There is a point in PR when you stop being a wise and sagacious elder stateswoman and become an out-of-touch liability.
The popular notion here at P&F is that Karoline (with a K), our glorious leader for so many years, is now teetering on the edge of the past-it precipice.
She's already started referring to some of our clients' fresh faced younger brand managers (ie. all of them) as pillocks - and that's in face-to-face meetings with them. To be fair, they are mostly pillocks, but that's not the point.
However, the worst moment so far came this week when we were pitching for a major bit of CSR business from an American food giant that takes itself quite seriously. The potential client asked what K thought of this week's P&G tie-up with the Paralympics. Rather too quickly she blurted out: "Oh my god, don't let your brand near the cripples."
To say that the silence which followed was icy is like equating a nuclear winter with a bit of light cloud cover. Karoline, slowly realising that she may just possibly have caused offence, looked goggle eyed and started to stammer an apology, but the now-non-client was up and gone, taking his walking stick with him, as it happened.
She had recovered enough by Wednesday to buy us each a tub of Chokablok ice cream (verdict: tastes a bit like Nutricat) and launch two new campaigns. First up: 'Make it eating not heating this winter', a generic food industry initiative to persuade the poor to allocate their inflation-ravaged pittance wisely. And 'a nip for the nipper': a campaign involving a crack team of highly trained midwives who administer a leading alcohol brand to mums the moment they've given birth.
"See, political correctness hasn't quite gone mad," she trembled, as both got under way. I fear it could be the beginning of the end.
The popular notion here at P&F is that Karoline (with a K), our glorious leader for so many years, is now teetering on the edge of the past-it precipice.
She's already started referring to some of our clients' fresh faced younger brand managers (ie. all of them) as pillocks - and that's in face-to-face meetings with them. To be fair, they are mostly pillocks, but that's not the point.
However, the worst moment so far came this week when we were pitching for a major bit of CSR business from an American food giant that takes itself quite seriously. The potential client asked what K thought of this week's P&G tie-up with the Paralympics. Rather too quickly she blurted out: "Oh my god, don't let your brand near the cripples."
To say that the silence which followed was icy is like equating a nuclear winter with a bit of light cloud cover. Karoline, slowly realising that she may just possibly have caused offence, looked goggle eyed and started to stammer an apology, but the now-non-client was up and gone, taking his walking stick with him, as it happened.
She had recovered enough by Wednesday to buy us each a tub of Chokablok ice cream (verdict: tastes a bit like Nutricat) and launch two new campaigns. First up: 'Make it eating not heating this winter', a generic food industry initiative to persuade the poor to allocate their inflation-ravaged pittance wisely. And 'a nip for the nipper': a campaign involving a crack team of highly trained midwives who administer a leading alcohol brand to mums the moment they've given birth.
"See, political correctness hasn't quite gone mad," she trembled, as both got under way. I fear it could be the beginning of the end.
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