days Moll’s tour hit the road and we had a team of copywriters working on her daily doings on the email and blog. Sales went through the roof. We tried an experiment. A desk of the type Moll sat on while dictating her daily ramblings was renamed and rebranded, and the price doubled. Sales went up fourfold.

After a week, I finally made it back to the Headless Monk (our local pub) for an afterwork drink or two. Louie gave me a smile of admiration, and my knees buckled.

“I bet,” she said, “you couldn’t do it again.”

I looked at her aghast.

“Only this time,” added Ms Jones, “without any sexual content, innuendo, and whatnot.”

“What’s whatnot?” I said, but she pretended not to notice.

William Cardigan Cardigan looked intrigued. “it could be done, couldn’t it?” he asked. “I mean your technique applies to everything. I’ve been telling everyone that the key is just grabbing attention – not the actual content. That’s your technique isn’t it?”

“What technique is that?” I asked.

“Grabbing attention. You said grabbing attention is everything.”

I looked at my fellow-workers. I was exhausted beyond belief. In the past two weeks I had created a campaign for an undertakers, and then transported the results into a campaign for a down at heel office equipment firm. And now they wanted more?

“Prove your theory,” said Ms Jones. “Do it again, but this time, no death squads, no sex. I will allow you to choose the company this time, so that you can’t say I am making it impossibly hard. And all you have to do is to write an advertising campaign for them when is based entirely on your little theme of grabbing attention.”

I called for another drink. It was my round, but I didn’t care. This was just unfair.

“Why not do that travel company in Crazybottle Beeches?” said Arkwright. “The one that does holiday cottages in Fishwick cum Hardy.” I looked at him miserably. “It’s in Northamptonshire,” he added not very helpfully.

“I know where it is,” I said.

“You could do a campaign for that, without sex or a cult of the dead. Holiday cottages in Northamptonshire.”

Their faces peered at me. Ms Jones with a smirk, Cardigan-Cardigan in admiration, Arkwright in bluff Yorkshire honesty, and Louie in …. well, I don’t know. But I could hope.

“OK,” I said. “But give me tomorrow off first.”

And if you want to talk to anyone about grabbing attention, and about stories as advertisements, do call Tony Attwood at Hamilton House Mailings. 01536 399 000

Moll Cutpurse and the office furniture

Tony Attwood — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 13:23:23 +0000

This then is the continuing story of the Bad Ad advertising agency. If you want to track it from the start, here’s the index. Otherwise just continue below.

Ms Jones had kept her distance for two days, but finding herself excluded from what was quite obviously a raging success she decided to return to the fray. Not least because our message was a sure fire winner: gaining attention is everything. Do it in a way that is sympathetic to the audience, and you must get sales. Now all we had to do was how exactly we were going to pull this off.

Already the press were catching up with us, noting the violence and sexual abandon (both rather exaggerated, but I wasn’t going to complain) at the Cult of the Dead meetings and giving us lurid exposure, but with a notable lack of pictures save a couple of bank managers a little the worse for wear on their way home from the Christmas Bonus Extravaganza held at the Stuff of Plenty.

Louie had said, “given that this is all history – and dead history at that – we can book in anyone we want. The crazier the better. The deceased don’t charge – nor do they sue,” and that had been our cue.

Arkwright from data had added the notion that “If we ask people who they want to play we can audition them and get them along,” and so it was planned.

We announced an opening night in which local enthusiasts could attend as any person from history and make a short speech (or do anything else they fancied) expressing why they should be admitted to the Cult. We then invited every company based locally to turn up, select a hero and take on the sponsorship of said individual.

It was, beyond everything, a riotous evening at the undertakers, packed with people willing to dress for the occasion, members of the press who sneaked in (having found that claiming “I’m from the Daily Mail and need three press tickets” got them more in the way of abuse than handouts) and potential sponsors who did get free passes. (The Times attempt to enter under this guise was rejected, and we had much fun in telling them what we thought of their football coverage, but that was something of a personal vendetta and not to be mentioned in detail here).

The winner of the evening’s show was beyond any doubt at all a student from the local FE college who came as Mary Frith, better known as Moll Cutpurse. I was not personally acquainted with the lady playing the part, but I suspect every single man in the audience wanted to be by the end of the show. A 21st century woman dressed as a 17th century woman dressed as a man (doublet, hose, that sort of thing), and a real live sword by her side. She sang, swore (in the manner of the early 1600s), played the lute (really, an actual lute) and told the most amazing stories about life at the time. She didn’t actually do any bear baiting, but she did the next best thing. Audience baiting. She invited verbal participation, and no one who took her on survived.

Most extraordinarily, she arranged to a group of pick pockets to work the audience while she entranced them, and then had them take whatever they found up to her to put display on the little stage. As everyone in the audience desperately checked to see what they had lost, there was so much laughter and anger combined when the audience discovered that they had actually had highly embarrassing articles put into their pockets rather than anything taken out, I thought the roof would come off.

William Cardigan-Caridgan and Louie toured the possible sponsors, and the offers started to roll in. Within an hour we had payments for one of the most amusing and extraordinary women from English history to appear as the front-line advert for products ranging from CDs through to bookcases, from sofas and beds to the local wine store.

After consultations we took on one sponsor, with the others being told we would get back to them once the first sponsorship deal was established. It was an office furniture company which primarily dealt with on-line orders. Quite what they were going to do with the cross dressing 17th century Moll Cutpurse I wasn’t sure, but at least it was going to liven up next week.

I arranged for a full scale meeting between the selected sponsor (Fotheringhays Ltd), the actress (Mandy Pearce), and the Bad Ad staff. One thing was for sure. If my theory that all you had to do was to be different to make advertising work, then the job was done.

“Using Moll Cutpurse to sell office desks?” said Ms Jones as we left the show.

“I know,” I replied, “but we’ve come this far… Are you going to bet me it can’t be done?” Ms Jones shook her head – but I’ll say this for her. She had the grace to smile and give me a peck on the cheek as she left. Well, what do you know?

The story continues shortly… But meanwhile if you are fascinated with the notion that grabbing attention is the key to all advertising – email me at Tony@hamilton-house.com

You might also find our regular discussions of direct marketing of interest. To get the daily email just write to Direct-Mail-Secrets-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and then click reply to the confirmation email you get back. It is free, and you can leave at any time you choose.

Tony Attwood

Bring on the heroes (not to mention Catherine the Great)

Tony Attwood — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 22:52:33 +0000

What is the one thing that most advertising campaigns must have, but which they often lack?

That to me is a fundamental question: because if you find the answer you turn your advert from an ordinary performing work into a masterpiece.

Indeed for me the answer is simple. You have to grab attention.

That is what the BadAd story is about – the ability to advertise anything if you grab attention. In the story the protagonists don’t sit down and debate grabbing attention – they stumble on a method of advertising that is itself attention grabbing. But the result gives us a form of advertising that anyone can utilise. All you have to do is go through the process that the writer in this story goes through – the challenge of advertising something without simply announcing it.

In essence, a bet leads the writer to try and promote the most unlikely of businesses. Through outrageous lateral thinking he succeeds, and then finds he has one of the biggest marketing opportunities of all times on his hands.

This then is the continuing story of the Bad Ad advertising agency. If you want to track it from the start, here’s the index. Otherwise just continue below.

Part 9: Bring on the heroes (not to mention Catherine the Great)

The regular media, being excluded from the show we had created in the undertakers, were hopping mad. They phoned, they visited, they complained to the police, they camped outside the door, and they ignored us. All to no avail. The only place you could get more information on the Cult of The Dead was on our own blog, and we were announcing more developments daily.

One thing I felt we needed were antecedents – heroes from the past that we could venerate, even if we had to do a bit of re-writing of history along the way.

In the absence of Ms Jones input, William Cardigan-Cardigan in customer relations, was putting the word out. And the word was simple: if you want to catch attention you are going to have to be in this show. We’re limiting the number of firms we’ll take on, and you can join in or not as the case may be.

The great advantage was that the Cult of the Dead was itself a huge gatherer of attention – whoever heard of our little town of Corby actually having a cult of anything (other than serious drinking). But now we had the Cult of the Dead, and although the major clients held back at the start, that didn’t worry me because we had names.

It was, I must admit, Louie’s idea. She might have smirked with the High Priestess of the Cult had asked me to share he itinerary for the launch tour, but she was becoming very friendly indeed as she took me to one side and said, “given that this is all history – and dead history at that – we can book in anyone we want. The crazier the better. The deceased don’t charge – nor do the sue.”

So it was that Louie and I went to the company library, and worked through the dead folk that we felt might be a good idea to have on our side.

From the world of the dead and seriously weird we took Isaac Newton and Lord Byron, and Louie, wanting the fairer sex in on the show came up with Ada Lovelace. (I’ll come to the idiosyncrasies or is that idiocies of each anon, but for now the names need recording).

From the land of take it or leave it I came up with Epicurus while Louie went for Moll Cutpurse.

And that was all before I said Giacomo Cassanova and she replied with Catherine the Great. Arkwright from data, listening in on the conversation, added, “If we asked people if they would like to “play” any of those parts we could be a database.” (He’s from data). And it made us think – this is going to be a nightclub with style – a stream of nightclubs in which all of our clients can advertise if they want, and be identified with our brand – the Cult of the Dead. And it would work because we were doing one thing to perfection. We were forcing people to pay us attention.

We could sell the licence to Mr Doberman for each club, and with luck our existing clients in the agency would more than fund the whole thing – they would pay us in order to make the show work – and we would keep them as clients, because no one else could licence the Dead.

“I have a feeling,” I said, “we are going to make a fortune. These theatricals you are thinking of hiring,” I said to Arkwright, “they wouldn’t by any chance be students from drama school who could be paid in beer?”

Arkwright admitted it was possible. Louie didn’t like it, and I said I would reconsider the pay scale as we approached the situation, but one way or another we were not going to let this slip.

The man from the Argus phoned. “What is the Cult of the Dead?” he demanded. I gave him the phone number of Good Ad, run by David Good on the other side of town. “Try them,” I told him.

“Please come to Slough,” said the High Priestess.

“I would,” I said, “But Louie and I have some planning to do.” She gave me one of her smiles, and my heart went a-flutter, which is rather daft in a man of my years.

The story continues shortly… But meanwhile if you are fascinated with the notion that grabbing attention is the key to all advertising – email me at Tony@hamilton-house.com

The Cult for Everyone

Tony Attwood — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:32:29 +0000

This is the continuing story of the Bad Ad advertising agency. If you want to track it from the start, here’s the index. Otherwise just continue below.

Part 8: The Cult for Everyone…

“If you think,” said Ms Jones, “that I am going to tell MY clients about your stupid Cult of the Dead scam, then you are seriously mistaken.”

Miss Jones was miffed, since she was the one who had bet that I could not advertise the most disreputable undertaking firm in town and make a profit. Not only had I managed this I had also discovered a theme so huge that much of the town was excited by the adventure, and the local media were being kept in the background. I owned the message and media – the only way to do it these days.

William Cardigan-Cardigan, a colleague from the agency, was however more positive. He worked in customer relations, and had always been excited by my vision of using subliminal messages in email and direct mail advertising. “I can offer it to every client we’ve got,” he said. “A special feature – will put up the price of the account, but the results… Have a Cult of the Dead in your own town, as part of your marketing campaign,” he said.

“You are out of your mind,” Ms Jones told him and marched with more pomposity than was strictly needed out of the door.

But Louie was also on my side. “It could go viral,” she announced. She says things like that, being the resident IT geek. We rarely know what she means but she does deliver. “I’ll film this weekend’s proceedings, put it on You Tube and the world and his dog will beat a path to our door.”

“I’ll set up a list of suitable towns,” said Arkwright, of data. “This is going to result in overtime.” He was happy, and a happy Arkwright is someone to have on your side.

I was encouraged. I had not only won my bet, I had also managed to engineer a completely new approach to consumer advertising – all in the space of a weekend.

“And I want to be selling the beer,” said Mr Doberman, our landlord. That I felt might be a problem since Mr D (not a man to be trifled with) did not (as far as I knew) have the sort of national distribution service that my new venture might demand.

But this was a detail for the future. Whatever anyone had to sell, if they wanted an instant hit, an all night vigil come “knocking shop” as Ms Jones had unkindly called it, the Cult of the Dead was going to boost trade. Whether you were selling books, t-shirts, jeans, tennis rackets or CDs, this was a new venture, a new way forward, and a pile of good publicity for both the clients I had no doubt we would pick up, and for the Agency. A pay rise, I felt, was certain.

“High Priestess,” I announced, taking our new leader by the hand, “you will need to be on tour for some time, opening premises. I take it you are free?”

“Will you be there with me?” she asked, looking deeply into my eyes.

I looked away sharply. Louie, in the corner, I noticed, was watching and giggling. “Sadly no dear lady, I shall be required at the heart of the matter controlling the contracts and distribution and making sure no one steals our idea. But you, you my High Priestess, you will be the star. To you the worlds will sing.”

I’m not quite sure where that last sentiment came from but at moments of high drama it is always good to let the words flow, I feel.

“Where will we launch first?” asked C-C.

“Slough,” I said. “I’ve never been there, but I have heard it is dead already – so just our cup of tea. Let’s tell everyone we are on the road.

The story continues shortly… But meanwhile if you are fascinated with the notion of advertising that has such a profound effect that a single sales letter can be remembered by potential clients six years later – give me a call 01536 399 013.

You are a success and I am your high priestess

Tony Attwood — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:43:00 +0000

This is a continuing story of advertising folk. In the BadAd agency the story-teller is challenged by colleagues over his claim that he can write an advert for anything, anywhere, anytime. He accepts the challenge and rather rashly suggests that Ms Jones, the most acerbic of his colleagues can select the product or service to be promoted.

The task he is given is the advertising of Bodlean’s: a run down funeral parlour in the worst part of town.

Gathering each evening in the Headless Monk, opposite the agency, the team catch up on the latest developments.

In case you have missed anything, here are the earlier episodes of the story…

But now, if you are up to speed, here’s part seven…

I had made it quite clear to my colleagues that I had won the bet by advertising the Bodelan undertaking firm, and the event I had advertised (the first meeting of the Cult of the Dead) had made money. That was it, and I was pulling out, my reputation enhanced beyond measure.

Unfortunately, I had not reckoned on the interest of those affected by the occasion – as witness the gang (I could call them nothing else) that was even at this moment pushing its way into the Headless Monk. I edged backwards behind William Cardigan-Cardigan, but he did a quick backwards somersault and was behind the sofa in a jiffy, leaving me uncomfortably exposed in the front line.

Ms Jones however was not one to be cowed and she stood before the onrushing gang demanding, “What is the meaning of this?” and words to that effect.

With Ms Jones looking to head off the mob in the saloon bar, Mr Doberman, our landlord, rushed in and started taking orders, seating people and generally trying to make money, while from the warlike gang emerged Mr Gush, owner of the Bodlean Undertakers and Second Hand Bookshop. I stepped forwards and offered my hand.

A hush descended upon the gathering. I could understand why – I don’t think anyone has ever offered Mr Doberman a hand before – at least not a living one. He did not respond. Instead he shouted, “When’s the do?”

“The do?” I replied, eyes moving rapidly, searching for an exit.

“Cult of the Dead – when’s the next do?”

“Mr Gush, Mr Gush,” I said, using the old psychological principle that when someone hears their name, they calm down a little. Say it twice, I reckoned, and the old beansprout might make it back to planet Normal within the next few hundred years. “It was a one off – a bet, a game, a little something to pass the hours. I took the bet, did the advertising, it worked, it is over.”

“Not on your bloody life,” said Mr Gush, “Them ere’s (he gestured to the mob who were even now collecting glasses filled with Mr Doberman’s specialist Heavy-Heavy – a beer whose alcoholic content was measured on the Richter Scale). “This be your followers.”

I looked at the teeming multitude. A woman stepped forward. “We are the Cult of the Dead,” she said, “and I wish to enrol to be a High Priestess.”

Behind me I could hear laugher as the accumulated intelligentsia of Bad Ad. I was sure I had seen the lady before, and I peered at her intently. “You sell classified adverts for the Chronicle don’t you?” I asked. She nodded and agreed that it was forever thus.

“But no more – for now I am released from the slavery and bondage of the yokl of capitalism and have found the true way.”

“It can hardly be the true way when I have just made it up,” I said, but already an idea was bounding around my brain. Quickly I changed tack. “You were at the Cult evening?” I asked.

“Not I personally, but the word is all over town, and I wish to be part of the new movement.”

I took a decision, climbed up onto a table and shouted for order. “High Priestess!” I proclaimed – she looked surprised but nevertheless gave a genteel way, “Followers of the Cult. Last night was just a start – for we move forwards – the greatest liberating movement…” (“and knocking shop” came a voice that sounded rather like Ms Jones,) “that this country has ever seen.”

“With Mr Gush’s permission,” I looked over and he too nodded graciously, “we shall return next weekend for a larger and better gathering.” I grabbed a glass and raised it, shouting, “The Cult of the Dead!” and there were cheers all round.

Sitting back down, the gang gathered round. “A moment ago,” said Louie, “you were saying you’d done your bit, it was over and that was that. Now you are walking on the wild side.”

“All advertising needs a hook – and I have just found one,” I said. I turned to Ms Jones. “Tell all the BadAd clients that for an extra fee they can be endorsed by the Cult of the Dead – the most amazing revolutionary advertising machine yet invented,” and with an imperious wave I gestured to the bar for another round.

Tony Attwood

A success, I think, but still…

Tony Attwood — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:37:20 +0000

In case you have missed anything, here are the earlier episodes of the story…

But now, if you are up to speed, here’s part six…

I looked at my colleagues, and they looked at me. We had our drinks, but of Mr Doberman our publican there was no sign. His 12 year old son was currently tending the bar, and doing it rather well I thought.

No one quite seemed to know how to begin, and I didn’t feel very much in the mood to help out.

The first celebration of the Cult of the Dead in the town had got off to a lively start, with several hundred gathering in the street before the appointed opening time. We let them in early and Mr Doberman had begun serving from his makeshift bar. The boys and girls from the drama degree course in the Bratislava-Newlands Community Campus College had put on a fine show, dressed in a variety of Viking, Goth, Greek, Roman, Celt and Saxon costumes, whipping each other with horsehair and clearing tables.

I’d put on my wide brimmed hat and long scarf and gone as Tom Baker as Doctor Who. Irrelevant, but eccentricity was always my style.

I was rather concerned that the solemnity of the occasion might be overlooked, especially when a group from one of the outlying villages turned up dressed as Odin, Thor and the other dignitaries of Valhalla. There was some dispute between the villagers and the townspeople dressed as Vikings, as to who should bend the knee to whom, but ultimately things were put to rights, and widespread drinking ensued.

Quite how many ancient ancestors were worshipped in the night I am not sure, but I do know that Mr Doberman sold out of his stock, and sent message to the Dead Trumpet at Culpepper Minkss for additional supplies, which arrived around 4.30am.

The last of the party left at around 9.30am just as the cleaners trotted in – a clever foresight of mine I felt. The money was totted up, Mr Doberman was happy with his share, I gave a fair percentage to the drama students, kept a little myself, and put the rest in a bag for Mr Gush, the owner.

I looked at my small orange juice – a drink utterly free of any alcoholic connotations whatsoever. “A success then, from what I saw,” said Louie. I wondered how much she had seen since whenever I had spied her during the night she didn’t appear able to see much at all. “I take it you will be running it next Saturday?”

“That was never within the plan,” I replied. “I took on the wager, and have won. Mr Gush has made a decent profits, the cleaners have been paid overtime, a lot of young people have had a nice occasion, some have found religion and some have found lovers, and Mr Doberman too is in pocket, or will be when he is no longer helping the police with their enquiries.

“But you can’t stop now,” she said. I indicated that I could and I would.

My mobile rang for the 23^rd time in the last half hour. I looked at the screen and pressed “refuse”.

“What is the matter with you?” asked Cardigan-Cardigan. “I’ve never known you refuse to take telephone calls before.”

“It’s the press and radio. They didn’t want to know me when I was offering free publicity before the event, but now it’s been a triumph they all want to talk to me.”

“And you are refusing?” asked Ms Jones. I confirmed that was so.

“It is not pure petulance on my part,” I said. “By not telling the media I am adding mystique to the event. It lives in the digital world and by passes the rest. It’s a viral experience.

“You’ve gone native,” said Ms Jones. I ignored her. There was silence.

“Are you going to make use of this?” said Louie.

“In some way, yes,” I said. “I think I have proved my point that I can advertise anything, and at that moment I felt rather pleased.

Sadly such a feeling only lasted twenty seconds – which was how long it took to see the mob at the door.

The undertakers and the cult of the dead

Tony Attwood — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 13:39:19 +0000

This is the ongoing story of the venerable advertising agency Badely, Darby, Didcot and the arguments and debates shared by a group of employees who meet in the Headless Monk after work each night.

If you are new to this wild tale of undertakers, advertising and alcohol consumption you might like to start with Part One, at the link below.

Otherwise, read on…

Part 1: Welcome to the home of Bad Ad
Part 2: A challenge which must be accepted
Part 3: How to advertise the undertakers at night
Part 4: Let the Advertising Begin
————————————————–

“And you are opening your massage parlour when exactly?” asked Ms Jones. She was frustrated that I had possibly found a way of advertising the most disreputable undertakers in town, by creating an Ancestor Worship cult in his workshop, while suggesting to any believers who I persuaded to turn up that they might find their future lifetime partners amidst the caskets.

“I have one or two minor arrangements to make today and then I will hope for a melodic but low key opening tonight,” I pontificated. “If that goes well then tomorrow night will be enlarged upon the former occasion, and we will make it grow from there. A ‘success’ is what I think many of us in the advertising profession would call this.”

I was challenging her to rise to the bait, but she stayed quiet, knowing that just for the moment, I had a victory.

“But what of Mr Gush?” asked Louie, She was taking a keen interest in the affair which pleased me strangely. “Does he know exactly what you are up to?” She tapped a hob nail boot on the floor. I wish she wouldn’t do that – especially when wearing that floral skirt.

“He has remained significantly calm and dutifully quiet,” I said.

“You mean you haven’t informatised him,” said CC, and I agreed that without putting too fine a point on whether there was such as verb as to “informatise” this was a rough description of the status quo.

“But surely with your adverts going into every house hereabouts, he’s been to find out,” objected Loui.

“He is a man who keeps himself to himself – and to the bodies,” I said. “I doubt if he would notice if the nuclear attack warnings went off, other perhaps than to suggest to the police that the kids shouldn’t be allowed to blow vuvuzalas so near to his offices.”

It was a good line, and said, I felt, with a modest je ne sais quoi. But the truth was that I was starting to worry. My hope had been that by arranging a quick door to door delivery of my little note about combining the Cult with what effectively looked like a nightclub set up as a dating agency, I might generate enough interest to win the wager, attracting perhaps some of those who enjoyed the surrealism of the plot to pass on the message by email.

I had also set up a web site and blog which made a few exaggerated claims about the Cult and its powers, along with highlights of the opportunities that ancestor worship gave for meeting the love of one’s life (or at least a one night stand).

But (and this I was not revealing) my sales pitch had become the biggest viral message the town had ever seen – aided beyond any doubt by the fact that the local paper and radio station had studiously ignored the affair. With nothing in the news or on the news about the town getting its own Cult, the youngsters of the parish had begun to believe that this might be something they could own – rather than the usual town council and local shopkeeping mafia inspired rip off nonsense.

Judging by the way my blog was picking up traffic not only would most of the town turn up for the opening night, so would quite a few members of the neighbouring communities. I just hoped that the fighting that inevitably followed such events could be kept to minor levels. It is always so distressing I feel where people misbehave on ceremonial occasions.

“Are you decorating the place,” asked Arkwright, always interested in the practical detail. Mr Doberman, our publican was keeping quiet I noticed, exactly as I had asked. I had given him the exclusive rights to sell intoxicating liqueur during the course of the night.

“I’ve been in touch with the drama department at the college,” I said. “They will be establishing an aura for the evening.

And so it was left. I had said I would be able to advertise one of the most down at heel establishments in the locality, and boost its trade, and there was now a roaring certainty that I would be doing just this. I had done it in the normal way – with lateral thinking, cheek, and sheer muddleheadedness – a combination in advertising which, I feel, never fails.