The Kaiser Edition

We have a show here in Germany called “Die Kochprofis” and I watched it last night. I was tired and bored and decided to watch three television cooks try and save a restaurant on a camping site. That’s what they do; people tell them that their restaurant is in trouble and ask them to come by and save them. I’ve seen the show before but last night’s episode was, for a number of reasons, quite interesting.

What normally happens is that the three cooks turn up, find rubbish food, rubbish service and rubbish management and come up with a new menu and a new plan of action for the floundering restaurant. Last night’s episode was no different except for one tiny little thing. The rubbish management thought that what the professionals had come up with was a huge load of nonsense.

This is a restaurant that had been serving microwave food to not-so-happy campers and as far as the manager of the restaurant was concerned he had a captive audience – there was no escape from his culinary nightmare. The microwave food was good for him because it served his needs perfectly – it was quick and dirty and he could cook the food too. The pivotal moment in last night’s show was when one of the cooks, Ralf Zacherl, nearly lost it because the management of the restaurant didn’t want to implement the new menu.

“But there’s no difference between the food you serve, and the food the people can make for themselves in their caravans!” said Zacherl.

“But I can’t cook this!” said the manager. Yes, he has a cook but he was worried about holiday cover – and time and money and effort.

The management of the restaurant left the kitchen and sat, heads a wagging, over the new menu; picking at it and declaring it an absolute failure. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, cabbage was being chopped angrily by three professional and one resident cook.

Obviously, you can see where this is going. How many times have you sat in front of a client, a client that has asked you to save their business, their product or their brand because they see in you and your agency a professional/expert only to be told that what you’ve just presented is wrong? It happens all of the time, you know it does.

But what happened next, what the three cooks then went on to do, doesn’t happen all of the time at all. They just carried on and did it, because they knew it was the right thing to do, both for the restaurant and for the people who eat there.

They didn’t seek a compromise. They didn’t pander to their client. They weren’t chasing the money. They knew what was right and they just bloody well got on and did it. And the results proved that they were right. The resident cook said they were right, the customers were over the moon, hell even the management (to use British PR speak) were “delighted”.

They knew they were right because they are professionals. They are the experts.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again it’s a sorry state of affairs when an industry looks at a new remuneration model as the only way to save its business. It often frightens me how many people Google “new agency model” and land on this site. I know I’m repeating myself here, but we will, over the course of the next couple of years see more and more accounts go over to business networks that have traditionally had nothing to do with advertising (business consultants, banks, financial consultants, print management etc.) because their remuneration model talks to the procurement and financial departments of the clients you currently serve.

This will be advertising you bang in a microwave. This is the stuff the client can cook when the agency is on holiday. It will be advertising that is lip-burning hot on the outside and stone cold in the middle. It will be advertising that fills you up, tastes like shit and have you sat on the toilet for hours.

So, may I suggest we, the people who give a shit, try to be a little like “die Kochprofis” and just carry on regardless. Fight for what we know is right, regardless. Delight and excite people, regardless.

If you want my absolute definition of “content” then it would be this, carrying on regardless (which is content without a brief). Hell, if we own the rights to what we do, we may even earn some money too.

Good morning Sir Martin.

If you think that others might been interested in this would you be so kind as to Stumble it?

This work is licensed under Creative Commons