Monthly Archives: April 2010

There was a time around October when the X-Factor result and Cheryl Cole’s dress were the hot topics of conversation. By 9am on a Monday morning, discussions would always be in full flow only to be rudely interrupted by the weekly team meetings. Pro-Danii and pro-Cheryl camps seemed to be formed just as quickly as Jedward haters became increasingly outnumbered by Jedward lovers as the quiffed duo’s comic routines gained popularity. The office floor and the characters it holds will always create a breeding ground for discussions and debates. Some themes remain constant and Eastenders gossip is always high on the agenda. In a female dominated office, football has tended to take a bit of a back seat until a serious scandal emerges but JT’s antics certainly breathed new life into the team’s interest in the Premiership and the Champions League. Indeed, the Terry/Bridge ‘handshake’ created such a stir that even ‘Enders had to take a back seat on the following Monday morning. Obviously, this was shrunk into insignificance when it emerged that Chace Crawford from Gossip Girl was in the neighbouring Radio 1 building one morning.

The Metro, The Evening Standard and Stylist/Shortlist/Sport also play a role in stimulating debate but mostly as a result of noteworthy calamities or bumper reader promotions. The recurring theme throughout this blog so far is that it is not always the most serious issues that get discussed in LF towers! I imagine most offices are similar to this as discussing the key political issues of the week doesn’t seem that appealing as we make a cup of tea, eat lunch or prepare to reply to a weekend’s worth of backlogged emails. Despite that, the recent Leader’s debates on TV have acted as catalysts in making us discuss some of wider society’s more pressing issues. It has been refreshing to have arguments over tax and immigration rather than what radio station should be played on a Friday. The Telegraph’s ‘vote match’ feature, available by clicking here, has even prompted a bit of soul-searching as members of the team got paired up with the political party that they least suspected, or hoped (!), to be matched to. My thinking is that the political debate has no more than two weeks left to run before attention is turned to the World Cup but my fear is that more words will be wasted on the WAGs then the burning issues that should be associated the beautiful game. By the time the election and the World Cup have finished, it will be time to welcome back Cheryl….

During a French GCSE lesson, my classmate claimed to be fluent in French only for his boast to be promptly put down when our teacher said you are only fully fluent in a language when you thoughts are translated into this language. Having worked in media recruitment, I think the same ethos can be applied to the media world. Although the principle of being fluent in ‘media’ may sound fairly alien, it cannot be doubted that the media industry’s strength lies within it’s all consuming qualities. New freesheets and magazines get judged immediately on their thickness and the amount of advertising they carry. Bus journeys take on extra significance (especially when on the top deck) as you get put on the frontline of the outdoor media war, suddenly the most irrelevant road takes on new impetus as an outdoor poster battleground. We can even be excused for wishing the Northern Line would incur an extra couple minutes delay as we watch another Nike advert being played onto the adjacent walls. As if that wasn’t consuming enough, the increasing emergence of more innovative OOH advertising even leaves us pondering our own creative ideas as we pull our lunch out of another branded paper sleeve or jump into a taxi emblazoned with the British Airways logos. Watching an ad break on TV can become mentally challenging as we scour our brains to remember which agency works that campaign and, more frustratingly, who they were up against in winning that business. I would hazard a guess at the Media AM and Media PM Bulletins from MediaWeek being the most hastily opened emails of the day across W1 as offices strive to read of the latest developments at the BBC and find out if they contributed to last night’s most watched programme on TV. Candidates calling in to our offices often worry about confidentiality given the supposed incestuous nature of the media industry. Turning this on its head though, a further strength of the media industry is its ability to cross the work/play divide and I’m sure that the social element of it gives a lot of our candidates an extra incentive to stay in media! The intervention of Facebook/Twitter/linkedin has further broken down those boundaries as our status updates, news feeds and tweets become ever-more media focused. Blackberrys and Iphones have also contributed to work intruding on play and play intruding on work but, for the most part, that hasn’t been seen as too much of a bad thing. So, next time you are stuck in the rain at a bus stop or having your favorite radio show continually interrupted by commercial soundbites, don’t complain! Take notice of the surrounding adverts, consider that somebody you know probably sold that space and thank them for helping shape the ever changing media landscape that we all know and love!