I love my job. Sometimes. But particularly this morning. I arrived in the office after a couple of days out to find a rather large package waiting for me on my desk.
It is not unusual and generally means one of two things:
An enormous press pack which gets filed under 'B' as that is the only space for it in the office.
OR
The fruits of several hours labour of marketing minds - maybe even days I don't know how long these things take - distilled into a heavily branded freebie which is generally pointless, ridiculous or rendered such because of the logo's slapped all over it. For example, last week I received a pack of Top Trumps cards with 'different products' on each card.
Today sort of falls into the latter category. I say 'sort of' because it both created a lot of amusement in the office but also a great deal of incredulity at the bad timing and total lack of politically correct thought, which isn't always a bad thing.
In the package was a toy gun. Yes a gun. Complete with plastic 'bullets' and little plastic bottles to shoot at.
When I needed one for part of a fancy dress costume I couldn't find a toy shop in London that stocked them.
The packaging was heavily branded of course and, now here's the marketing bit, the connection between the freebie and the product was evolve with the letter 'r' stuck at either end, in a lighter shade. Clever eh?
Still it's been great fun playing with the 'gun' today. I longed to have moment like the scene in Spaced where they pretend to have a big shoot out using their hands as 'guns' and run around ducking behind the desks, rolling across the floor pretending to dodge bullets. Nadia quickly became the office hot shot and could get the bottle down almost every shot. In fact I'm a little worried at how comfortable she's a gettin' with the gun...