Monday, November 30, 2009

It can't all be gold

Dear Commonwealth Bank,

I really appreciated the fact that when you visited that big American ad agency with those two or three dickheads with the pencil moustaches, you kept true to the Australian spirit and poo-pooed their zany ideas about customer service. You seemed like just the kind of bank that would be smart enough to implement a few simple customer service ideas.
However, I am a little troubled that you continue to use the same ad agency dickheads who continue to give the same type of clown-shit crazy suggestions which you never use. It's been at least two or three years now and you don't seem to be getting the picture. I don't believe you're that smart after all. In your latest commercial, you show one of your rep's seven-year-old son coming up with the ideas.
Here's an idea: going to that same ad agency all these year makes you look foolish.

Yours,
A credit union customer

4 comments:

  1. And here's another idea - just *why* is the seven year old kid sitting in a US boardroom?
    GROSS mis-use of company funds, travel privileges and denying the child an education! (yep, I'm still annoyed that Love Chunks didn't write that Ministerial asking to take me with him to France)

    ReplyDelete
  2. B-B-B-B-BASKETBALL

    the bit i hate most is, they don't really achieve all those things in the ads that they say they want

    "the customer's needs come first"

    bullshit. Making shit loads of money comes first

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kath - Yeah, you'd think they'd spring for some babysitting.

    Kiki - And they're even failing at making shitloads of bucks. That fancy American ad agency can't be cheap ...

    ReplyDelete

An explanation of The Joy Division Litmus Test

Although it may now be lost in the mysts of thyme, the poll below is still relevant to this blog. In the winter of 2008, Mele and I went to live in Queensland. In order to survive, I bluffed my way into a job at a Coffee Club.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.

Have you heard of the band Joy Division?

Chinese food, not Chinese Internet!

Champions of Guess The Header

  • What is Guess The Header about? Let’s ask regular “Writing” reader, Shippy: "Anyway, after Franzy's stunning September, and having a crack at 'Guess The Header' for the first time - without truly knowing what I was doing mind you - I think I finally understand what 'GTH' is all about. At first I thought you needed to actually know what it was. Don't get me wrong — if you know what it is, it may help you. I now realise that it's more Franzy's way of invoking thought around an image or, more often than not, part of an image. If you dissect slightly the GTH explanatory sentence at the bottom of his blog you come up with this: “The photo is always taken by me and always connects in some way to the topic of the blog entry it heads up.” When the header is put up, the blog below it will in some obscure way have something to do with it. “Interesting comments are judged and scored arbitrarily and the process is open to corruption and bribery with all correspondence being entered into after the fact and on into eternity, ad infinitum amen.” Franzy judges it, but it's not always the GTH that describes the place perfectly that gets it. “The frequent commenters, the wits, the wags and the outright smartarses who, each entry, engage to both guess the origin and relevance of the strip of photo at the top (or “head”) of each new blog and also who leave what I deem the most interesting comment.” It generally helps if you're a complete smartarse and can twist things to mean whatever you feel they should mean - exactly the way Franzy would like things to be twisted." - Shippy Blogger and GTH point scorer.
  • Nai - 1
  • Lion Kinsman - 2
  • Will - 2
  • Brocky - 2
  • Andy Pants - 2
  • The 327th Male - 3
  • Mad Cat Lady - 3
  • Miles McClagen - 4
  • Myninjacockle - 4
  • Asheligh - 5
  • Neil - 5
  • Third Cat - 5
  • Adam Y - 6
  • Squib - 6
  • Mele - 6
  • Moifey - 7
  • Jono - 8
  • The Other, other Sam - 14
  • Kath Lockett - 15
  • Shippy - 19
  • River - 32