Million Dollar Baby

November 21, 2008

The great and the good of Fleet Street and Wapping paid a visit to Attinger Jack’s London office this week.  The exact roll call: Tom Leader, Andrew Say and Miranda Donaldson of the Mail; Beverley Eldridge and Mike Allen of the Telegraph; Nicola Holt and Sarah Shelton of the Mirror; David German of the Times; Liam Reynolds of News International; Luc Borg of the Sun; Mandy Mclean of the Indie; Ben Nealon of the Express; and Kieran Summerhayes of the Star.

 

Putting 13 battle-hardened newspaper veterans into one room is always a risk but everybody got on famously before withdrawing for an hour or five to Beach Blanket Babylon’s latest creation – the Las Vegas style Dollar Grills & Martinis in Farringdon. A few cocktails were downed before everyone was canvassed about how they felt about current market conditions.  At this point, silence ensued followed by the cry, “another few cocktails please!”

 

Times are tough across the board for everybody.  The only solution?  Better buying, better page positioning, harder working creative and stronger partnerships between ourselves and the newspapers.  After all, if we can continue to generate cost effective response for our clients, then the ads will keep flowing and that’s in everyone’s interests as David argued during his impassioned speech. 

 

As our newspaper colleagues gradually dropped out of the lunch marathon, it was left to two titles to fly the flag for Fleet Street.  Take a bow the Mail and Indie.  You even outlasted Attinger Jack.  Respect!