Welcome to Friday Fiascos...

A weekly look back at some of the f**k-ups and misdemeanors I've experienced and witnessed during my career...        

The 60km/h brainstorm in a Saab convertible...

When I worked in Melbourne, my boss the MD (now deceased) was a wonderful man who was also a workaholic. Clients loved him because he was extremely charming, but he had three faults:

He never said “no” to a client request, despite the deadline, so there was often unnecessary pressure back in the agency on workloads. He was so busy, he was forgetful. And when he drove his Saab convertible, he looked and talked at you in the passenger seat, not the road in front, which made for a frightening experience. We always argued to get taxis to meetings.

I worked on 11 different Shell brands, including the launch of unleaded petrol XMO premium oils, Autocare, Rapidlube, Shell Shops, Tuckers truck stops, motorcycle oils, Car Spa car wash and more.

On this particular morning, I was working at my desk when my boss interrupted me in total panic shouting “grab a pen and pad and come with me.”

I said “where are we going?” – “Shell” he said as we raced out the agency front door.

“Why” I asked?

Turns out he had been given a brief by Shell two weeks earlier and completely forgot to tell anyone. The creative work was due to be presented today and he’d only just seen his diary.

The brief was to launch the country’s first credit card that allowed customers to pay at the petrol pump, any time of day. You didn’t need to go into the service (gas) station to pay, just pull up, swipe your Shell Card, fill up, and the cost of the fuel is automatically charged to your Shell Card. Revolutionary stuff back in the day.

But nobody at the agency had been briefed. So, my job was to come up with brand names for the new card, as we raced at more than 60kmh down Queens Lane, ignoring Stop signs, while my boss looked on anxiously at me for a miracle.

I started writing words on the pad and calling out suggestions above the noise of the traffic.

Eventually I said “CardFill24” – it’s a credit card, and you use it to fill your vehicle with fuel 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

“That’s it!” my boss exclaimed. “Just follow my lead in the meeting. Am going to tell them it’s still in research.”

The meeting had all the usual marketing managers, plus some from finance and IT, so quite a large group. My boss set his charm button to “radiation level” and put on his tap shoes. He proceeded to apologise and explain that the brand names we had developed were still in research, so we haven’t yet produced the creative work. But one name stood out above all in the research – Shell Cardfill24 – and we were exploring that one further.

He then asked for the client’s thoughts.

What could they say? While disappointed they weren’t going to see any creative work, they were impressed by the fact we were working hard to get the right brand name. We set a meeting for early the following week to present the creative and research findings.

We left the meeting and my heart rate was above dangerous. I couldn’t believe we got away with it. My boss just rolled his eyes, then told me to brief the job in and get the creative turned around quickly – which I did - after overcoming protests from the Traffic Manager and Creative Director.

The following week we presented the creative work and the client approved the new name and preferred logo – they had so many options to choose from, as we had to demonstrate how hard we’d worked on the brief. And while writing this, I found the advertisement above to show you what the logo looked like.

My closest client, and still a good mate, pulled me aside at the end of the meeting. “You didn’t really research this with anyone did you?” he asked.

I just smiled knowingly and said “You’ll have to ask the boss that question...”

#marketing #branding #creative