Laughs of the Day


Because of the limitations of this medium, you probably can’t read this letter from the BBC to a job applicant, but the operative sentence reads:

“You may also like to note that calling our head of human resources a skank ho does not gain you any plus points when being shortlisted for a position.”

How excellent!

A friend sent me this, and I must say it gave me great joy. But then I have that kind of sense of humour.

Which reminds me that a chap called Tony Attwood has a blog modestly offering “The Ultimate Guide To Doubling The Response Of Your Next Mail Shot.” No worries about under-claiming there.

Surprisingly there are no flying pigs on his site, but there is a suggestion that I was talking though my hat in a piece I wrote a while ago suggesting that some droll advertising by Barclays Bank featuring Samuel L. Jackson and a pig was a bloody stupid idea.

Most bank advertising is stupid anyhow, though HSBC have finally come up with a really excellent airport campaign. But Tony’s reason for believing this was a good campaign is that half the audience in a cinema fell about laughing at one of the ads.

It is quite remarkable that anyone who claims to be an expert on getting response confuses provoking laughs with getting sales, but there you are; it takes all sorts.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

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