A blog called "The Creative Confessional" started life as a place where art directors and copywriters at ad agencies could go to anonymously confess their weird quirks and dislikes about the job. A typical confession would be, "For fun, I convinced an AE to only use Bing."
Amusing, but harmless.
Until recently.
The confessions have taken a dark turn in the last few days, with execs posting material on the blog that identifies specific workplaces and even individuals.
For example, this confession is, obviously, all about TBWA/Chiat/Day, the ad agency for Apple:
It's not too mean. But then there's this ...
BHP Billiton is the world's largest mining company. It has used Lawrence Creative as its agency. I'm not saying that a Lawrence exec wrote that confession. But a person could be forgiven for thinking that, based on the confession's words. Which is why the blog is so (unintentionally) vicious.
Here's another example:
Copyright and trademark law in the fashion business is nebulous at best. It's difficult to own a look or a color. But companies can use expensive litigation as a weapon. If this person is employed at a small company, Lululemon could put them out of business.
It gets personal, too. Presumably there are three women out there who know exactly what this was all about:
This one is kinda funny ...
... but creating fake likes is not only against Facebook's rules, it's a legal issue too. Reverb PR was once cited by the FTC for writing fake product reviews for its clients.
Likewise, this move is professional suicide:
Pepsi is the blue brand, in case you live under a rock. Clients have fired agencies from their accounts for screwing up this kind of thing.
Then there are the petty acts of revenge by underlings:
And power-plays by egomaniacs:
The blog also covers the unpleasant side of agency life that could occur at any office:
Although this woman has issues only she can solve:
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