An interesting story, and one which I quite unashamedly recount here, involves the first ever meeting I had the misfortune to attend when starting out in this industry.
The agency I was then working for had just won its first piece of business with the Burton Property Trust, a letting campaign at The Orchards shopping centre in Dartford, Kent. The agency was looking to expand its client base in this sector and so was understandably delighted to have won the brief.
The campaign started with an announcement ad campaign in the Estates Gazette and a few other relevant publications. A targeted DM campaign coincided in which a beautiful, fresh, rosy-red apple was mailed to hundreds of potential tenants and agents. Lastly, a competition
enabled one lucky winner to win a trip to ‘the big apple’.
My account manager and I went along to the next ‘letting’ meeting with an obvious spring in our step, rightly expecting praise from all quarters and reports that the shopping centre had received lots of interest.
So to our surprise, we sat around the table and one by one the room filled up with several rather serious, glum faces. Finally the main client appeared ashen faced.
Had the building fallen down? Had someone died? Had the centre across the road halved all their rents?
No. Unfortunately the beautifully shot ad campaign had gone out without a mention that ‘The Orchards’ was in fact a shopping centre (to any reader it could have been an office block, an apartment building or a sports centre). To make matters worse, some of the apples had been a little delayed in the post and a number of unsuspecting recipients opened their packages to a squadron of fruit flies coming at them from all angles. But to crown it all, the competition to win a trip to ‘The Big Apple’ featured a stunning shot of none other than the Sears Tower…in Chicago!
Did we lose the account I hear you asking yourself? Surprisingly, no. Word had got around the industry about the fruit flies and it appeared that the old adage ‘no news is bad news’ kicked in. The centre was already ahead of schedule for tenant interest!
Lessons learnt? My recommendation is to play ‘spot the fxxk up’ on everything you do before it goes live. It’s a fun, positive way of looking at things negatively!
