‘Say again?’
‘Can-you-get-Natalya?’
‘Natalya? Erm… I’m not sure. She’s with clients so…’
‘No, no, it’s fine. I don’t have much time, so I need you to write all this down. Then get Andy and Scott to help you. Heidi and I are in the Excalibur pitch, and the other agency have presented a similar idea to ours.’
‘OK…’
‘I need you to go into the presentation and rework the creative slides.’
‘The slides? Right.’
‘As fast as you can. The headline needs to be changed to say “Gen Z Cruising” with an image of young people having fun on boats and the Excalibur logo and website at the bottom. Can you do me a few different options then email me the updated deck? We’re on in forty minutes.’
‘Forty minutes?’
‘YES, James. We are here right now,’ I hissed through gritted teeth. The receptionist glanced over, and I needed to go back in before my absence became suspicious. ‘Is that OK? Can you do it?’
‘Sure.’
‘And you’ll email it to me?’
‘Yep. Did you say it was Kat?’
Jesus Christ. ‘Yes. Kat Brennan. One of the business directors of the agency.’
‘Right you are. I’ll take a look at it now for you.’
I didn’t hold out much hope. How the hell were we going to pull this off? I went back into the boardroom and silently took my seat. Mindy gave me a sympathetic smile across the table. Heidi had probably told them I had cystitis, or an STD. The room was now covered in boards and far too many photos of me for my liking.
‘I don’t remember signing a model release form for all these ads,’ I joked, seeing myself on top of a volcano, swimming in the sea, drinking cocktails with Heidi and Brooke, and on the tram in Lisbon with Leo.
‘They’re just positionals,’ Zach said, dismissively. ‘Obviously, we’ll use proper models for the campaign, if we’re appointed.’
‘Unless you’re interested?’ Leo said, twinkly eyed.
‘Let’s see who’s appointed first, shall we?’ I said, sweetly.
I scribbled on my notepad and Heidi frowned.
James is on it.
James who?
Freelancer. Others were in a meeting.
‘…and we’d suggest getting your message out there on hot air balloons. You can run a competition on social with different words on different balloons and have people work out the message.’
I was already thinking through the slides we’d need to delete from our presentation – at least half of them. Heidi could do the set-up and talk through the business side of things at the front, while I untangled the back. I tapped a message out to Natalya, under the table.
Me: Hey – urgent – I’ve briefed James. Need the Excalibur creative updating ASAP.
Natalya: Already on it.
I flashed the phone at Heidi, and she nodded in relief. It was the best we could do under the circumstances. Those cheating bastards.
‘I like it,’ Greg boomed, when Leo eventually finished talking. ‘But if we can be anything to anyone – how do wefocus in enough to sell one vision? Sounds expensive to have hundreds of different scenarios.’
