Brilliant New Planner was telling me a story of her unsuccessful days in Account Handling in New York.
Her agency was pitching for a large bit of business: large enough, it would seem, for the CEO to be running the pitch himself, and for his displeasure at his teams apparent lack of “Can do” spirit that he had made an impassioned, and (no doubt) embarrassing speech to rally them around the possibility of a new account win and the very real difference that would make to his bonus.
Brilliant New Planner was relatively junior, and was deputised to make sure that all the operational essentials of the day were in place: the projector primed, the pencils sharpened and lined up just so, the agendas typed and the flower fresh. And then there was another request – unforeseen, but not unusual in a business that believes in “pitch theatre” (a scrotum-shrivelling embarrassment to all that insists that if your company is pitching for a holiday company, then you must ship in sand, and palm trees into the presentation room, and don flip-flops and Villebrequin in which to present, and so on): “We need Munchkins. Get some Munchkins.” said the CEO and left the room.
Well: she did it. With less that 24 hours, she got ten actors in Munchkin make-up and costumes, all ready to be wheeled into the room, presumably to sing a jingle, stand their smiling as they “brought the idea to life” (or to scare the Bejesus out of the audience, more likely) etc. She was in the presentation room early, and when the CEO strode in, he was happy: “Where are the Munchkins?” he asked. When she replied that they were downstairs, she was instructed to go and get them – as they weren’t any good down there when the presentation was upstairs.
So she returned, leading her troupe of made-up midgets into the room for the CEO’s inspection and orders, expecting praise for her quick thinking, can-do approach and flawless execution.
What she wasn’t expecting was to be told that “Munchkins” was a brand of doughnuts – and that all she had actually been asked to do was organise breakfast.
