Living The Brand
In December I was working at 180 in Amsterdam. On my way to the loo someone looked at me queerly, so I stopped.
‘What the fuck are those?’ he asked.
‘What?’ I replied.
‘Those shoes.’
Reader, I was wearing a rather fetching pair of the reissued Jordan 4s (I couldn’t afford them when they first came out), made by Nike. I learned that day that it is strictly verboten to wear Nikes in 180. Adidas is their founding client, the company without which the agency would not have been able to exist, and the people of 180 feel they owe them the courtesy of not wearing the products of their greatest competitor.
Now, I’m not a sneaker brand loyalist, so I went back to London for Christmas and came back in January with a rather fetching pair of Adidas Nizzas with a comic book design.
They were met with delighted approval by at least some of my 180 colleagues.
Fast forward to earlier this month and I am freelancing at Wieden and Kennedy in London. Without thinking I wore my Nizzas, which were thankfully obscured by my long jeans. I told a W&K colleague the 180 story and showed her my shoes. Like the 180 fellow of December, she was shocked. It is equally verboten to wear Adidas at W&K for the same reason. There you may wear Nike, Umbro, Converse and (I’d guess) anything without obvious branding. It’s even in the welcome handbook (I wasn’t given this) and is kindly enforced with a healthy discount for W&K employees at Niketown.
Reader, I did not wear Adidas to W&K again.
This is, I suppose, living the brand, and it makes perfect sense, especially when the clients come round.
But there are more extreme examples. I heard tell of a USA BBDO employee who insisted his hotel minibar was emptied of Coca-Cola and filled with Pepsi, one of their biggest accounts. And then there was the Ballantines whisky client who would not be seen drinking anything else in public – even water (I bet she was fun to be around).
If you can convince a client that you believe in their brand, the next logical step must be your everyday use of it.
I just pity the poor bastard with the Coloplast colostomy bag account.
I am that poor bastard!
Poor bastards are CP+B are stuck using Windows then I guess.
In the 90's BBH was the same about wearing any jeans other than Levi's. Not sure if it is now
I have a friend who was so passionate about his FMCG brand that once, while on a personal shop in the supermarket with his girlfriend, he stopped proceedings to move hundreds of jars of his product up a shelf because it was only knee height. And he wanted shoulder height, goddammit!!!
There was an agency in Leeds about 20 years ago that had the Porsche account. And guess what company cars the top management got to drive around in? A few years later they lost the business but had lots of car experience, so they won another car account: They won Lada. Poor bastards
But surely Ben you were simply 'test-driving' the competition? I mean – how can you fully appreciate the greatness of the Swoosh if you haven't personally experienced the shiteness of the Three Stripes. Or visa versa.
On the other hand I'd say wearing the Nizzas to WK after your 180 experience was a schoolboy error….
I was that poor bastard. The main selling point of the colostomy bag was that it didn't rustle when you went to the library (?).
I also worked on Conveen incontinence products and wound management. There was (as legend would have it) a brand manager who used to wear the leg bag when he went to the pub. Which meant he never had to go to the loo. Which must have been convenient. The USP was that it had stitched channels on it so the urine didn't slosh around. I'll get my coat…
I hear tell that BBH is not fascistic about staff wearing Levis, although I believe Mr. Hegarty wears no other brand of jeans.
Try wearing a pair of Pumas on an adidas set with 2 german clients around.
i wore adidas every day at WK and i haven't been back.
It seems like it's common practice with pretty much every client. We used to put B&H into Dunhill boxes. We got rumbled.
Smoke our fags. Drink our booze. Or you can no longer be our friends.
Except, no, because I write your ads for a salary. Not to belong to your church. If I like it, I'll wear it, eat it, smoke it. But if I don't, or when I achieve the inevitable disdain for you and your company which I no doubt will, due to you being a bunch of cunts, I will not use your product.
Because even if I am no more than a whore, sometimes I like to pretend.
It's the account worm's job to lick arse, it's mine to make ads.
Better still, here's my solution: Buy my ads, I'll consume your shit.
If your trousering obscured your footwear you must have been wearing a right pair of flappy flappy Lionels. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Flap flap flap here comes ben flapping down the corridor to photocopy something or perhaps get another A4 pad. He thinks he's quite the stylish flapster. Real cool and trendy.
Pratt, Pratt, Pratt & Malone
Solicitors
"I hear tell that BBH is not fascistic about staff wearing Levis."
So you're saying that BBH don't like their staff to wear Levis? Or did you simply mean they couldn't give a monkies?
flappy jeans and trainers a 16 year old would wear…
…you having a mid-life crisis Ben??
living the brand?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZeyYZauOsI
i dont give a flying fuck who won, but i looooove a good mocking 😀
and that living the brand shit. insane. brainwashed. fuck off. if i dont own the fucking company, im not going to drink the kool aid. what are they doing for me or anyone else? fuck all. no, wait, they pay me more than those lost souls somewhere else. so i should be a loyal slave. it pays off. gahhhh. fuck that shit.
I wore Hi-tecs at 180 and got laughed out of the building.
11:09: very much so.
David Ogilvy said "I always use my clients’ products. This is not toadyism, but elementary good manners. Almost everything I consume is manufactured by one of my clients. My shirts are by Hathaway, my candle-sticks by Steuben. My car is a Rolls-Royce, and its tank is always full of Super Shell. I have my suits made by Sears, Roebuck. At breakfast I drink Maxwell House coffee or Tetley Tea, and eat two slices of Pepperidge Farm toast. I wash with Dove, deodorize with Ban, and light my pipe with a Zippo lighter. After sundown I drink nothing but Puerto Rico rum and Schweppes. I read magazines and newspapers which are printed on paper from the mills of Interna-tional Paper. When I go on vacation (in Britain or Puerto Rico) I get my reservations through American Express and travel by KLM or P&O-Orient Lines.
And why not, pray tell? Are these not the finest goods and services on earth? I think they are, and that is why I advertise them."
The same rules applied at Leo Burnett, which is why, despite three job offers on three continents, I never worked there. Principally because I fucking hate McDonalds.
At Ogilvy we're encouraged to wear expressions of hopeless despair.
I don't think BBH mind too much if their staff don't wear Levis.
But they do all have to spray Lynx on themselves every time they visit the crapper.
Reminds me of working at Ogilvy and one of the top management chaps trying to get excited about his recent purchase of a Ford Kuga, poor sod
I think I read the following story in Ogilvy's "Confessions of an Advertising Man":
Ogilvy is talking about chatting and smoking with another big shot account exec who had an unglamorous tobacco account. Someone asks this guy why he is smoking a his unfashionable brand of cigarettes. The guy takes a big drag of his ciggy and replies "because I just love the taste of bread and butter." **
** This is how I remember the story but it has been a while since I read the book – many of the facts/words/phrases/references/letters may be factually bollocks.
I have an issue with changing my tastes to suit the client?
W+K are pretty strict about wearing Nike trainers, but if you don't wear trainers you are allowed to wear non-Nike's as they are not Nike's "core business".
A lot of people wear Converse.
Every now and again we get an all staffer about wearing Nike's and we got one recently…Ben?
converse are owned by nike.
20 odd years ago, the Ogilvy top management type's wife would have been given a Kuga to park outside their listed Chelsea town house, so that the nanny could use it for the trip to their cottage in the Cotswolds. The TMT would have a 911 or 308. Now, it'll be parked outside a maisonette in Brockley. Things have changed in our industry big style.
There was an old saying for account people at BBH – if you come in wearing jeans then you'll need to work twice as hard.
That was back in the day when it was 501's or nothing. Mind you – unless it was Wrangler or Pepe there really wasn't much else.
Sorry….did I really just say 'back in the day'…..? Idiot.
I doubt 180 will be insisting the staff wear Adidas for much longer from what i've heard. So much for loyalty.
Nice blog. Shame about the shoes.
I used to work at 180 and was told to wear adidas trainers. I told them that of course I would if they would fork out 60 Euros to buy me a pair. Why the fuck should I spend money on shoes I don't like? I also got told off for wearing a nike swoosh tshirt. Cunts.
New Old Spice ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLTIowBF0kE
when i worked on budweiser we'd get into trouble if we tried to expense other beer. which was fair enough. it was free at the agency.
the head of the brewery went apeshit once when the Louie and Frank lizards creatives turned in a massive bar tab for imported brews. silly boys.
wear anything you like.
if some idiot questions it just say you're checking the competition.
end of story.
30th June 07:53 said:
> Poor bastards are CP+B are stuck using
> Windows then I guess.
Only people who actually work on the Microsoft account at CP+B have to use Windows. Everyone else uses Macs.
Worked on 3M, back in the 90s. They refused to look at Chromalins because these were done by a rival.
Vinny. I too know of some Budweiser shennanigans. The client sat there at dinner the evening after we had wrapped on a job, and ordered a round of Budweisers for the table (about 12 of us), then ordered himself a Chateauneufdepap or something similar.
Cunt.