Qu'importe.....?

Germans are not the only naive nation working in the meshagus we call the media business. The frogs can be a funny bunch too.

Working on a Danone pitch years ago I wanted to compare how much TV the yoghurt company bought in different markets around the world. A charming French lady at Paris HQ was helping me collect the data. The results were surprising. They bought more ratings in developed markets than emerging countries. I had expected the opposite as TV is cheaper in poorer countries and Danone were top spenders in Poland & Russia.

Then I realised that we were not comparing cows with cows. In France they would include the biscuit business (since sold to Kraft) & l'eau, Evian. I called Miss Paris the international co-ordinator & she re-worked the numbers. But they were still too high for France.

I went for a long lazy lunch with a bottle of wine to understand the French way of thinking. I had my Eureka moment by the time the fromage arrive'd. The Frogs were probably using lots of 10 second commercials whereas in rising Russia we were buying 30"s. In Poland we even made a 60" to promote Kefir. I called Mademoiselle Grenouille again & asked her to re-calculate the numbers as 30 second equivalent.

"Does it matter?" she replied.