February 15
Hi Terry
Thanks again for a very interesting meeting yesterday. The creative team is excited to work on your new software launch.
I’m sure the application will work just fine by the time we’re ready to go to market. Let me know when you want to try again for the demo. On which, I really need you to fill in that briefing template I sent two weeks ago, so I can start costing out the studio time and copywriters.
Your president mentioned something about a Super Bowl ad. We wouldn’t normally recommend that kind of a buy for a niche B2B supplier, but I’m sure our media buyers can work their magic if that’s a real thing you want to pursue.
I do hope you and the other director can find common ground on your value proposition, positioning, pricing and the name of the product. They are quite important elements for the creative.
We also hope the mark on the wall from the thrown fruit tray is easy to get out. You sure have great reflexes.
We’ll need that brief by end of week so we can stay on track for the launch in September.
Have a great day.
Alex
February 23
Thanks for the additional information about the product. The team sure had fun working their way through the 300 pages of documentation from your engineering group. I think we all have a pretty great idea now of how it complicated it is. Looking forward to the demo.
Just wondering if you’ve had a chance to get that brief written up for us. The long weekend is coming and we don’t want to compress our timelines too much.
I am sorry the president was disappointed in our miss on the Super Bowl. We probably should have explained about the price range on that. I’m sure we can find more targeted buys where they don’t laugh quite as hard about negotiating.
Best
Alex
February 28
Hi again
Sorry about all the phone calls, and thank you for sending the brief. I’m just working through it now and I notice a few things are not filled in.
We really do need to have an idea of budget so we can bring you back realistic ideas. It would also be great to have some information about your target market, along with pricing, positioning and a name for the solution.
Also, now would be a good time to gather up assets like the logo, screen shots, legal text and so on.
The window is getting tight on buying media for early summer. Hoping we can jump on a call to go through the brief so I can get the team working on some ideas.
Have a good one.
Alex
March 15
Hey there,
Thanks for updating the brief. We’re just wondering if you have a budget yet or a product name.
Alex
March 20
Hi Terry,
I am feeling a bit bad about how we left things on our status call yesterday. Lawrence is very sorry for his outburst; we were just thinking the budget was going to be a bit larger, given the scope of work your executive team was discussing.
Of course we know that advertising is our business and you would not have any way of knowing just how much a six-week broadcast flight would cost. We are going to look at digital alternatives and more focused publications than People and National Geographic — the team thought those were great ideas though – keep ’em coming!
Attached is our recommendation for a budget of this size. If you could share the number of impressions and leads you are looking for, that will help us hone this down and get going.
Have you, by any chance, settled on a product name?
Regards
Alex
March 30
Thanks for your message. We are very happy to help you with your product naming. It is a difficult thing to do. I’m a little concerned about the deadline being tomorrow. The list of contenders you sent is pretty long. Could we have until next week to come back with a short list?
In the meantime, we have started on some preliminary creative and would like to come in to show you early thinking and make sure we’re aligned with your expectations.
Any chance you’ve nailed down your pricing?
Have a great day
Alex
April 4
Good morning,
I think we need to have a quick chat today. The team has not come into the office since our meeting on the 2nd. They need a bit of time to process the incident. Lawrence apologizes again for what he did to the flip chart and he will replace the Ficus later this week.
I hope you can understand that the team was presenting conceptual work, aimed at finding our look and feel for the campaign assets. While I have no doubt your president’s beagle is an exceptional creature, I respectfully submit that it is not a better designer than Agnes.
Agnes has won many prestigious awards and we consider her to be one of our top people. I am sorry we did not prepare your executives for the greeked text. Please assure them again that lorem ipsum dolor is just for design purposes and has nothing to do with the Masons. We will use random English words going forward.
The media buy is now complete and our timelines are quite tight to have materials ready for September 1st. Were you able to select a product name from the short list?
Call me.
Alex
April 8
Hi Terry,
Great news about the product name! Good to have that one sorted. Sunheel has put together the attached list of taglines for your consideration.
I hate to be a pest, but we really do need the screen shots. Perhaps you can find some in the parts of the software that are still working.
Agnes has finished her PTSD sessions and is looking forward to presenting first round creative next week. She liked the flowers you sent over. Nice gesture.
I notice that the brief is requesting your wordmark in green. I wanted to confirm as your brand guidelines show acceptable use only in black, white or red.
Talk soon.
Alex
April 15
I wanted to let you know we are putting a new design lead on the project. Agnes is taking a short leave as a result of the events yesterday. Clearly it was too early for her to return to work and I’m sure the request to make the print creative oranger and more interesting were well intentioned.
We’re moving forward with the green logo, but I’m hoping to get that instruction in writing just in case your parent company has questions later on. Telling them to go fu*k themselves is really not our style.
Cheers
Alex
April 27
Hi Terry
I’m glad we’ve got our creative mostly final now. We have focus groups booked for next week so we’ll be pushing hard for approvals from your side in the next day or so. Please let me know if that will be an issue.
Thank you for your feedback on the taglines. We never would have thought of “When you count your inventory count on us when it counts” on our own. Glad the board liked it.
Alex
April 27
Hey Terry, got your Out of Office. I sure wish I’d known you were taking that cruise when we put together the timelines. Hoping you’re sneaking a peek at your email and can connect me with a back-up while you’re gone. Thanks for the screen shots. We should have clarified that what we needed were not pictures of your monitor taken with your phone.
May 9
Welcome back! Hope you had a nice time. Elise has been doing a great job trying to push the approvals through. She sure is an energetic intern, and so mature for 17! We did our focus groups and attached is the report and our recommendations for the updated creative.
May 10
Hi there,
Thanks for your message. We don’t need to follow the direction of the focus group, per se, but it’s a best practice to take it into account when finalizing creative. With all due respect to your president and his fishing buddies, neighbours and fellow ham radio enthusiasts, they really don’t represent your target market and we should probably focus more on what the actual buyers of your product are saying.
May 11
Understood.
Making the changes as requested yesterday.
We’ve got the radio recorded now and all the landing pages should be ready for testing on Thursday.
May 20
Terry, I think I speak for the whole team when I tell you I am a little confused. I had thought the product name was a done deal. Please call me.
May 29
Got your note. The media buy didn’t include that billboard near where your executives are having their offsite. Do you want us to see if it’s available for those two days? It’s a bit out of scope.
May 30
I am sorry to hear that your event management company has told you to shove the entire thing up your arse and walked away.
We will do our best to help, but please note that’s not really a skill set we offer. The billboard will be ready as requested on June 15.
June 3
Terry, I appreciate that you have spent a lot of money on this product launch, but calling me at 7:30 am to tell me the leads are too low is a bit premature. We put everything live yesterday but please note it is Sunday and there tends not to be a lot of Google searches for inventory management software on that day. Going back to bed now.
June 15
Hi Terry,
I am happy to meet with your accounting team to answer their questions. There were a number of requests that were out of scope, and we incurred a great many revision charges following the replacement of all the green logos with the red ones after your head office saw the digital.
Please note, the penguin rental for last night’s launch was paid in full before the event and we will require payment as soon as possible.
Yours Truly
Alex
August 20
Hi Terry
Nice to hear from you and thank you for thinking of us for your upcoming project.
We are going to decline as we are very busy these days.
You will be pleased to know that Agnes has come back to work and is making great progress with the barking.
Take care
Alex
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Jonathan Gladstone says
Loved it! I can’t wait to see the flip side next week!