Friday, February 18, 2005

Ad sales suck

I've never even seen one of these things before but as far as I know I'm expected to put down all the things that are going on in my head. I also understand that blogs are always deeply political which I'm sure is nonsense but that's the flavour they've been given. Partly to do with the fact that the only blogger I've ever heard of is Salaam Pax or so I think his name was - the Baghdad Blogger. I did a play with this crazy greek / not really greek at all director called Tassos Stevens which involved Salaam Pax mixed with oscar acceptance speeches and journalists writing from warzones all thrown together under the title After The Last Days of Mankind. It's a homage to a play that was created by throwing together transcripts taken from WWII from both sides detailing human responses to tragedies and war in general. The original play lasted three days. Our one thankfully came in at considerably less - more like half an hour. Anyhow, ad sales suck. This is what I have come to tell you all about. I'm selling advertising space in a men's lifestyle magazine. I'm not even being paid for it - I'm doing it as it helps me to develop a thicker skin so I can put up with more rejections from shite commercials that I don't really want to do anyhow. I get commission on any sales I make, but what i have discovered is that the Media Buyers in this country are all endemic racists. Drum is a superb publication with a hell of a lot of promise, but nobody is prepared to trust it - I come across an endless instinctive lack of trust. People expecting to be conned. I am told that there was a previous mag called untold that took the money for six months worth of ads and then did a runner. But as far as I can tell these people are just not willing to give money to a black mens lifestyle mag and not one of them can come up with an adequate reason why not. "This sort of publication is not really in our brief" they tell me and they are putting ads in Arena and GQ. Sod them all. I feel a little better exposing them all for the nasty smug bastards that they are. I'm sure something will turn around soon. But in the meantime Media Buyers are all swine. So now I'm going to click a button and see what happens with this rant. And I'll come back and throw more crap at the walls if it doesn't just delete it and send me to whitescreen hell.

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