"Assaholic" Marketing

I'm glad I saved this for a Friday. You all know Miss Ive, the crazy girl who vomits her own brand of humor and thanks you profusely for reading it over your coffee.

And from the emails ya'll send, asking me what any of this has to do with the 'marketing' I listed in my profile, I figure you know what Miss Ive does during the day.

She markets. She markets for . . . duh, duh, duh, DUH . . . ONE of the Notorious B.I.G. Three Auto Makers. She markets with men. Men who wear suits and gray hair. Men who love to say things like "viable growth." And sometimes, after consulting her thesaurus for the umpteenth time, Miss Ive walks from board meetings into the ladies' room and presses her forehead against the mirror. She looks herself in the eye and asks, "what does that mean?" And then she swallows the bile accumulating in her mouth, puts her chin up, walks to her Mac and forces her heretic fingers to type the following Web Blast: "Don't wait—Buy NOW. Recent legislation has allowed you to pollute for one more FULL YEAR!!!!"

But, lately, Miss Ive's serious, straight-laced marketeer persona and her nightly shenanigans for non-profits and chivalrous clothiers have become, well, a lot to reckon. Ever stand on a dock with one foot on a drifting boat? Yeah. That's how I feel.

And then last week happened. I (Miss Ive—see how she's slipping away?) made a call to a client. And he accidentally got sidetracked. And he mentioned a man he really admires, Robert Young, who runs a non-profit. Red Feather dot org. And he told me that he's building homes for the Native American families who are living in dilapidated trailers. And he said that he doesn't GIVE them homes. He teaches them how to build the homes. And that really wooed me.

So I called him. Surely that doesn't surprise anyone. And we talked. And he told me that he already drives nothing but my client's (the Notorious B.I.G. Three Gang) trucks. And he needs new trucks. And so Miss Ive went to the ladies' room once again. She paced. She said, "It's time to storm the tower." This one is going in. This is good. This is good for my client. This is good for an Awe-Some non-profit. This is good for Miss Ive's ever-splitting-dock-and-boat-standing legs.

But they smirked. "No," they said. "Not the time for risks like that," they said. And the Charlie Brown theme played in Miss Ive's head. And she slumped back to her Mac to compose a long-over-due letter of resignation.

And to wrap things up, as I'm sure your coffee is gone by now, I found this man yesterday. John Haydon, Esq., of Boston, MA. A random find. So timely, though. He made Miss Ive (pause, and really listen here) BELIEVE IN MARKETING AGAIN.

Pour just one more mug. It's Friday. Go crazy. He's awesome. I know a lot of you are in marketing. But you'll re-imagine what that means when you read this page. Or when you find him on Twitter. He gave me what I needed to get past the smirk. I'll get those trucks for Robert and Red Feather. You all know that, though. Miss Ive always gets her way.

Thank you, John Haydon. Really.

This one's for you. Smile today.