So. Not to get into specifics about my job, because I don't want to talk about it too much on these here internets since that sorta thing's biting people in the ass these days, but I work at relatively small advertising agency with some very big name clients. We're small, but we do big monied stuff here. It's not odd to hear talk of hundreds of thousands of dollars being batted around in single campaigns.
Our biggest client is as well-known for its advertising and its very specific image as it is for what it is actually selling, if not more so. Its campaign has been shot by one really well-known photographer since the beginning, a little less than ten years ago, and only shot by him.
One of the major hassles I have to deal with here is that this company we do the campaign for proclaims on its website that they are always looking for "fresh faces" for the campaigns and that these "fresh faces" can submit their photographs right here, to my office, for I guess possible modelling superstardom and international-agreement that "You, young thing, are hot shit." Keeping the modelling dreams of pimpled thirteen-years olds alive, I guess. So at least a couple times a day I have some delusional midwestern housewife calling my office and telling me how their Jimmy or Suzy are the prettiest things you ever did see and this girl who works at the mall told them they should call to become a model and blah blah jesus christ woman do you understand the nature of reality???
No, they do not. Anyway, I've gotten used to dealing with these women; I just explain to them that telling me their stories accomplishes nothing and they just need to send in photographs of their heart-attack-inducing gorgeous children. I don't mention these envelopes, of which we get several a day, are immediately tossed in a large box where they pile and pile until said large box is full and then are sent to god knows who at our client's office who does god knows what with them, since that would not be an efficeint way to get rid of them, now would it?
But today, I had a first! This woman calls and tells me she has this picture. This one specific picture. And she wants to submit it for our client to use as their advertising. She's not submitting the person in the picture for modelling, she's not submitting herself as a photographer; she's submitting this one picture that she just thinks would be perfect for this company to use for their advertising.
What the fuck do I say to that? Oh yes, I'm sure this enormous behemoth company that rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year and spends millions of dollars for a famous photographer to do these epic photo shoots with dozens of models in exotic locations four times a year would just love to throw all that nonsense to the side for this 35mm snapshot you took of your teenage daughter leaning on a wooden fence in that fancy black and white film?
I was so astonished at this woman's... cluelessness... I couldn't even give her the usual brush-off I've been trained to give. I tried very hard to be very nice and explain the concept to her. AND SHE STILL DIDN'T BELIEVE ME. She seemed convinced that we'd just love this picture so much my boss would ditch the whole shoot they are in the middle of right now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on and... what, exactly? What did she think would happen? How does she see this sort of thing working? Would we compose an entire forty page catalogue of this one photo repeated? I just can't figure out what she was thinking, how she thought this worked. Did she think that an entire advertising campaign was built by the kind donations of bored housewives? Kind of like we're PBS?
Really just struck me dumb. Some people are just so... clueless... about how the real world works, it boggles the mind.
Bet you she was a Republican, too.
Our biggest client is as well-known for its advertising and its very specific image as it is for what it is actually selling, if not more so. Its campaign has been shot by one really well-known photographer since the beginning, a little less than ten years ago, and only shot by him.
One of the major hassles I have to deal with here is that this company we do the campaign for proclaims on its website that they are always looking for "fresh faces" for the campaigns and that these "fresh faces" can submit their photographs right here, to my office, for I guess possible modelling superstardom and international-agreement that "You, young thing, are hot shit." Keeping the modelling dreams of pimpled thirteen-years olds alive, I guess. So at least a couple times a day I have some delusional midwestern housewife calling my office and telling me how their Jimmy or Suzy are the prettiest things you ever did see and this girl who works at the mall told them they should call to become a model and blah blah jesus christ woman do you understand the nature of reality???
No, they do not. Anyway, I've gotten used to dealing with these women; I just explain to them that telling me their stories accomplishes nothing and they just need to send in photographs of their heart-attack-inducing gorgeous children. I don't mention these envelopes, of which we get several a day, are immediately tossed in a large box where they pile and pile until said large box is full and then are sent to god knows who at our client's office who does god knows what with them, since that would not be an efficeint way to get rid of them, now would it?
But today, I had a first! This woman calls and tells me she has this picture. This one specific picture. And she wants to submit it for our client to use as their advertising. She's not submitting the person in the picture for modelling, she's not submitting herself as a photographer; she's submitting this one picture that she just thinks would be perfect for this company to use for their advertising.
What the fuck do I say to that? Oh yes, I'm sure this enormous behemoth company that rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year and spends millions of dollars for a famous photographer to do these epic photo shoots with dozens of models in exotic locations four times a year would just love to throw all that nonsense to the side for this 35mm snapshot you took of your teenage daughter leaning on a wooden fence in that fancy black and white film?
I was so astonished at this woman's... cluelessness... I couldn't even give her the usual brush-off I've been trained to give. I tried very hard to be very nice and explain the concept to her. AND SHE STILL DIDN'T BELIEVE ME. She seemed convinced that we'd just love this picture so much my boss would ditch the whole shoot they are in the middle of right now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on and... what, exactly? What did she think would happen? How does she see this sort of thing working? Would we compose an entire forty page catalogue of this one photo repeated? I just can't figure out what she was thinking, how she thought this worked. Did she think that an entire advertising campaign was built by the kind donations of bored housewives? Kind of like we're PBS?
Really just struck me dumb. Some people are just so... clueless... about how the real world works, it boggles the mind.
Bet you she was a Republican, too.
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