Remember Will and Brenda, from the small communication agency ?

We did a serious investigation work, and we found out what they where doing instead of working for the European Commission. it turns out they where working on a new campaign for a mobile phone.

So after lots of brainstorms and plenty of coke, they came up with this banner:

Yeap, lots of people, all the colors, genders, ages, most probably various sexual orientations as well. I'm quite sure one is a vegetarian too and this one is obviously jewish. Good, we've covered everyone.

For the name of the phone they knew it has to be about possession, about "mine". They tried MyA, MyB, MyC. Test, focus groups, Nothing striking. More researches, more sleepless nights, more coke...

...MyO, MyP, MyQ...

MyQ ? Like IQ ? great, 78% recall rate on the focus group, MyQ is choosen.

At that time, Brenda was still high most of the time, Willy was happy boning Brenda, they had wild sex, they where young and had fun, regular agency crowd. Life is good.

Mike, middle marketing man at Motorola in charge of the online marketing for this product was happy too. Especially since he discovered that, once at the kite level, Brenda was quite into group sex. The three had great creative brainstorms for the slogan. They started with a blackberry, all finding it smart. The production team at Motorola gave them a pale clone of blackberry, "powered by" windows mobile. Genuine, with a fully functioning ctrl+alt+del key combination. Smart like a blackberry, but with a windows. A new kind of smart. Brenda loved it. "A new kind of smart"!. With as many stereotypes as possible, straight from the image bank, so the onces that didn't identify themselves with the regular "smart" could fully dig into this "new kind" of smart.

As Kotler wrote it, marketing is about flattering relentlessly egos of brainless clients, and they had great fun doing it.

To celebrate, they decide to go to Ibiza next week-end, for a 48 hours of non stop clubbing, booked online, they got the sunglasses (ray ban), even though they don't plan to see the sun too much.

They hear the latest mix of David Guetta, that new kind of smart Mike has bought and downloaded and uses as ringtone. He picks up the phone and answers.

"Hi Julia". (her boss)...

"Yes, campaign ready, we'll launch it in Canada on sunday, stunning visuals, the website will be ready on time, MyQ campaign is going to be a success"...

"What about Quebec?"

"What do you mean about the language issue ? Don't they all speak english ?"

"You can't. That's too short ! We need to postpone the launch."

"Not an option ? Media placement already bought, big rotation on TV ?"

... (he looks at Brenda and Will, that slowly realised that the shit hit the fan).

"Ok, we'll try".

(he hangs up).

"Guys, we have a problem. First we need more coke, and something strong to drink too!"

"We fucked it up and completely forgot the french version, it has to be done by tomorrow, otherwise, we won't be able to go to Ibiza"

(they quickly check, their plane tickets are not refundable, and they can't change the date either). You can fill the tension growing. the delivery guy has brought what's needed to fuel a rush.

Brenda:

"Ok, the only solution is to keep the same visuals."

Willy:

"But the screen interface is in english on the picture ?"

Mike:

"She's right, we don't have the time, and no one will notice anyway".

Brenda:

"What about the slogan ? What about the name of the product ?"

Mike:

"Do one of you speak french ?"

Brenda and Will look at each other. They learnt it in school, long ago. Will drinks straight from the bottle of whisky, empties half of it.

Will:

"Well..."

Brenda:

'"Let's use babelfish !"

Mike:

"Ok, let's do that".

He types "My", choose english to french. got "Mon". Do the same with a "new kind of smart".

He got "Un nouveau genre de futé". He translates it to spanish, thinking about Ibiza. Got "Una nueva clase de taimado". Click, click again, "spanish to english" to close the loop. Back to english with "A new class of slick".Somehow, they doubt automatic translation is going to make it.

Not convinced anymore. Mike calls Jérome, a friend in Paris. Emergency brainstom, Jérôme is offered a free flight to Ibiza this week-end, when Brenda will entertain him as well. Jérôme is gay, but Will is quite happy to provide the entertainment if he gets the slogan, like, now!.

He's emptied the bottle, splitting headache, it has to be done, finished and sent in 30 minutes.

Jérôme thinks about it, and quickly call back to suggest "L'intelligence renouvelée". It works, it's fun, let's do it. Click apple C apple P, changing the name of the product, click apple C apple P, changing the slogan too, and ...sending....sending....your message has been sent!

They can go, happy with the French version, that's going to make the fine people of the Quebec region very happy and buy a lot of them:

Jérôme offers a final advice to Will: you should switch on the answer machine when you got an headache. As we say in France, "Parle à mon Q, ma tête est malade".