Thursday 28 April 2011

It was a funny old day.

It was the day before the Royal Wedding and so London was a bit upside down. It was packed with people in town for the wedding tomorrow, but there weren't many of the usual working people around, most of whom had had the good sense to take a few days off, as there had also been a bank holiday on the preceding Easter Monday.

Outside Buckingham Palace, 28 April 2011

Foolishly, unlike more sensible people, we decided to have a finance meeting on that Thursday morning as we had done so many projects for a client recently that we had lost track of what we had and hadn't invoiced.

Our work done, but only marginally clearer about our invoicing conundrum, we bumped into a creative agency we know, who invited us to lunch. To our surprise and pleasure they took us to Les Deux Salons, which is currently one of the best restaurants in London. We expected Pizza Express.

Les Deux Salons

Returning to the office, some post had arrived. One of them was an A4 envelope addressed to Simon. It looked every bit like a supplier new business letter. And so it was, but not quite the sort of supplier we are used to dealing with.

The innocent looking envelope

Here is the letter to which their new business document was attached.

'...handsome semi nude male butlers and hosts'??!!

How on earth did we receive this we wondered? Something to do with James? Or maybe because the recruiters who use their homes for groups are known as 'hosts'?

That was the best we could come up with.

But on further reading things became more extraordinary.

Here is a photo from the brochure: (We suggest you don't give it too much thought.)

And here is another extract from the brochure:

We clearly have a very different understanding of the words 'class and sophistication.'

And here is how they describe the occasions on which they feel they might be an appropriate supplier:

We thought civil ceremonies were weddings, but it seemed we must be wrong. So we looked 'civil ceremonies' up on the internet. We were right after all.

Imagine the sort of wedding at which that product offering would suit? Or the product launch? Or the corporate event?

Anyway, we're grateful to them for bringing some amusement to our Thursday.

And unfortunately, we can't deny that what they were doing was Marketing.

We wish them every success in their new venture, but to that end, they might want to improve their targeting.