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But when I heard his tale of woe, I already mastered my craft, and so when I
understood. Believe the poor fellow actually got inane comments from the Chairman’s
hardly had any role. Most decisions that he wife I used to come back crestfallen. Finally,
would have liked to have taken on the brand I could take it no longer and had to resign.
were being taken by the Chairman’s wife. The enormous sunglasses perched on her
Of course, in conjunction with the family forehead or another unmentionable part
astrologer and the family numerologist. of the anatomy, the hat that seems more
As some of you perhaps know already, appropriate for Ascot if at all, the colored
branding, design, marketing & advertising hair all seemed sacrilege in the boardroom
are left to the Chairman’s wife because and got to me in the end. To make matters
they are subjective areas that are difficult worse the agency head was one of those who
to question and debate. Also her newly had perhaps missed her classes on a crucial
acquired public grace, seemingly coupled part of the human anatomy called the spine
with a ‘sense of fashion’ and ‘philanthropy’ in her biology class.
gives her the enormous understanding to And lastly my illustrious uncle who like
supervise all these disciplines. the good sailor that he was, told me how
he fired one of the blue-chip accounts in
his agency because of the Chairman’s wife.
The Managing Director of the company is
supposed to have called him at one of the
two leading 5-star hotels in the city those
days, to weaken him with a few Bloody
Marys before popping the question, “Why
do you want to resign such a good blue-chip
account?” Stubborn, crusty old sailor that
he was, he is supposed to told the company
MD, “You really are a wonderful account to
The numbers game have but unfortunately I can’t deal with the
I know a creative director friend of mine Chairman’s wife.” (I have suitably modified
who works in an ad agency. Give him any the sentence to make it polite and sterile. He
brand name and he can give you the magic used a sailor’s colourful language replete
number that the brand’s alphabets add up to. with all its expletives and accompanying
I asked him once how he had got so quick at metaphors!)
calculating the ‘key’ numerological number
for brand names. He says that he actually
studied a bit of numerology so that he could
make recommendations that would be
bought by the promoter companies he was
handling.
Many years ago, when I was a young
account executive I had the misfortune of
having to show most of our creative work
to a Chairman’s wife. Young as I was, I had
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #11 | MAY 2020 53
