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Friday 30 September 2011

The funniest direct marketing speech ever - and James Hammond

I cannot say the words direct marketing often reduce me to paroxysms of mirth.

However, a speech I saw a few years ago did.

It was at a direct marketing awards event which I attended because someone else was paying.

To be honest the idea of giving awards for direct marketing always seemed to me a bit ludicrous - rather like giving prizes for sewage disposal. It's just a job, and somebody has to do it.

But I was glad I went to this event, because the speaker expressed my views, but in wonderfully witty fashion.

He stood up and said, more or less "We all, no matter how humble, have ambitions in life ... things we aspire to ... things we dream may happen to us one day if we are very lucky... And my dream has always been to present the annual DMA awards for direct marketing."

After that he really took the piss.

Stephen Fry was, of course, the man who made me laugh - and usually does whenever I see him. Anyhow, on Sunday night on BBC2 at 90 p .m. Mr. Fry is talking (of all things) about call centres -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015qqkl.

And for a fleeting instant my colleague James Hammond, he who wrote Branding Your Business - one of the very few sensible books about the subject - will be putting in his two cents' worth, I think on the subject of accents. He's the one on the left in the picture, and you can meet him if you come to EADIM.

I have mentioned that you ought to be there, haven't I? If you are still playing with the idea, just email me, Drayton@Draytonbird.com and I will lay before your wondering eyes an assortment of suggestions.

Which reminds me, a man from India rang me up yesterday to tell me there was something wrong with my computer, which there isn't.

I'm afraid I wasn't very polite, though I do feel sorry for these poor people who are usually underpaid, given impossible targets and badly briefed with lousy scripts - besides being barely comprehensible.





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