Plum jobs in the world of advertising

As readers must now be aware, we are nearing the end of National Prune Week. Not every aspect has gone according to plan.

Prune Marketing Board PR Person: Thank you for making this meeting at such short notice. I think everybody understands its importance.

Oleaginous & Blather Creative: To unlock the analytical discipline of the creative approach to the development and communication of the strategy?

Man from the Prune: You could put it that way. I'd prefer crisis management.

Blather: Let's not forget we had to overcome the product's negative emotional value.

Prune Person: If we're going to start apportioning blame, I think we should go back to your original response to our brief ...

Blather: To promote the prune ...

Prune Person: Frankly, I've never ben happy with your slogan, "Everything we do is driven by you." It doesn't even scan.

Blather: Well, you know we'd have preferred, "Everything we poo is driven by you." Better product saliency.

Prune Person: For goodness' sake, you're still thinking in those old prunist terms. You know perfectly well that the prune is healthy, delicious and value for money - Nineties values essentialised. And don't forget a prune is simply a dried plum. Plums have never had an image problem.

Blather: Plums have got more appetite appeal. Juicy, plump ...

Prune Person: All right, all right. But your timing couldn't have been worse. Prune juice is hardly a hearty winter drink, is it?

Blather: We were hoping for a "Snowbound Pregnant Woman Survives On Prunes" story.

Prune Person: Instead we got, "Prunes Were Last Straw In Trolley Rage Slaying".

Blather: What about the Scott report? Even prunes are more fun than Scott.

Prune Person: There you go again, badmouthing the product. Actually, I'm talking about Pancake Day.

Blather: Prunes and Lent are a natural pair. Plus, the prune fillings promotion has been a bookmarker. Goat's cheese and prune won the best filling competition on Radio Dyfed's cookery slot.

Prune Person: What about the Sainsbury's magazine debacle? Prune and sun-dried tomato paste? Prune and rocket salad? Chargrilled squid with prune croutons? Delia Smith is furious.

Blather: We were simply trying to inject a little zip into the campaign. Your brief was to get those 16-24s.

Prune Person: Which brings us to the Brit awards ...

Blather: We couldn't get The Girlie Show.

Prune Person: The "pruning" of Michael Jackson was a disgrace.

Blather: Pulp are the biggest thing since the Beatles. If they endorse the product, we could achieve information dominance.

Prune Person: Jarvis Cocker did not "endorse" the product, he threw it at Michael Jackson.

Blather: It was a sessionable multi-use event delivering refreshment and style value. A question of pouring out the cream and seeing if the cat licks it up.

Prune Person: And now the poster debacle. A line-up of dried fruit ...

Blather: Helmut Newton did a bookmark of a job.

Prune Person: Apricots, dates, figs, raisins, sultanas, currants ... Positive association was the term you used, I believe.

Blather: We ran it up the flagpole, you saluted.

Prune Person: That was the original image.

Blather: Our research people were up against it. Every group was showing negative associations: old people; constipation ...

Prune Person: So you got rid of them completely and replaced them with dried mangos!

Blather: Our product would still have benefited by association.

Prune Person: Association? It's a complete crisis! In the words of the general secretary of the Fruit Workers Union, "This is an appalling situation which reveals the depths of prunist attitudes in our society."

Blather: Our strategy -

Prune Person: Hundreds of workers have walked out of fruit plants, causing pounds 2.8m in lost production ...

Blather: OK. It was a mistake.

Prune Person: A mistake? You can have any dried fruit you want as long as it's not prunes.

Blather: We're off the account, I take it.

Prune Person: Get me Max Clifford ... Max? We've got a crisis ...