Blinded By The Light

Olly Mann finds himself something of an unofficial "brand ambassador"

- Olly Mann

YESTERDAY I MET Liz; a highly intelligent woman in her fifties. She's a school friend of my mate Brett, and she's spent the last 20 years working in brand marketing. As a result, she has a swimming pool. And a designer handbag. And a silly job title I can't quite bring myself to recall: "Chief Inspiration Leader" or "Treasurer of Top Ideas" or something equally cringe, calculated to put the FUN in "strategy-led market research".

She's very smart, I said to Brett. "Yes," he replied. "What a shame she's wasted her brain, rather than doing something PROPER".

I smiled at this and indicated agreement-I knew what he meant; it's not like she's curing cancer or engineering electric planes-but then, having thought about it for a second, found myself responding defensively. "It's quite a rigorous job she has though, isn't it? I mean, she'll take a product that seems... pedestrian, and think about it so deeply that she'll know exactly why, say, Pepsi Max is associated with extreme sports, but Pepsi Max Cherry isn't. It seems trivial, but I guess if they flog more products as a result, then more people keep their jobs."