Un. Fucking. Believable.
I have glimpsed our digital "New Media" future and all I can say is... we're screwed.
I drove in for the corporate wankfest, a brisk 90 minute ride. Each way. The meeting itself lasted 55 minutes, which was about 50 too long. I was introduced to our new Holding Company Overlords. They all seemed pleasant enough in a fake, insincere way. They all talked in big, booming marketing voices, the type of voice that will fill a room, brimming with self-confidence, a voice that says to the world you're not to be trusted.
There were about 15 of us total and we made our way to the glass enclosed conference room. Everyone took their places around the round conference table with their laptops perched in front of them. I, wisely, had left the laptop at home, working instead off my new iPad. Had I brought my laptop in, I would be expected to work and I had no intention of doing that.
The laptop screens formed a circular wall around the table, which everyone hid behind. It looked more like Mission Control, and in a way it was because while we wouldn't be launching a man to the moon, we would be launching a viral campaign for a snack food. More on that later.
The oddest thing about the meeting was that no matter who was speaking, no one ever made eye contact. Everyone just sat intently gazing at their computers. What they were looking at or what they were doing I couldn't say. I was taking notes on mine, or at least I was at first, but after about 20 minutes I found myself composing a suicide note.
We quickly dispensed with Old Business, or at least I think we did; I really wasn't paying too close attention. Then came New Business.... a new client, a snack food. At this point the floor was seized by Brian, a Marketing VP from New York. Brian is a dick.
The goal, he informed us, was to launch a viral campaign for this new snack food. In particular, he said, the client had asked us to reference work that had been done for one of the competitors. At that point he pulled up the website of the agency that had created the original viral videos on the massive conference room flatscreen and for the first time, everyone looked up from their laptops.
We then proceeded to spin through half a dozen short videos. They were obviously lavishly produced, yet done in that fake amateurish way. Market research has shown that people distrust slickly produced videos, but tend to be more open to work that looks "authentic", so now most agency work is done in a practiced "fake authentic" style. Did I mention all the videos involved a puppet? Can't leave that out.
I thought all the videos were stupid but the rest of the room seemed captivated. Once we were done with the screening Brian moved to front of the room and proudly announced that the entire series had been done for under $500,000! Imagine that! Half a million dollars! With a puppet! Brian dramatically ended his presentation by noting that after the videos aired, the competing snack food registered 20,000 additional "likes" on their Facebook page!
Let me see... 20,000 people in a country of 400,000,000... It would appear this brilliant viral video campaign reached about .00005% of the population. And they're the type of people who hang out on the Facebook page for a snack food. Money well spent!
There was more, much more, but I simply can't go on. Just typing this out, I've lost the will to live. Maybe one day I'll write about the asinine ideas that were bandied about, ideas so stupid they make LOL cats seem like the height of urban sophistication.
Perhaps the worst part about the meeting was news of the next one. Monday.
looks like I might get to finish that suicide note after all.
