The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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Brandopus AdVENT

adVENT - agency Christmas cards, last minute briefs and excessive client lunches

By Nir Wegrzyn, CEO

December 16, 2013 | 4 min read

It's Christmas, in case you hadn't noticed, and while cheer, joy and goodwill to all men is being spread far and wide, everyone has a little grumble at this time of year as well. The Drum has invited some of those heading up some of the UK's finest media and marketing communications companies to share their pet hates that annoy them in their jobs at this time of year, albeit with tongue firmly in cheek.

The first to vent their spleen is Nir Wegrzyn, CEO and founding partner of design agency, BrandOpus.

We love Christmas because we get to do things we don’t normally. We get to drink loads more than on any other given school night. We have leisurely mornings to recover as we expect both business and clients to wind down for the festive break. We indulge in shopping to the max, and wear comedy jumpers to work under the guise of charity – a concept that would be ridiculed at another other time of the year.

Oh yes, we love celebrating Christmas in the studio, right up until the moment where yet another brief (and another one) lands on our desks for that ‘final little thing’ the client, and by that I mean every client, want seeing to just before the year ends. Thereby tripling the regular workload, just when everyone is high on yuletide joy.

But we have to generate festiveness somehow, because of course the work we do on the run up to the 25th December is for summer next year. All the Christmassy briefs that land on our desks have a March deadline. Not so easy to get excited about Santa and snowmen on the run up to Easter in my experience.

Another challenge of winter is the excess of client Christmas lunches we have to endure between November and January. What should be a fine dining experience to savour invariably becomes one in long and winding toboggan run of meals, and a fight against my lower intestine to prevent the early onset of gout.

By far the worst part of the festive deluge are agency Christmas cards. Someone (possibly me) had a clever idea that we shouldn't be part of the modern tribe that send e-cards. No, we will continue to innovate on the theme of the forgotten art of actual, physical Christmas greetings.

Every year in September my head of marketing asks with bated breath and fingers crossed whether she can print our staff names into our company Christmas cards. I stubbornly refuse, and re-emphasise the agency’s dedication to the highest levels of personal service and attention to detail for each and every client.

Of course we’re capable of writing an individual and unique festive greeting to every single one of the 700 people on the ever-growing list. And of making sure each account team member has done the same. And yes we can do this within the small window of time between said Christmas cards return from the production house and the deadline when Royal Mail put their foot down and refuse to relay our festive greeting to the addressee.

Odd things pens, I forgot, you get blisters on the middle finger, and ink spots on index finger, and I am not sure what the thumb is for…

Oh yes, we love Christmas.

Happy holidays everyone, enjoy your break!

Brandopus AdVENT

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