Spin Class: New Year

We are in a media Groundhog Day. Train strikes, NHS crisis and Harry and Meghan on the front pages. Another “annulus horribilus” (sic), as the guys at Green Street might call it.

Soph and I have started the year with the usual client tasks – setting up regular meetings for the first six months, drawing up feature/speaking opportunity/event lists and drafting (optimistic) media activity pipelines. On every client call we get asked “so what do you and your other clients think of the market?” in the hope, we think, they will feel relief when we say “they are not optimistic”. We like to try and brighten things up by adding “it could be worse – you could be Home REIT”.

The recession and the miserable weather are already prompting us to book Mipim. Ye Gods, though, the cost of accommodation has soared. We are going to have difficult conversations with our clients to increase their fees by 10% to account for inflation.

And we need to win new work. We are through to the next round – an in-person pitch – for a huge mandate that we’ve been working on for months. We keep dreaming we will win the account and celebrate in Cannes. Anything else is as unpalatable as KSI and Logan Paul’s Prime ‘sports’ drink.