I'm sure you usually turn straight to this page of The Grocer so you may have missed the best story of last week, the six-month-early April Fool appointment of Bruno Fromage as UK MD of Danone Dairy.
Expect it to unleash a raft of other comedy appointments at fmcg companies. Ivor Debt-Mountain at Premier maybe. Or Rosie Nose at Diageo. Incidentally women, and I speak for us all, are back on the wine.
Oh, we briefly flirted with the likes of cherry and dark choloate ale, but soon realised that beer actually tastes ghastly. Hence a 10% sales slump and a lot less unladylike wind.
We'll chill out with a good sauv-blanc on Wednesday. It's National Stress Awareness Day and our original campaign theme, 'Don't go pouty, get shouty', was based entirely on life here at P&F. Faced with the blowtorch treatment (hotter than a hairdryer) from Karoline (with a K), most of my colleagues go silent and resentful, whereas Miranda and I stand up and give as good as we get (once Karoline has left the room, obviously. We're not stupid.)
Anyhow, the whole thing has backfired because K now believes she should shout more too. We try to point out that a) that would be difficult and b) she has nothing at all to be stressed about, apart maybe from fitting in the next hair and nails appointment. This does not go down well.
"Keeping radiant requires care and attention," she says. And a six-figure salary and a fair amount of scaffolding, we add, very, very quietly indeed. Radiant is a good word for advertising and PR people though, because it's meaningless.
Or rather, you can make it mean whatever you want, so it can't be challenged. P&G hit upon this years ago and women have been using Olay to look 'radiant' ever since. At least, until they started going 'luminous' with L'Oréal.
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Expect it to unleash a raft of other comedy appointments at fmcg companies. Ivor Debt-Mountain at Premier maybe. Or Rosie Nose at Diageo. Incidentally women, and I speak for us all, are back on the wine.
Oh, we briefly flirted with the likes of cherry and dark choloate ale, but soon realised that beer actually tastes ghastly. Hence a 10% sales slump and a lot less unladylike wind.
We'll chill out with a good sauv-blanc on Wednesday. It's National Stress Awareness Day and our original campaign theme, 'Don't go pouty, get shouty', was based entirely on life here at P&F. Faced with the blowtorch treatment (hotter than a hairdryer) from Karoline (with a K), most of my colleagues go silent and resentful, whereas Miranda and I stand up and give as good as we get (once Karoline has left the room, obviously. We're not stupid.)
Anyhow, the whole thing has backfired because K now believes she should shout more too. We try to point out that a) that would be difficult and b) she has nothing at all to be stressed about, apart maybe from fitting in the next hair and nails appointment. This does not go down well.
"Keeping radiant requires care and attention," she says. And a six-figure salary and a fair amount of scaffolding, we add, very, very quietly indeed. Radiant is a good word for advertising and PR people though, because it's meaningless.
Or rather, you can make it mean whatever you want, so it can't be challenged. P&G hit upon this years ago and women have been using Olay to look 'radiant' ever since. At least, until they started going 'luminous' with L'Oréal.
More from this column
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