Agency Spy

Everyone has an insane story about working in the biz. We’ve decided to query some of our favorite ad execs to get their best nightmare/fabulous experiences set in HTML for all time. Names have been changed to protect the tattlers. It’s like, doctor/patient privilege. We’ve also done our very, very best to confirm the truth. And now, we present…

Inter-Office Sex For CEOS

“I think that interoffice dating isn’t that scandalous, so everyone get over yourselves for falling victim to the inevitable office hook-up. When I worked at Publicis West the CEO got involved in a scandal. He was caught boinking a low level Account Service employee in his office… by his wife! She apparently threw the hussy’s clothing into the shared bathroom to retrieve. Naked. Then the hussy was quickly promoted right before Randy Browning and Kevin Kehoe cleaned up shop. The account service kids from that era laughed when recollecting how the hussy’s kids referrred to the CEO as Uncle at an all-office picnic.”

Golly gee. We should have worked at Publicis.

More: Story Time: $600,000 To Make A Biscuit Commercial
Condom Testers Wanted

Everyone has an insane story about working in the biz. We’ve decided to query some of our favorite ad execs to get their best nightmare/fabulous experiences set in HTML for all time. Names have been changed to protect the tattlers. It’s like, doctor/patient privilege. We’ve also done our very, very best to confirm the truth. And now, we present…

How To Lose A $65 Million Account

“In England, I worked on a large telecommunications account. The business was in deep crap, since their after sales service was awful. During the course of a meeting, I told the Managing Director that if he didn’t fix his company’s service, no amount of advertising would do any good. He told me I was stupid as his company had the best service in the business. So he fired my agency. Then we found out that the Director of Service was married to his daughter… Doh!”
Got a story for us? AgencySpy AT mediabistro Dot com

Everyone has an insane story about working in the biz. We’ve decided to query some of our favorite ad execs to get their best nightmare/fabulous experiences set in HTML for all time. Names have been changed to protect the tattlers. It’s like, doctor/patient privilege. We’ve also done our very, very best to confirm the truth. And now, we present…

Worse Than Working For Peter Arnell?

“Many years ago I used to do the creative for Smirnoff Vodka. The Marketing Director at the client end was an absolute pig in every respect. He even looked like a pig. On his desk he had a WW II Nazi SS dagger he used as a letter opener. If you showed him a piece of creative he didn’t like, he would express his displeasure by stabbing it and hacking it to pieces with the blade. Then he’d throw it on the floor, hop it and stamp up and down on top of it. We’d all just sit there horrified. I’m not making this s*** up!”

We wonder if working for ad-god Peter Arnell is kind of like that? We’ve heard some bad tidbits about Arnell’s management style, but we’re short on facts. Anyone?

Got a story for us? AgencySpy AT mediabistro Dot com

Everyone has an insane story about working in the biz. We’ve decided to query some of our favorite ad execs to get their best nightmare/fabulous experiences set in HTML for all time. Names have been changed to protect the tattlers. It’s like, doctor/patient privilege. We’ve also done our very, very best to confirm the truth. And now, we present…

$600,000 To Make A Biscuit Commercial

“I once did the world’s most expensive shoot for McVitie’s Biscuits in Britain. It was a nine week saga with a film crew shooting all over South America and the Caribbean. The concept was based on all the ingredients that went into the product: coffee from Brazil, sugar from Barbados, etc. To do wheat, we had to fly by small plane and drive for f****** days by jeep up to the mountains on the Venezuelan/Columbia border where this “winter wheat” grew. When we got there it looked like s***. One stalk every foot or so. So we trekked back for days and miles. It cost a f****** fortune for nothing. When we did the post production in London weeks later, we cut in a bit of stock footage of an English wheat field. Cost us about $20. We still charged the client tens of thousands though! Ah, the good old days.”

- Final price tag: $600,000. Most expensive shoot in the world at that time - 1979.
That is, until Ridley Scott made Apple’s 1984 for around $650,000.
Agency: Dorland’s London.

Wait…. isn’t that over billing trick still happening? Perhaps not. Maybe that’s why advertising is no fun any more.

Got a story for us? AgencySpy AT mediabistro Dot com