So Karoline (with a K) is back from her eco-tour of the Maldives and is behaving like a thing possessed.
"Open your eyes to the green PR revolution," she bellows at our Monday morning meeting. "The environment will change the way we do business for ever."
We have visions of the dawn of an era of ethical PR, a sort of earnest integrity sweeping over the agency. But Karoline, as befits a self-proclaimed eco-visionary ("with the tan to prove it, darling") is thinking differently. "Palm oil magnates, soya barons, coal tar soap makers, Middle Eastern despots: these are the clients of the future. They have money, and everybody hates them."
Our creative team swings into action: Palm oil; the orangutans would have wanted you to have some. Soya? Amazon schmamazon. You get the idea. Though they get stuck at coal tar soap, which is frankly indefensible.
So not quite the age of squeaky clean comms. Plus we've had a briefing on 'learnings' from the whole Facebook/Google story-planting saga involving our rivals (in Karoline's dreams) Burson-Marsteller. The gist being, that if you're going to mount a dirty tricks campaign, don't get caught.
It's all a bit much for our junior, Anastasia (Nervosa, bit weedy, reads the Guardian). "I came into PR to tell the truth," she blurts. Everyone else looks on in amazement. Partly because she's never spoken before and partly because we're trying to work out if she's lying.
To get us ready "for the battle ahead", Karoline insists that we all go on the Djokovic diet. As long as I (and apparently the rest of the UK) am able to carry on drinking Lake Como sized quantities of Pinot Grigio I don't really mind. There's a Stella McCartney tennis skirt that I now have an excuse to buy.
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"Open your eyes to the green PR revolution," she bellows at our Monday morning meeting. "The environment will change the way we do business for ever."
We have visions of the dawn of an era of ethical PR, a sort of earnest integrity sweeping over the agency. But Karoline, as befits a self-proclaimed eco-visionary ("with the tan to prove it, darling") is thinking differently. "Palm oil magnates, soya barons, coal tar soap makers, Middle Eastern despots: these are the clients of the future. They have money, and everybody hates them."
Our creative team swings into action: Palm oil; the orangutans would have wanted you to have some. Soya? Amazon schmamazon. You get the idea. Though they get stuck at coal tar soap, which is frankly indefensible.
So not quite the age of squeaky clean comms. Plus we've had a briefing on 'learnings' from the whole Facebook/Google story-planting saga involving our rivals (in Karoline's dreams) Burson-Marsteller. The gist being, that if you're going to mount a dirty tricks campaign, don't get caught.
It's all a bit much for our junior, Anastasia (Nervosa, bit weedy, reads the Guardian). "I came into PR to tell the truth," she blurts. Everyone else looks on in amazement. Partly because she's never spoken before and partly because we're trying to work out if she's lying.
To get us ready "for the battle ahead", Karoline insists that we all go on the Djokovic diet. As long as I (and apparently the rest of the UK) am able to carry on drinking Lake Como sized quantities of Pinot Grigio I don't really mind. There's a Stella McCartney tennis skirt that I now have an excuse to buy.
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