Merger Most Horrid?

Sadly the much-mooted merger of How-do, You Tube, What’s On in Manchester, MobileMe and the official Gerry and the Pacemaker fan site now seems unlikely to come to pass. Those of us who eagerly anticipated the arrival of How-do-you-do-what-you-do-to-me.co.uk, though, can take some solace from the recently announced deal between How-do and Manchester Confidential.

Not ideal – "How Confidential", sounds like the slightly more prim off-spring of Wiki Leaks, while “Do-Man” is likely to produce the kind of Google results best excised from your browsing history. The sad lack of unintentionally comic name potential aside, what are we to make of this alliance of the North-West’s media and marketing website and Manchester’s on-line lifestyle magazine?

It think it is safe say that any list of the top ten digital publications outside of London has been read by both Mark Garner and Nick Jaspan. The two, the publishers of Man Can and How-Do respectively, are very different individuals.

With Garner the land and the king are very much one, with Man Con infused with his personality and dominated by “Gordo”, Garner’s digital alter ego. Jaspan, on the other hand, prefers to lurk behind the arras, seldom inflicting himself directly on the readership.

Jaspan vs Garner

Below the surface, both have a little more in common. Both have been serial entrepreneurs and both got their fingers burnt with previous ventures. Garner’s role as a digital porn pioneer with Red Hot and Dutch saw him Dead Broke and Cross, while the most frequent enquiry made by Jaspan’s North West Enquirer was to the banks and inevitably involved a bid to increase its overdraft.

Red hot, but not butch

Learning lessons from their earlier enterprises, both have built successful digital brands and, critically, both have been the undeniable prime movers in these successes.

As a mainstream brand, Man Con, launched in 2003, managing to wrong foot the established media in the North West, pre-empting their digital migration and leaving many of them playing catch-up. This has seen it diversify, both geographically – with forays of varying success into Leeds, London and Liverpool – and by speciality, notably with Body and Kids Confidential.

How-Do is far more of a niche player. Launched in 2007, just as realization set in as to how much the BBC’s Salford move could transform the North West media landscape, it faced far less competition than Man Con.

While, just a few years before, two print titles (Adline and the Marketeer) had competed to provide coverage of Manchester-based marketing and media companies, both of these were just vestigial addresses on press release circulation lists by 2007. With token coverage of the area provided only by the Glasgow-based Drum, the region readily took to Jaspan’s dedicated website.

Sadly Crain's took no note....

This saw How-Do rapidly brand-extend itself into awards events and conferences. Tellingly, the annual how-do awards is now by far the largest media event in the North West.

The success of both How-Do and Man Con has been very much down to the approaches of their two founders. Man Can has succeeded by embodying the more acerbic, judgemental and controversial approach of Garner, while How-Do has adopted an almost diametrically opposed philosophy.

While, in person, Jaspan is informed and sometimes scathing about certain NW players, How-Do itself has steered a very neutral course. It has frequently taken at face value announcements and information from organizations in the North West and published them without comment.

This approach has endeared it to a number of companies happy to escape probing of some of their more dubious claims – McCanns, Trinity Mirror, the MPA, GMG, Sass Panyii, Channel M and Euro RSCG are among the many who have got away with far more than they should.

This “honest broker” approach has frequently irritated many of the site’s more outspoken, while frequently most syntactically-challenged, anonymous contributors. It has, though, kept all channels (except M, obviously) open, ensuring that How-do has remained eminently sponsor-friendly.

The survival of this policy will be an interesting measure of how much influence Garner brings to bear on his new mergeree. Garner is much more of a smiter than Jaspan, notoriously willing to put critics and competitors to the digital dagger.

Retrieved from Gordo's desk (allegedly)

Tellingly, the very first post-merger comment on How-do read: “So does this mean that How-Do won't report anything bad about the Confidential titles? And how co-operative will other media be when How-Do is now merged with what many will feel is a rival?”

Garner is probably too canny to become a mini-Maxwell, with many in media still recalling, with bemused horror, the “bouncing Czech’s” late 80’s period as the proprietor of Media Week. It is an accusation he will do well to be wary of though.

It does bring us onto one question, though, that will concern the readers of How-Do far more than those of Man Can. We all know mergers are bollocks. There is always a shagger and a shaggee. So who is the “daddy” in this particular arrangement and who will be reaching for their ankles and hoping for at least a considerate reach-around?

With twice the trading history and nearly four times the staff, Man Con will clearly be the one causing any squealing heard in the Quay Street vicinity. The direct route into brands and agencies offered through its relationship with How-do will also clearly benefit its expansion plans.

Do not disturb: merger in progress

The benefits to How-Do will be less visible. It previously employed some eight staff across How-Do and Place North West, the property site it acquired two years ago. That’s a lot of mouths to be fed from two websites - particularly when creative services recruitment and property in general have both been hard hit by the current economic situation.

Undoubtedly, the greater sharing of resources will transform the financial landscape for How-Do, though savings will have to come from somewhere. Whether personnel cuts come on the MC or HD side remains somewhat blurred, with the joint statement from the two publishers stating only that “total staff headcount will be 32”.

How-Do II

That same statement also says: “We also intend to exploit Confidential’s broader geographical reach.” With Liverpool already within How-Do’s remit and London, frankly, a non-starter for regional publishers in the marketing sector, Leeds is obviously the prime contender for How-Do II.

Ay up, there's trouble at 't Poulters

If anything, marketing communications and media in Yorkshire are even more poorly served in terms of coverage than they were in the North West. The MEN at least pays lip service to media coverage, while the Yorkshire Post has long disdained such matters in favour of the financial services sector.

The Yorkshire market is very different to that in the North West, despite their proximity. Yorkshire has never had a media community akin to that of the North West, largely because it has historically had far fewer media buying or selling points.

Its lack of a scene is a huge boost for recruitment prospects however. While Manchester creative directors, for instance, all know each other and have an awareness of emerging talents in other agencies, many Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford agencies toil away in blissful isolation.

The lack of a media scene in Yorkshire, though, will mean that How-Do will have to up its game in terms of coverage of the creative sector. Placing more emphasis on new campaigns and design work will be key to drawing in the Yorkshire players.

With the huge shortfall in media stories in the region compared to the NW, this will be essential to the success of How Do II (or “Ay up” as it perhaps should be christened). It also wouldn’t be a bad direction for the North West mothership to expand into.

Cross-selling on recruitment, with staff frequently migrating both ways across the Pennines, will hugely add to HD’s offer. Creating an entirely separate editorial offering will also be crucial. Trying to blend the coverage of the two regions would be a dilution and not an enhancement.

There is also ample opportunity for HD to push into media awards events in Yorkshire. Yorkshire has been running its own awards event, through the largely ineffective and somewhat unrepresentative Yorkshire Publicity Association, for some 20 years.

Historically, it was a 300-strong event held in Rudding Park or the Queen’s Hotel. This year, two years after the event was entrusted to the Carnyx Group, the cottage industry behind The Drum, no ceremony was held. Instead the results were read out in a hotel bar in Leeds. It’s fallen a long way fast, leaving an open door for How-Do and its new chums.

Editorial resource

As well as a new focus on creativity and a move into Yorkshire, the greater editorial resource now open to HD could benefit the site in other ways. Restrictions on staff numbers and an absentee editor often saw HD unable to properly follow-up on stories, often waiting passively for updates rather than taking the initiative.

Similarly, How-Do has been a little hamstrung when it has come to providing off-diary feature stories, relying instead on its hugely comprehensive news feed. How-do has become an astonishingly robust brand in the NW in a remarkably short period of time, the addition of bespoke feature material and industry comments will ensure its position remains inviolable, while shutting up a number of the critics of its “open access” policy.

So, will it work and is it desirable? Does this merger create a dynamic new partnership or does it amount to How-Do selling its arse like a Minshull St whore on a crack comedown?

It will inevitably allow Jaspan to take more of a back seat. How-do has taken up the majority of his time for the last four years and he is keen to work on other projects, while keeping an interest in the site. While Jaspan is a “plate-spinner”, Garner is an empire builder, with the Confidential brand the solus focus of his ambitions.

Jaspan: "plate-spinner"

The motivations of the two men for doing the deal are different. For Jaspan, it means he is no longer lashed to How-Do’s wheel. For Garner, it means a direct route into brand owners, agencies and media buyers. It also sees him strengthening his offers in Leeds and Liverpool.

It is unlikely that Man Con readers will notice any substantial differences in the months to come. How-Do readers, though, may well see a little Garner-ization beginning to emerge. Tempered with a degree of discretion and an element of enlightened self-interest, this may be no bad thing. For the foreseeable future, at least, Jaspan will also be around to safeguard a brand that he has long-nourished and will not wish to see undermined.

Overall, it could have been far worse. A number of different players have, at one time or another, been mooted as potential suitors for How-Do. Frankly it could have been far worse.

Garner: "empire builder"

The Carnyx Group would have been the worst possible option. The Glasgow-based publishers have long looked at How-Do with envious eyes, irked to the extreme that the site stole its most lucrative market so easily. It has also seen its own Manchester events, notably the Roses Advertising and Design Awards, shunned by both sponsors and attendees, while HD now sells 600 tickets for its own flagship event.

So to those naysayers to the HD/Man Con merger, I say this – at least it means that, this time next year, all North West media and marketing coverage won’t be down to a semi-literate intern in the G1 postal code district. Nor will the 2012 How-Do awards be distributed, over nibbles and crisps, in the front bar of the Peveril of the Peak. Bit of a result, I reckon.

Disappointing turnout at Roses 2012

Five things the regional marketing trade press should stop banging on about and five things it really ought to pay more attention to (part 1)

Reading The Drum’s website, as I occasionally do just to remind me that I’m best and to keep abreast of the latest skulduggery being perpetrated by my one-time employers, I was struck recently by just how cyclical the regional marcoms press is (and, frankly, always was). Just as certain major clients seem to forever return to the realm of regional agencies, despite occasional forays into London (Redrow, Iceland, Morrisons etc), certain issues similarly perpetually pop up as a source of mock indignation for the cerebrally-challenged individuals who currently edit these publications and their on-line equivalents.

A Drum reader recently

The latest topic to be recycled is that hoary old topic of free pitching. Even Gordon Young, recently recycled himself as the editor of The Drum, had to confess that he had to “stifle a yawn” when the age old issue once again shuffled to centre stage in his editorial  for the Feb 3rd issue.

Gordy’s editorial made me think two things:

1) The University of Life, from which Gordon proudly graduated, obviously doesn’t have a literacy module (witness: “Disquiet at public sector tendering – even the concept of free speculative creative pitching – is nothing knew” and “And the truly depressing things is…”).

2) The trade press, in both its print and digital incarnations, really ought to try harder on behalf of its readership. There are certain issues that are deader than the market for “I heart Mubarak” mugs in Tahrir Square, deader even than Niall Kennedy’s career prospects. With this in mind – and being a helpful sort of chap – I have come up with a list of five subjects that should be gathered up, bound together and posted to Iraq in a parcel marked : “Flammable: Amusing Danish cartoons About the Pophet Mohammed. May contain pork products.”

To replace this Infamous Five, I’ll also suggest a quintet of issues that really do merit a little more attention than they are currently receiving.

1. Pitching

There is more chance of Frankie Boyle hosting next year’s Children of Courage Awards than the marketing communications industry ever abiding by any guidelines relating to participating in pitches. The root of this is that, unlike many of the other sectors that offer professional services – lawyers, accountants, surveyors etc – there is simply no bar to entry in the worlds of PR, advertising or design. Any tosser can go into business into any of these sectors and be completely unchallenged as to providing credentials, demonstrating experience or proving their insight. The proof of my assertion is the number of tossers who already have.

The upshot of this is that any company high-minded enough to eschew free pitches is automatically excluding itself from the industry’s chosen route for allocating new business. If the IPA/IPR/Design Society – hardly truly representative bodies for their respective industries anyway – today agreed on binding guidelines for all of their members with regard to free pitching, the first item on the agenda of its following meeting would be just what sanctions to impose on the 70+ per cent of its members who had already broken the code. This doesn’t even take into consideration the massed ranks of agencies who would rather spend their money on Stetsons, spurs and renewing their annual membership of the Harrogate High Chaparral fan club than subsidising the cucumber sandwiches in Belgrave Square

Quite simply, this is not an issue that is pining for the fjords.

2. London

Award-winning work from the regions recently

Neither is issue number two. For all the UK regions that are home to any marketing communications community outside of London (particularly the North West, the Midlands, Yorkshire, the North East, Scotland and the South Coast), the capital has long been the subject of fist-waving fury. Management and creatives (in particular) are forever banging on about being every bit as good as “that London”.

The MD of one agency that I had the misfortune to work for, once told his assembled staff that, if Coca-Cola called the agency the following day, he had every confidence they could handle the whole account. This was despite the fact he only had a staff of 7 (some of them full-time) and his infirmity was such that I seriously doubted his ability to successfully open a can of the fizzy drink in question, let alone mastermind its international branding strategy.

There is a word for every creative or account director who tells you that they chose to make a career for themselves outside of London. That word is “dishonest”. Just as every housewife rehearsing her Blanche Dubois for a debut at the Firth Park Community Theatre dreams of getting that phone call from Andrew Llloyd Webber, so too does every creative completing his 20th Costcutter shelf-wobbler of the day dream of getting a call from any agency with “0207” on its headed paper.

"That London..." recently

As one of the world’s leading centres of advertising, PR and design excellence (though, admittedly, having lost some of its international cachet of late), London inevitably hoovers up the finest UK talent across all of the marketing communications disciplines (inevitably accidentally also taking on board more than its fair share of out-and-out wankers in the process). This pool of talents and resources, in terms of both perception and reality, is inevitably going to see all the really sexy clients gravitate towards London, especially if they have TV on their agenda.

A regional PR exec recently

The regions can – and do – thrive on other less thrilling work, the kind of stuff no-one really goes into the business to produce. Retail work, local implementation, and below-the-line activity pay the bills of every local advertising agency. PR firms fare a little better, tending to secure a number of truly national brands, perhaps because creativity is perceived as less at a premium among the PR community, perhaps because regional PR girls wear shorter skirts than their London counterparts and look more “up for it” or perhaps because the PR industry is better at retaining local talent. It’s probably a combination of all three to be honest.

On the design side, a number of companies have managed to attract serious clients, keen on capitalising (pun sort of intended) on the quirky regionality that once made places like Manchester (well just Manchester, actually) internationally renowned for its music and fashion. Companies such as The Chase, True North, Elmwood, Thompsons, Designers Republic, Attik and, once upon a time, Love have long attracted serious player to use their services, but then there is a lot less risk in trusting a one-off design project to a company in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, than in switching your entire TV spend for the year into an agency in Beeston, no matter what its MD may tell his staff on away-days.

In short, the London issue, particularly in the advertising sector, is one that is well past its tell-by date. Many individuals have made a good living out of working in advertising, PR or design without ever having to own an Oyster card. Enjoy the benefits of living outside the capital, but accept that the Man from Del Monte he never going to say “yes” when it comes to adding your agency to his roster.

Staff on the  regional trade press can also play a role in addressing this reality. After all they seem to have accepted that their own destinies lie in slightly re-writing press releases about the exaggerated spend some obscure Bath-based agency is claiming on behalf of a new client in the regional fried chicken sector, rather than in uncovering evidence of high-level political embezzlement.

As a post-script to this, I would like to pay tribute to possibly the only wholly honest regional creative I ever met, the almost-but-not-quite-legendary-except-in-his-own-mind-obviously Rick Kieswetter.

Rick (not so recently)

When I first met Rick, he was working at McCanns in Prestbury and was desperate to get out. At the time, we had brought Trevor Beattie down to the agency to chair the judging pair for the first ever Cream of Manchester awards. I swear, Rick hung around outside the doors of the agency’s boardroom for the whole day, clutching his book. As soon as Trev emerged, Rick thrust his portfolio into the bemused creative maestro’s hands, completely ignoring the fact that an incredulous Brian Child, then chief exec of McCann Manc, was a witness to it all.

Rick eventually managed to secure a creative role in London and, as part of his farewell celebrations, seriously discussed the possibility with me of taking out a full page ad in the following issue of The Marketeer. Ostensibly, this would be to “thank” all the people who had helped him achieve his dream, in reality, of course, the subtext would have been: “Farwewell suckers, I’ve made it! Now get back to your shelf-wobblers.”

Coming soon: Three other things the regional marcoms press really should stop banging on about.

The Day I Shagged Kylie up the Arse

I must confess you have been lured here under false pretences. Miss Minogue’s orifices, rectal or otherwise, have remained unsullied by the Murray manhood – despite the many nude Polaroids and samples of pubic hair I sent her by recorded delivery. Why, shame to admit, I have not even had Dannii.
However, I have borrowed this notion of boosting traffic to my blog from my dear old pals at The Drum. A token mention of the World Cup here, a fleeting and shallow look at the iPad and even some ill-informed shite about China – all aimed at attracting unwary googling browsers to their site and artificially – and temporarily – swelling their visitor numbers. Love to see the number of revisits.
Shame on my pals at Brazen et al, supposedly experts in social media, for falling for this tosh and retweeting the Drum’s claims to be the 999th most read website in the UK, which still sees them nestling somewhere between donkeyporn.org.uk and johnselwyngummersfavouritesmells.co.uk.
Deceptive, lacking verification and only taken on board by the ill-informed – if Carlsberg wrote positioning statements for Glasgow-based publishing companies…
Nick Clegg was my bitch at Eton by the way

Cunt of the Week: Riddle Me This...

>It is often said that if you remember the early days of the Marketeer, then you never really knew where the sales department stashed their coke. This is a tale from those days.

An interesting counterpoint to the public humiliation that Alistair Sim has had to endure over the last 18 months is the vast number of people in the industry who Got Away With It, individuals who did similar or worse things to Mr Sim, but simply escaped vilification solely by virtue of not getting caught. One such individual is Robin Riddle, one time Northern Sales Rep for the Economist, a role he presumably fulfilled through either osmosis or telepathy as, despite sharing an office with him for some six months, I never actually saw him do anything at all.

One of the typically far-sighted and innovative moves made by the Carnyx Group during the brief period they genuinely had a presence in England was to arrange to reduce the overheads of its Manchester office by sharing a space with the Economist, which consisted entirely of the “Riddler”.

When I say reduce the overheads, what the ever-duplicitous Carnyx Group actually did was inflate the claimed rent and allocate a supposed portion of it to the Economist, a portion which actually pretty much covered the whole of the real rent.
Robin was bought into our one room office (on the third floor of a building on the corner of York Street and Fountain Street), on the condition that whatever happened in “Marketeer Mansions” stayed in “Marketeer Mansions”, However, the keen Carnyx-costcutters overlooked three vital facts about Robin:

a) He was a compulsive gossip, with very little to do
b) He organized the MPA lunches so a had a ready made audience of people to compulsively gossip to
c) He was a complete cunt

Far from keeping schtum about the goings-on in Marketeer Mansions – which at that point was a marginally less happy ships than one ferrying a dead Viking to his eternal reward - Robin used confidential information – sales data, internal squabbles etc–to persuade the many that that usually bodyswerved to avoid him to break the habit of a lifetime and spend more than 50 seconds listen to him pontificate. He was an Olympic class pontificator.

He then compounded this by getting involved with one of the Marketeer sales girls, whose main interest in Robin was promising sexual favours in return for him paying off her burgeoning credit card bills. Unfortunately, whilst her visa final demands were the exclusive province of the Riddler, her heart and sundry other organs were, largely, the exclusive province of another (married) man.

When, despite howls of protest from me and James O’Donnell, the Marketeer’s deputy editor and token grown-up, said sales girl and Romeo Riddler decided to move into together (said sales girl now having rent arrears as well as threats to her pets from Visa hitmen), it was obvious things were going to get worse. Much worse.

When the World’s Least Trustworthy Woman moves in with the World’s Most Paranoid Man, Dark Satanic Forces can take the day off, and put their feet up, secure in the knowledge that they are well surplus to requirements.

And so it came to pass that WLTW and WMPM were sharing an apartment, a bed, her bad debts and, most critically, a PC.

Said sales girl made the mistake of using the shared PC to arrange a hotel tryst with her One True Love of the Month, fatally neglecting to clear her in-box and sent box. The Riddler, of course, having found his previous fiancée in bed with another on at least one occasion, scrupulously checked WLTW’s email accounts on a daily basis. Hourly, if she was out.

On this occasion, the Riddler found details of hotel bookings, times, dates etc. Unsatisfied with merely being able to confront the visa-indebted vixen with his discovery, he stalked her all the way to Leeds on the day of the tryst.

Entering the hotel, he then knocked on the illicit couple’s door and pretended, in squeaky tones, to be housekeeping. Upon looking through the peephole, the coitus interuptees swiftly realized it was not an amusingly-voiced Malmaison manservant but rather a revenge-bent Riddler. Quite sensibly, they decided to remain on the reverse side of the door, until the Riddler began reeling off details of the married man’s home address, phone number, wife’s employment and, most chillingly, the name of the school where his kids went.

Understandably freaked out by the Riddler’s OCD stalkery, said married man did the dishonourable thing and promptly fled, leaving our tiny slip of a sales girl to tackle the disapproving-of-their-nobbin’ Robin alone. Hardly his finest hour – and you know who you are and I know you’ll read this.

Now the Riddler is hardly an impressive specimen of masculinity, but he was twice as tall as his petite ex-paramour to be. Such inequality, however, did not stop him from smashing her head into a wall and then spitting in her face. Nor was this the only time. After this he took to hanging around outside her apartment at night and repeating the process on more than one occasion. A nice guy. I wonder what his new colleagues at the Economist in North America would think should they ever find out…

An amusing aside on the whole Riddler affair and one which sums up the Walter Mitty-like nature of his existence… Early on in my acquaintance with him he started using an alias – “Robin James”. He explained to the bemused Marketeer crew that was this because his father had been a counter-terrorism operative working against the IRA and that he had been officially warned by the Secret Service that his distinctive surname made him a target for revenge attacks by disgruntled Irishmen.

The truth, like most things about the Riddler, was far more prosaic. His former fiancée, Jenny, had baulked at taking on his surname should they marry, feeling that “Jenny Riddle” sounded far too similar to a well-known urination euphemism – hence the name change. Upon finding this out we quizzed him as to why he hadn’t opted for “Taylor” rather than James. Although, we found this hilarious it rather predictably, like so many other things, went clear over Robin’s notoriously vacuous head.
If you would like to nominate a Cunt of the Week, please email me on tonymurray37@hotmail.com. Anyone, of course, who nominates me may well find themselves in this hallowed spot.

Who Gave Love a Bad Name?

Falling out of Love is never a pleasant process, especially if your former partner – or indeed partners – are determined to inflict every iota of added injury they possibly can, with the incentive of their own pecuniary interest very much to the fore.

Now, I am not referring to any of my ill-advised trysts of yesteryear, but rather to events of a more recent hue. Let me take you back – and please supply your own shimmery dissolve here – to the events of November 2008 and the court case that saw Alistair Sim, founder and managing director of Love Creative, take the stand in Stockport Magistrates’ Court and plead guilty to assault.

The gravity of the situation saw Sim (right) immediately quit his role, a decision announced in a statement by Dave Palmer, a fellow director of the agency, thusly: “We were aware that Alistair was having some personal problems, but the severity of the situation has meant that his position has become untenable at Love. It was Alistair’s decision to step down, and under the circumstances it was the right decision to make.

"Undoubtedly, this is an extremely traumatic time for Alistair and his family, and, although we cannot condone his actions in any way, we are very sympathetic to all involved. Alistair hasn’t been involved in the day-to-day running and strategic direction of client accounts for some time, and his departure, will have no impact in this area."

As it turned out, Palmer and his associates had a strange way of being “very sympathetic to all concerned”, but we’ll come back to that in due course. First let’s take a look at the court case itself, which saw both the chief reporter of the Manchester Evening News and, unusually, a photographer sat on the press benches. Now, whereas I can just believe that even the dwindling resources of the MEN might have stretched to providing a reporter for this case, I find it very hard to accept that their antennae were so finely tuned as to be aware of it. This does beg the question – “Who tipped them off?” With the obvious answer being – “Whoever had the most to gain.”

Draw your own conclusions, sympathetically, of course. Or perhaps ask Phil Skegg (left), who has several mates who are journos on the MEN, sufficiently close mates to reveal the contents of the article prior to its publication. Skegg was one of the few, including Sim, his immediate family, his estranged partner and Palmer, to know the scheduling and details of the case. It is possible that the hearing was picked up solely on the basis of the court listings, but it is unlikely.

Farewell to the Dream Team
Sim’s departure from the business was immediate and abrupt, although there was a tacit understanding that he might return once everything blew over. The unwritten nature of this agreement was one that was to prove costly to Sim over the next 18 months. It wasn’t only Sim that suffered though, Love itself has become a shadow of the once-all-conquering mini-creative behemoth, which won the admiration (albeit grudgingly) of even rival agencies. Surprisingly, though, its reputation has suffered considerably less than that of Mr Sim.

Since Alistair’s departure at the end of 2008, at least 14 members of staff have quit the company (for completists that’s Richard Hall, Cheryl Borkin, Adam Rix, Simon Griffin, Rory Sutherland, Leanda Falcon, Jonny Whiteoak, Jono Brain, Ben Taylor, Adam Forthergill, Shelley Wood, Harinder Bajwa and Gre Hale). This follows on from the six who left in the three months prior to his departure (Jonathan Rigby, Andy O'Dwyer, Alison Johnson, Jon Hatton, Frank Carolan and Rob Brearley).

Add into this the earlier departure of co-founder Dave Simpson and Matt Beardsell to launch Music in January 2008 and it brings the total no of departures (including Sim himself and the company’s first ever redundancies) since Love moved from Tib Street to High Street in 2006 to a whopping 24. (To put this into perspective, rival NW design outfit, True North, lost four members of staff during the same period. True North employs 16, Love fluctuates around 30, so even doubling the TN figure to take account for this still sees Love losing three times as many staff).

Essentially, of the Dream Team that built Love’s reputation during its first eight years of existence, only Phil Skegg (now chairman) and Dave Palmer (executive creative director) remain. The relative youth and inexperience of the Dream Team’s replacements has been reflected in the agency’s lacklustre performance in terms of new business and awards, sectors where they were once unassailable, at least in NW terms.

Awards and New Business Wasteland
Where, at one time, the agency took the chairman’s award at the Roses, regularly picked up Design Week awards and pretty much swept the board at Fresh, 2009 was a disaster for the agency – nothing at all in Design Week, a couple of bronzes and silvers at the Roses and just two awards at Fresh – down from 14 the previous year. It was, without a doubt, the company’s worst ever year for awards.
2010 is shaping up to be a little better with a bronze in low budget, and a gold for illustration at the Roses – neither in categories the agency will be rejoicing over. Obviously, they’re not advertising with the Carnyx group as much as they used to.

A lean time for awards then, though it’s a comparatively rosy result compared to the company’s new business performance. Unlike a lot of other NW design companies – True North, Dinosaur, The Chase etc – Love has always been primarily project-oriented. This was fine when Sim was constantly shovelling in new business, but once the pipeline was cut, the agency faced a huge problem in meeting its considerable overheads. The problem has been compounded by the loss of work from Microsoft, the Student Travel Association, All About Food (the parent company of Nandos’ source of sauces) and its removal from the BBC roster.

The agency may also be regretting the largesse that saw it give away accounts to breakaway start-up, Music, including work for Manchester City, the Manchester International Festival, Christian Aid and the furniture manufacturer, Allermuir. It’s not all bad news though as chairman Skegg is believed to maintain an interest in the start-up, a lifeboat in waiting the cynical might say.

In truth the agency is now completely reliant on work from just two clients – Sony and Umbro, although the margins on the latter are believed to be particularly low. Some reports even suggest that Paul Chorlton, the company’s financial director, personally bailed out the business with his own funds and money from Life PR, the Ducie Street-based business he is part owner of.

It’s not all been gloom for Love though. Back in January 2009, Sarah Murray joined the company as head of new business and, just six months later, presumably after a record-breaking whirlwind romance, she was married (above) to Stephen Corlett, one of the senior marketing team at Umbro. With Corlett (Mr) now believed to be heading off to the States, it might be time for other NW design consultancies to send their most comely single account directors Cheadlewards.

The Shafting Begins
Perhaps the company’s failures on the staff and client retention, awards and new business fronts may be explained away by the fact that the attention of its remaining directors was elsewhere – largely on shafting its former MD. Much of the creativity and innovation of Messrs Skegg, Chorlton and Palmer, since November 2008, has gone into ensuring that Sim received the minimum possible payout for his shareholding in the business he built.

Under the auspices of its three directors, Love delayed posting its 2009 accounts for as long as possible. When they eventually submitted them they recorded £255k of accrued/deferred income in comparison to just £80k in the previous year (the majority of it, apparently, down to their nuptial connections at Umbro). In effect, the company deliberately held back on registering accrued income until after a compulsory sales transfer notice was served on Sim in August 2009. This allowed them to post a big loss and considerably undervalue the company.

Despite his resignation – and largely because of the outstanding issue regarding the shares – Sim had remained a director of Love until April 2009. Without his consent, however, the remaining directors had cancelled the shareholders’ dividends as of January 2009, effectively stripping Sim and his family of any income at all. So much for being “sympathetic” to all involved.

These January moves also saw the remaining management of Love renege on earlier promises that Sim would have the option of returning to the business and taking up a role in one of the company’s subsidiaries – either Toy or Make. It also saw the company officially decline to pay Sim any notice pay, potentially resulting in financial disaster for its ex-MD.

This was a very different picture to that painted by those same directors when the MEN initially broke the story back in November 2008. Back then, the directors, all mock sympathy and concern, had turned up at Sim’s house with promises to make sure he and his kids didn’t suffer, telling him he could keep his shares and that they’d carry on paying him till it all blew over.

Nothing was put in writing about this meeting but I, like a number of other figures in the industry, was in regular contact with Sim at the time and was well aware of what he had been promised and his expectation to eventually return to the business.

Dismissal Missives
Sim’s first inkling that these promises were unlikely to be kept came in a series of letters from Paul Chorlton, Love’s financial director, demanding his “official” resignation and cutting his notice period from six months to three. When Sim queried this and referred to the earlier agreement, he received a letter, just before Christmas 2008, announcing Love was initiating a dismissal procedure against him. He was eventually sacked in January 2009. At the same time the company suspended the shareholders’ dividends, whilst increasing the salaries of the remaining directors as “compensation”.

No transfer of shares was initiated until August 2009 when Sim’s 33% share in the business he had spent eight years building was valued at just £240 – largely due to the financial chicanery of FD Chorlton and co. To this day, Sim has no idea who has taken over his stake in the business and those details have yet to be recorded at Companies House, although this is a legal requirement in such a transaction. Sim still retains his original share certificate which he has understandably declined to return.

The low valuation put on the business by the triumvirate of remaining directors in August 2009 is quite at odds with the picture they painted in April of that year, when they were in negotiations with Hasgrove (parent company of the Chase, Amaze et al) about selling the business. Then they produced figures showing that Love was making £15k profit a month and valued the business at some £2 million. In the end, the deal foundered when Palmer unilaterally stopped attending meetings with Hasgrove and announced, without putting it to a vote with the other shareholders, that the deal was off.

Love for Sale
The negotiations between Love and Hasgrove were proceeding even as Sim finalized his own deal to join The Chase as business development director, a move that was announced at the end of May 2009. Had the Hasgrove/Love deal gone through, it would have seen Sim reunited with the team he had largely built up and, perhaps, resulted in a financial and creative renaissance for Love. Sadly, it was not to be.

On the brink of a financial crisis, Sim had little alternative but to rescind his resignation and take his former company to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal. It is here that the waters become very muddied indeed. As part of the proceedings, Sim maintained that he had long understood – ever since the November 2008 meeting – that the directors had assured his eventual return to the business. Although many ex and current members of staff at Love also recall just such assurances about Sim’s future being made to them, the directors felt free to tell the court that this was not the case. I’m sure there’s a legal term for this.

Neither did the tribunal take into account the fact that Chris Conlan, Love’s new MD, had emailed Sim, prior to his own elevation, and told him: “All our clients and staff are supporting you and are sure you will bounce back from this.”

Chorlton (right, sans foil), Skegg and Palmer even went as far as to bring back short-lived joint MD Richard Hall (sacked several months earlier for trying to install an entirely inappropriate “Hitlerite” regime at Love’s High St offices) to ‘stick the boot’ into Sim.

Bizarrely, the legal discussion moved from whether Sim actually had brought Love into disrepute to whether he could have done by staying. It could well be argued that a truer picture would have been that, in fact, it was Sim’s departure that ultimately led to a number of staff decamping, creative standards falling and clients moving their business elsewhere.

The company offered little evidence that any client made representations about potentially moving their business in the light of Sim’s actions, but still ruled they might have done had he stayed. The one area focussed on by the tribunal was the negative publicity generated by the press coverage of Sim’s trial and sentencing.

It is impossible not to wonder if the tribunal would have been quite so sympathetic to Love had they known the role of at least two of the directors in orchestrating that negative press coverage. As well as flagging up the original court case, both the MEN and, resulting in a rare trip South of the Border, even the Drum were briefed to attend the two tribunals. How-do, which had been far more impartial in its coverage, received no such briefing.

Despite reports from normally reliable media sources and The Drum, Love did not get it all it own way, with the tribunal ruling that the company should indeed have honoured Sim’s notice payments, amounting to some 50k. To date, they have still singularly failed to meet this obligation, even six months on from the tribunal.

The End of the Affair...
Unfortunately for Sim, his months of unemployment and continuing financial commitments to his family, left him without the funds to take the matter further and challenge the valuation presented by his former colleagues Nor could he afford to take issue with the unilateral share transfer.

Following the tribunal, the information provided by Love’s financial director ensured that the company was deemed insolvent by its auditors. In order to maintain this fiction, the deferred amounts in the end-of-year accounts were continually pushed back, first to September then finally into October. Technically, during this period, the company should have gone into administration. The pressures of maintaining this distorted picture of the business and of rewriting history around the promises made to Sim prior to his resignation proved too much for some members of staff.

In the end, after eight years building the business and several months in the wilderness, Sim received nothing at from Love, whilst people who had contributed far less gave themselves pay rises and continued to kick him when he was very much down. Ultimately, it was not Sim who brought Love into disrepute.

This article is obviously one-sided, something for which I make no apology. The coverage to date – with the honourable exception of how-do, which has demonstrated a fair degree of impartiality – has been equally one-sided, albeit skewed entirely in favour of Love. This was epitomised by the ever-gutless Drum, who have seemed almost entirely in the pocket of Love – going as far at one point as to run an on-line poll asking: “Should Alastair Sim ever be allowed to work in the industry again?” They then compounded the offence by sending Alistair a whiny e-mail complaining that he had given How-do an exclusive interview but had declined to speak to them. Now why do you think that was you cottage industry clowns?

Some 18 months on from the assault that Sim himself has called his “Bonfire of the Vanities” moment, we are left with two damaged brands. Sim’s own brand, once highly-regarded in the North West and beyond, has suffered as a result of one moment of madness. The Love brand, itself, has been undermined by 18 months of mendacity, duplicity, greed, schadenfreude, incompetence, egotism and short-sightedness.

I know which one is most likely to recover.

Libels and Reflections...

Welcome back regular readers, friends, acquaintances, victims and legal representatives with a G1 postcode. Although initially considering last week’s offering as a one-off purgative affair – think proud toddler brandishing a potty – such was the response, I thought I’d do it again. Regardless.

Joey Deaconland
One of the first things I noticed after spending a few weeks in Hong Kong is the sheer number of spazzers, wheelchair jockeys and menks that jostle for space on the island’s packed pavements – we don’t have sidewalks here, thank fuck.
At first, I thought this phenomenon was possibly caused by the toxic fumes wafting in across the bay from Guangdong, the province responsible for 98.3% of the world’s crap Christmas presents. Either that, I speculated, or it was a result of the lingering legacy of British cuisine, with the populace still scoffing pies, chips and Jaffa Cakes 13 years after, fixed grins in place, they were handed back to the TLC of the PRC.
Alas, I think the answer lies elsewhere and not in the superfluity of Hong Kong’s differently-abled. I think it’s more to do with me. Having spent the last five years living on the Chinese mainland, where the Single Child Policy is still very much in force, my perception of the normal ratio of society has been somewhat skewed. In China, where your child is considered cerebrally challenged if it’s not great at quadratics and is still only a Grade III piano player at the age of seven, what chance for those with cerebral palsy? Or a hump?
At my charitable best, I hope these choices are made in utero, but I fear the reality is far worse. If Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are kept flid-free by pre-natal testing, I can’t help but wonder what happens in the clinic-free rural areas where the majority of the population still lives.
Unless, of course, all offspring judged sub-standard are put on a bus to Hong Kong. I kind of hope so.

Fox con?
To balance the books and in the interest of future visa renewability, I better say some nice things about the PRC, but don’t worry there’ll be some jokes about the Carnyx group and a Cunt of the Week coming along soon.
Much has been made of late about the 12 suicides at Foxconn this year, one of the major suppliers of Apple components. In a week when Apple overtook Microsoft as the world’s largest technology company, I can’t help but wonder if there hasn’t been a little “dark-ops” from Bill Gates and co involved in stirring the pot.
Now, I’m not suggesting the men from Microsoft are emerging from the shadows in the Foxconn plant in Longhua in Southern China and whispering: “Don’t you miss your mother?” or “Your girlfriend’s been taking it up the bum from migrant workers whilst you’ve been making iPad Micro-SIM card trays…”, but let’s put this into a little perspective.
We’re not talking about Gregg’s on Quay St here. We’re talking about a company that employs 450,000 people – making them about the same size as Sheffield. The average suicide rate per year in Sheffield is 38 (http://www.sheffield.nhs.uk/consultations/resources/mentalhealthstrategy2008v2.pdf). So, if you live in Sheffield you are three times more likely to die by your own hand than if you work for Foxconn. And you have to live in Sheffield – even if not for long.
Incidentally, modes of suicide in the PRC are quite different from those in the UK. Whereas as in the UK taking a Mach III to a convenient artery or going a Paracetomol too far seem the exit routes of choice, in China they largely opt for jumping off stuff. That’s all very well in Tier One cities where there are plenty of potentially lethal lofty edifices to launch yourself off, but I do worry about those in the more rural areas. Here rickety, one-storey structures are more de rigueur. You’d have to throw yourself off them five or six times before you could even be sure of breaking so much as an ankle. For the few tall buildings around, there’s probably a queue.

Tales from the (water) closet
I had several happy months whilst working for the Carnyx group, the cottage industry behind The Drum and the ailing Roses Awards. Unfortunately I was actually employed there for two and a half years. Many memories of particularly arrant stupidity, naiveté or vituperativeness on the parts of the management there stay with me even ten years on. I’d like to share one of my favourites.
A few weeks after Larry, Jim and I foolishly jumped ship from Adline and took the Carnyx muckle, it was announced that Diane Young was taking over as managing director of the company. Suffice to say the surrounding streets did not suffer a dancing room shortage. Had it been announced earlier, I doubt we would have ever left Adline, well not for the Carnyx Group.
We feared the worst and, to be fair to Di, for once she didn’t disappoint. She bought all her previous experience as a junior NHS administrator to bear on her new role.
During one visit to the Glasgow HQ, I noticed one of the innovative changes she had introduced. Whereas at one time the staff WCs had been regularly supplied with toilet roll, Di decreed that from now on all stocks must be kept in her office. We naturally assumed leaky bottom problems.
Whilst I was there, one junior member of the editorial team noticed the roll in the gent’s had been exhausted. Buttocks clenched, he gingerly approached Di’s office and asked for a replacement. “What have you done with the old one?” she demanded with her characteristic lack of humour or irony.
I think it is fair to say that without Di’s stewardship, the company wouldn’t be where it is today.
As we’re on the subject of the Carnyx Group - Drum re-tweeters do us all a favour miss out the middle man and just say: “Hurrah, some undiscerning twat printed my press release at last!”

Cunt of the Week
I’d like to thank the people who emailed or tweeted me about cunts I neglected to mention in the first instalment of this blog. Indeed so much material came flooding in and so many memories were stirred, that I’ve decided to make this a regular feature.
This week I’d like to celebrate the pure vulvanity of Lee Newton,
managing director of ETP, one-time owners of Adline.
Lee and his then business partner, Terry Moutter, became part of the Wilmington family when the group bailed out the financially-incompetent ETP. I remember one Wilmington director gleefully recalling teasing Terry and Lee by asking what all the bracketed figures on their balance sheets meant.
I first met the two at the Wilmington Christmas Party in 1993. The two came dressed as SS Officers. This went down a storm with the group’s chief executive, the decidedly Jewish Brian Gilbert. How he laughed.
Through various machinations, Terry left and Adline became accountable to Essex-boy Lee. In the summer of 1999, Lee introduced his master stroke – a recruitment magazine aimed at travelling salesman and distributed through garages. Unfortunately, despite spending a fortune on radio and outdoor advertising and on printing hundreds and thousands of copies, it foundered – largely because they forgot to sign distribution contracts with any garages. Doh!
With the brackets returning to the balance sheets, the squeeze was on – particularly at Adline. We were doing quite well at the time and in expansive mode – Cream Awards, Synergy etc – but now we were bailing this fuckwit out.
It was soon after this, that all the senior people at Adline – except Debbie Brown – quit to set up the Carnyx-backed Marketeer. This was a major humiliation for Lee –brackets back on his balance sheet and now the only Wilmington MD ever to see a whole senior team decamp as a protest against his ineptitude.
I think it’s fair to say he went mental - demanding the return of databases we didn’t have or want and seeking injunctions against actions that had never been planned, until he get reined in by Nick Miller, the far more grown-up Wilmington overall MD.
Inevitably, that was not to be the end of it. Months later we met at some event in Manchester, maybe the Roses. Tensions had been simmering all evening and didn’t get better as the evening went on. I was knocking back the Chardonnay, Lee was on the Rosé (which was another reason I thought he was a cunt).
Predictably, at the end of the evening, we were on something of a collision course and eventually launched into a dialogue of positively Wildean proportions in the bar of the Palace Hotel.
Me: I bet they all think you’re a cunt at Wilmington because we all left.

Lee: No, they think I’m great. They think you’re a cunt.

Me: Nah, they think you’re a cunt.

Lee: You’re the cunt.

Me: Nah, senior team all leaving. They definitely think you’re a cunt.

The badinage continued in a similarly urbane style for several minutes. Until…

Lee: You’re the cunt and I’ve got to go to bed now as I have to drive to Dartford early in the morning for a group board meeting. That’s how important I am.

Big mistake.
It’s now about 2am. I reckon he has to leave 8am at latest to drive to Dartford for midday. I leave it till about 4.30 am and then call the Palace reception from my mobile.

Me: Hi. Can you put me through to Lee Newton’s room?

Palace Reception: Certainly sir. Putting you through.

Lee: (sleepily) Hello?

Me: They do think you’re a cunt (click)

Get back to sleep after that, you cunt, I thought. In my defence, he had tried to sue me four months previously
About a year later, Lee was bizarrely - and briefly - made overall Wilmington MD and managed to take the company’s share price to its lowest ever level. He never could get the hang of those brackets.

Four (fuck’s sake)square
MSN I took to enthusiastically, Facebook I love, Twitter I gradually became convinced by, but Foursquare…surely the most pointless offering ever from Silly-cunt Valley?
Win badges by telling you’re mates where you are? Unlock your ‘Adventurer’ title by increasing the frequency of your log-ins? It’s like the scouts, but even shitterer. Any hackers out there please hack this system and make GPS log-ins automatic instead of discretionary. How I’d laugh when some poor twat unwittingly informs all his mates that he is now “The Mayor of Big Maurice’s Gentlemen Only Prostate Massage Centre”…

All the things I've done

Nick Creed

All the charisma of a sea of stagnant piss.

Diane Young

The reason DNA testing was invented.

Peter Booth and Martin Howley

Made my life miserable at secondary school, but was sort of buffered by the fore-knowledge that the rest of their lives would involve them dispensing fries and assiduously seeking out sachets of tartar sauce. Which it did.

Gordon Young

Actually lovable muppet, spends his entire life in fear of his missus. Possibly asexual (him not her – which may explain a lot).

Billy Anderson

A cunt’s cunt. Tricked his way into my home in Manc. Waited till I went out then rifled through all my possessions. Truth came out when he commented on my liking for Hawaiian shirts – buried at the back of a wardrobe. Later claimed I offered him coke. Truth is Billy, if I’d had coke I’d have snorted before you arrived, I would never have offered it you because I thought you were a grade “A” cunt. You sold nowt during your brief time at the Drum, as a former bankrupt. I dare say you have sold fuck all ever since whilst you’ve been at GMG. Look up cunt on wikipedia and you get gps direction to Billy’s house. Possibly the person I dislike the most. A cunt.

Shafat Ali

Battling with depression and big financial problems, I limped into Asian Sound Radio in 2002 and then got systematically ripped off. I met some lovely people there – Shujat and Younis (possibly one of the nicest guys I know). If Shafat comes across your personal horizon, write off any money you expect to make and prepare for defaults. A crook

Niall Boyle

When I firs came to China, I ended up sharing an apartment with Niall. He was twice the size of me and took to bullying and intimidating me. What he never knew was that me and Mary, my partner, at the time, used to regularly stick his tootbrush and that of his, underage, partners up each other’s arses. Hope you are reading this Niall.You take care now.

Mike McCormack

McCormack so much wanted to be Ray Sale, when Ray died he failed the audition.Big style.

Ted Walmsley

Dull cunt, staying awake in the self-regarding presence of this Daily Telegraph rep was above and beyond work requirements. Don’t know what he’s doing now. Suspect not much.

Adam Godley

Possibly clinically insane. A teacher at Aihua who claimed to be able to tell the future. Hr couldn’t. He got sacked.unexpectedly. Recently voted by DC, Fin and me as Aihua’s worst ever teacher. Including the paedophile. Bet he didn’t see that coming.

Niall Kennedy

Degree from Balliol, made pregnant women cry and smelt like a rogered skunk. Epic cunt.

Lloyd Anderson

Teacher at Aihua. Snogged Chinese girls when they were passed out. Candidate for involuntary euthanasia.

Dr C

Mad bad, Dr C, deeply-flawed but deeply loved by equally deeply flawed me. I’d trust him totally with regard to anything and hope he feels the same way about me.

Finlay Beaton

An amazing person, he exudes a degree of good will and trust around himself to an extent I doubt he really knows. We don’t always see eye-to-eye, but he’s one of the few people who makes it feel like that’s my fault. Which I kind of like. Diamond geezer.

John Mckeown

An old friend. Would love to see him. Smart beyond his years and has the inner tranquillity I spend my life craving.

Claire Haigh/Shaw

An old friend from school. Me and the missus met her a Xmas and the years fell away. Very fond of her and glad we are back in touch.

Nick Jaspan

Nick bought me back into journalism. One of the smartest and most genuine guys I know. Whatever he does with how-do, I owe him and I hope we will always be mates.

Paul Caroll

Not everyone’s favourite but one of mine,. PR consultancies across the region can breathe easily with Paul in semi-retirement, but should he change his mind you’ve had it. Maybe worth subbing his Saga holidays cruises and annual stipend to the bowling green.

Graeme Wood

Few people, save from Terry Savage, inspire a desire in me to spontaneously hug, but Graeme does. Graeme is smart, genuine and great company. Four minutes to the end of the world? I’d have a beer with Graeme – and not just because he’d insist on paying.

Mel Harding

One of the funniest and kindest people I know. Took pity on me when I was deeply in the shit. Never forgotten.

Mike Barrington

A friend and mentor who has watched me fuck up more time than I know and still bought me pizza. One day I’d like to be that smart. And have a house in NZ/

Debbie Brown

Of all the people I never had sex with, Debbie Brown is the one I love the most. She was a phenomenon. The biggest mistake I made was stopping working with her. The biggest mistake we both made was not trying to buy the business off Wilmington who are, were and always will be a directionless bunch of chancers.

Rob Rea

An old uni mate and somebody else I should tell how much I appreciate him. He helped me out in the bad times and was never judgemental. You know what., Rob, I owe you a dinner and a half.

Ken Tod

Ten times nicer than me and almost as bright. I have his dalek

Duncan Slater

Smart as fuck. One day he and I will write the new “Dad’s Army, Maybe

Nigel Hughes

Again someone I have long valued, but maybe never told.

Pete Johnson

The sight pf Pete at the HD awards was enough to make the trip worthwhile,