The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Mind you, given the WPP/Y&R office in question [allegedly] employed a member of the evil Dictator’s family, I guess money comes before humanity.

This is beyond doing work for organisations like cigarette companies … this is helping a man who the World has highlighted as a tyrant and vicious dictator … so as WPP go about retrenching literally thousands of employees all around the World – under the guise of maintaining profitability in these tough economic times – [even though they are keeping the top brass … who are the top money earners … who are, in the main, the smallest link with the clients … in their privileged, pampered lives] I hope WPP’s shareholders can look themselves in the mirror given their constant demands for ever increasing returns, play a very significant part in the decline of adlands already screwed up moral compass.

As much as I am advocate of looking after your people, I don’t believe a company should go bankrupt for it – however when an organisation is making massive profits whilst still paying excessively high salaries to many, many senior people [whilst in many cases, underpaying the average worker in relation to the hours they do] – then I think any excuse linked to ‘economic hardship’ is pretty lame.

I worked for WPP twice in my life – and I was treated well and generally had a decent time – however I was continually shocked at how many senior people [but certainly not all] I met who were obviously on the ‘gravy train’.

Of course this is not limited to WPP … hell, it’s not just an adland issue … but it’s still wrong and whilst the moral view of many of these actions is subjective, I think doing ads for an evil political dictator would be pretty universally condemned.

I love this industry … I love what it can do … I love the energy and passion and excitement of many of the people in it – but sadly we’ve become another ‘business’, one whose preoccupation is with profit rather than profiting from the development [and execution] of good, powerful, infectious and profitable ideas.

If you’re in Asia and for some reason, find you have obese levels of stock [or have a client with the same problem] let me know as I have a friend [a real one, it’s not some euphemism for a dodgy character] who might be able to take it off your hands and give you full market value for it.

It’s Chinese New Year next week which means I get a holiday till Thursday.

That’s the kind of welcome I like from new countries, ha!

Anyway, when I’m back I’ll be writing this bloody thing abit more regularly [including the next A[P]SOTW assignment, which will be about flags] – not because I’m under any delusion that people like it – but because ironically, it helps me get some clarity of thought, despite going off on the sorts of tangents even a protractor couldn’t calculate.

So till then, I leave you with my last rant of the previous Chinese Year 🙂

Most people appreciate the value of good customer service and yet it’s got to the stage where we are more likely to be shocked at good treatment than bad.

Saying that, I have been hugely impressed at the standard of service I’ve received in HK so far. People are helpful, knowledgeable and pro-active, a far cry from the typical experience I had in Singapore over 4 years.

I should point out I’m talking about average day-to-day kind of things, not hotels or airlines etc – because in that respect Singapore, like the majority of Asia, are World leaders putting much of the West to shame.

Anyway this isn’t about the discrepancies between East and West customer service … this is about something entirely different, the pettiness of brands.

Photo: Kelly Bell

What I’m about to write is not limited to brands in Singapore, I am simply that country to demonstrate my point, especially given– like Germany – it is regarded as a blueprint for effectiveness and efficiency.

When I first moved to Singapore back in 2005, apart from the odd bit of bewildering red tape, everything was executed through a well thought out, efficient process.

As long as you had one of those magic ‘employment passes’, you could be sure of getting pretty much everything you ever wanted, done – however zoom 4 years on, and when you ask for services to be stopped, the brands demonstrate all the characteristics of a broken hearted 14 year old.

Rather than behave in the speedy, precise and effective manner that you’ve come to expect, they start making mistakes – or in certain circumstances – do nothing at all.

When I cancelled Jill’s mobile phone – something you would expect to happen fairly instantaneously [and which the company – who claim to be all about customer service – confirmed to me at the point of contract termination] – they took SIX DAYS to do it, and that’s with me calling twice a day saying it still had not been done.

With the cable company, they said the only way I could get my deposit back was if I had a Singaporean bank account – even though they knew I was leaving the country for good.

Then there’s my landlord.

Photo: Lauren Segal

Oh what a prize fucking cock he is.

After living in the place for 4 years … keeping it like a palace despite it continually having broken water mains and ever increasing rent … we have been accused of stealing the entire apartments furniture.

Not a plug. Or a table. The whole fucking apartment.

I know I’m from Nottingham, but that is ridiculous!!!

Despite the fact his own inventory showed he supplied us with nothing more than 4 walls and a roof hasn’t dissuaded him – nor has our ability to prove we bought and paid for everything – the guy is being a right pain in the arse and here’s the link between all these stories of brand fuckwitism … C.A.S.H.

You see Singtel knew they hadn’t cancelled our mobile … Starhub knew I was going to close my bank account [because in Singapore, you have to physically be in a branch to close it, something quite difficult if you live 4 hours flight away] … and our beloved Landlord knew he had no right on our furniture … the purpose for being awkward was to try and not give back any of our deposit.

In both SINGTEL and Starhub’s case the figure was negligible, but that’s hardly the point – when a customer leaves, as long as there are no outstanding debts/damage, a company has to pay back the money given to them at the beginning of the relationship – however like the bitter and twisted actions of a spurned teenager, brands seem to have an inability to let go cleanly and nicely, preferring to behave like a spoilt little fool in the hope that either [1] you come back or [2] you say ‘forget it’ just to get away.

Well that sort of shit doesn’t work on me.

Hell, I just launched legal action against SONY Ericsson for their continued inability to sort out my problem phone [they did, surprisingly about the exact time the writ was delivered to them but guess what, 4 days later and the same problem has happened which means I’ve had 3 phones that have worked for a combined 14 days since October!] so I’m sure as shit not going to allow an unhelpful, lying landlord get away with a five figure sum for no other reason than the economy is experiencing a downturn so he won’t be able to get the same level of rent we’d been paying him for a few years.

Photo: Yummies 4 Tummies

No one likes it when a relationship ends – but instead of trying to find out what made someone make that decision, brands tend to immediately go on the attack … behaving as if they are the ones being ‘robbed’ blind.

It’s targeting the millions of people who brave HK’s already polluted air going to work each day – the unconscious victims of particle warfare.

In the category of bad health, we’d like to our ad is a ‘breath of fresh air’. Boom tish.