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Six Impossible Pre-Brekkie Things (well almost…)  Tighe: bright, young and smart too Most days I manage to give credit to a number of conceits by North west marketing communications and media companies well-before Weetabix time – and that’s despite the GMT +8 time difference of life in Beijing. In the last seven days I’ve already comfortably swallowed the notion that no PR consultancy in the North West challenged the following assertion by Chris Wermann, Kellogg's communications director: “The world of public relations tends to be London-based but a lot of people want to work for a big brand like Kellogg’s so we’re fortunate we can attract top quality people.” Did all the bright young PR things (and John Williams and Tony Tighe) sit there and nod sagely at the received wisdom of man who, at the end of the day, sells Frosties for a living? Did they all think: “It’s a fair cop guv – you’ve got us second-raters bang to rights”? Strewth. What’s up with you all? Somebody sends you a pumpkin and it’s pistols at dawn. A leading client figure suggests you aren’t up to promoting his tumble-toasted grits and you roll over with your collective arses of assorted hirsuteness waggling skywards. Shame on you. This week I also believed that the increasingly bonkers Phil Redmond called for his slightly ailing one-time brainchild, Grange Hill, to be pulled from the schedules. I look forward to the day when Redmond, detecting he has contracted something of a sniffle or a poorly tummy, calls for his own immediate hospitalization and summary cremation. I also inwardly digested the notion that BBC Manchester presenter, Phil Wood, thinks he can get away with knocking over middle-aged men. Though when you’ve escaped prosecution for more than 30 years for your cheesy “Put some more wood on the wireless” jingle, you probably think you can get away with murder, (though obviously not in your station’s target demographic). Here in Beijing, with the Olympics looming, there has been an enormous drive to teach the indigenous population English. There’s obviously been a similar initiative on Merseyside which accounts for why the Liverpool Culture Company had so badly judged the print run for its guide book to its own series of 2008 events – either that or its printed on particularly soft and absorbent stock. Let’s be charitable – it’s probably a bit of both. I also find it easy to believe that there is only one-way traffic when it comes to former sporting stars becoming recruitment consultants. This is for two reasons, partly because Paul Bendolow’s background as a former Welsh International Polo Player sees him ideally qualified for the ducking and diving that constitutes the murky world of marketing recruitment, but largely because the image of Peter Leonard in his Speedos will be anathema to right thinking people everywhere. I am even prepared to believe that washing up liquid brand, Morning Fresh and its agency, Blue Chip are serious in their bid to establish that “washing up is perceived as less of a chore and more of a family experience” – as long as they mean in the same way that incest could be seen as a “family experience”.However, that’s when it goes wrong – having believed five scarcely likely things (if not outright impossible ones) that’s when my credulity comes to a juddering halt. Regular readers, if any there be, will probably know where this is going – yes it’s our old matey the re-branding of Wythenshawe. Slang to Rights But then there is so much to challenge and, nay, defy belief here. The intention to re-brand this run-down and long neglected area as “Manchester’s Garden City” is just the first item to send my skepticism stratospheric.  Connor As a service to How-Do readers I am happy to provide the world’s first guide to Wythenshawe Rhyming Slang. “Manchester’s Garden City” (adj) To look a little below par with an aroma redolent of faecal matter, as in the expression: “Ere, this Wythenshawe ain’t I’ve been led to believe by its fancypants new branding, in fact it looks a bit “Manchester Garden City”…” “Creative Concern” (exp) To have a surplus of cash to such an extent you decide to use it for incendiary purposes, as in the expression: “Yeah and look at all these poxy signs with this new pastel friendly brandmark. Blimey, they must have had “Creative Concern”…” “Steve Connor” (noun) To be the target of righteous wrath by a local populous so indignant as to be pre-disposed to dispatch you to the after-life, as in the expression: “Yeah, I wouldn’t like to be in the expensive loafers of whoever’s responsible for this, he’ll be a right “Steve Connor” when the locals catch up with him and no mistake…” And don’t even get me started on the notion that CC is going to make a film about the re-branding process - but how about, as a content suggestion, one 30 minute section of someone slowly and deliberately pissing up against a wall? Connor concludes his piece by promising: “We’re certainly not going to be dumping a CD with a logo and some guidelines on the client’s doorsteps and running off.” If I was you Steve, that’s exactly what I’d do, although I’d suggest that departing on foot wouldn’t be your safest course of action. Ah, I feel right purged after that- well it’s either due to that or the bowl of All Bran I consumed on the explicit say-so of a London-based purveyor of PR this very morn. Morrice Carr Memories… Nice to see two my old mates on the site this week, with both True North’s Martin Carr and IAS’s Rob Morrice raising their heads above their respective parapets. Thanks to Martin for introducing me to his adopted philosophy of “cautious recklessness”. You could have told me years ago you bastard – it sounds a lot smarter than my life-long policy of “cautiousless wreckfulness”. Rob and I go way back too. I knew him when he was the enfant terrible of the Edinburgh advertising scene, gleefully waving the balance sheets of his competitors. Rob has always been something of an outsider – in Edinburgh he was an Aberdonian and had never been part of the Halls Advertising mafia that dominated the scene at the time. Now many of his competitors of yesteryear – WAM, McCann-Erickson Edinburgh, Faulds and, just last week, 1576 are merely footnotes in “Where are they now?” features yet to be written. Rob, however, is still around and likely to loom large in the future of the region.  A Smarts pedigree... As the taxi approached the race ground, Rob hopped out and headed for the nearest cash till. He skipped back into the cab clutching a balance slip from the ATM. Conspiratorially, he slipped it into my hands. “What’s this for Rob?” I asked innocently. “I just wanted to show you all the noughts, Tone,” he said gleefully. Not only that, he also cleaned up at the race track. In Search of How-Do TOSSAHs A few quick thoughts, TBWA Manchester is one of three agencies pitching for the Welsh Assembly Climate Change Brief. Christ if any country could benefit from climate change it would be Wales – and I speak as one who spent many a wet afternoon huddled in a Porthmadog cinema during his childhood. Where was Childline in those days then, eh? As to campaigning to reduce “the nation’s output of greenhouse gases”, well tough shit Didsbury boys I’ve already trademarked the line: “Eat less leeks, boyos.” See it on 48-sheets and future D&AD annuals soon.Ah, as one door shuts, so another door opens. Suffice to say, the final results of the long-running How-Do Honeys 2007 competition are announced below. In the meantime, I’d like to announce a new challenge – the How-Do Think Of Suitably Sexist Alternative Headlines (or the How-Do TOSSAHs for short). Every week readers are invited a suitably bad taste alternative headline for a story that has appeared on How-Do in the preceding seven days. Send all suggestion to the address below. I would like to open proceedings with a suitable suggestion to headline a piece this week about management changes at Feather Brooksbank and the Gate Films – “Cox out at FB as Bell ends on top”. Ah, feel the smut. And Now A Paradiddle If You Please… And now the moment, you’ve been waiting for. Please perform a personal paradiddle in the privacy of you own office as we announce the winners of the inaugural How-Do Honey awards…  Third... No Alex, that’s okay. After all, as I always say, if you can’t enter your own wife then just who can you enter?  Second... However, the winner by a substantial span of soft compact calcite is Hayley Corbett, head of Weber Shandwick Manchester’s fashion division. A well organized lobbying campaign among Weber Shandwick’s clients and staff saw the lovely Hayley secure the coveted number one spot.  ... and first! Hayley the honey! Hayley’s victory was not without controversy – with at least one North West business journalist, with a long-standing beef against Weber Shandwick, failing to see the funny side of it in his blog. Purely co-incidentally, Michael Taylor, North West Insider’s editor, came from nowhere to secure a plethora of nominations as our inaugural How-Do Hunk. As one correspondent put it: “I normally only go for men with a good sense of humour, but I’m willing to make an exception in Mikey’s case.” Mr Taylor has yet to confirm if he is available to co-dolly deal in April. Tony Murray is clicking his ruby red slippers together and thinking: “There’s no place like home...” and then remembering that was exactly the reason he left. You can email him on tonymurray37@hotmail.com.
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