The AdNews NGen blog: Pucker up, baby

I’m walking out to meet a new media rep. I don’t know anything about her except her first name. I arrive at reception to greet her and kindly hold out my hand to shake hers. Suddenly I’m reeled in like a fish on a hook and have a great big one planted on my right cheek and instinctively find myself placing one on hers simultaneously. Yet another awkward media kiss.

How did this all happen? I should mention that whilst I do enjoy a kiss here and there with the appropriate bed-quest, I’m not a kisser. I don’t even kiss my family every time I see them. So why do I find myself kissing every media rep, agency colleague and client of the opposite sex in town upon every meeting?

This phenomenon has really spiralled out of control. Why am I kissing strangers? Does this make me some sort of floozy? If so, surely I’m not the only one. I am quite confident that I’m not the only person in our industry to fall victim to this bizarre behaviour. Are we so starved for affection that we simply dish it out and accept it in return with every person of the opposite sex that we work with? Surely not, so I decided I wanted to know more.

Therefore, after discussing the issue in great detail with my team, we decided to make a challenge out of it (we do love a bit of competition). We had to make sure we didn’t kiss any media reps, clients or colleagues and the last one standing was the winner. It was an interesting week. Many tactics were adopted, from faking illness to carrying so many notepads that they were a barrier from human contact.

The number of awkward moments was plentiful. So much so that when my boss braced someone at the elbows (to stop them from coming any closer) she was immediately asked in a panicked fashion “What are you doing?!”

It got worse. My team had lunch with one of our more delightful and friendly reps. I thought we were all in it together, however while I was in the mens room, they threw me under the bus and told her of our challenge (completely without my knowledge). I then didn’t stand a chance. She had been given the brief to plant one on me come hell or high water. I was a deer in the headlights and a victim to her pout upon our farewells. I was the first to fall and immediately bitter about being cut short in my quest for frigidness.

In the end we all fell and decided that it was actually too difficult to avoid this sort of behaviour. But the social experiment was definitely a fun one.

So I’m back to my promiscuous ways of kissing on the first date and every date thereafter. I’m accepting that it’s really just due the fact that we work in such a friendly and social industry built on relationships where getting to first base simply helps you build on these relationships.

So go on everyone, continue to pucker up. Share the love.

Jeremy McNamara
MediaCom Brisbane