Something in the Water...

Years ago I realised that to save time and money it was easier to meet clients en masse. But it did have one potential problem... they might talk to each other.

Once we had to cancel some posters for a big beer client & we gave them to a tobacco client instead. When they met Mr.Piwo said to Mr.Fag, "Oh, you're the man who took my posters."

Another time I arranged dinner with the Economist with the General Mangers of several major companies. Unfortunately this was the same time that Georgiy Gongadze was killed. My Economist friend was flying to Kyiv instead of coming to dinner. I was left with several GMs and no journalist. To make it worse one of the GMs had been sent to Russia because he got a colleague's wife pregnant. Another GM knew this and asked him, "did you bring any family with you?"

Later when I was working in Kyiv I invited the GM's of Danone & Nestle for dinner. They were both French speakers so I thought that everything would go swimmingly. It did until the waitress offered us water. Vittel (Nestle) or Evian (Danone) were the options.

I chose Evian. Nestle had fired us in an international pitch.