BEFORE: Right, the Super Bowl. Did I really fool you into thinking I'd forgotten? Well, it was worth a shot. For the Denver and Seattle players and fans invading my city, I say, "Welcome." It's a nice city, but we like to call it hell. Try to clean up after yourselves, won't you? I hope you all freeze your nuts off on Sunday. Linking from "Swimming With Sharks", Kevin Spacey carries over.
THE PLOT: Two veteran salesmen dissect a sales pitch to a particular client to their young protege.
AFTER: You might think of this as a modern-day "Death of a Salesman", only without the death, but this is based on a play called "Hospitality Suite". Which itself seems to share a good deal of its DNA with "Waiting for Godot", or at least what I remember about that play. Two characters (three, really, but come on, two main ones) sit in a hotel suite at a convention and plan for the arrival of the big client who they're going to wine and dine. Assuming that he will come, which is far from certain.
In the interim, everything from religion to cocktails to being a better human is discussed, and we gain some insight into marketing, which is to our culture today a bit like what religion used to be. (Don't believe me? It's Super Bowl SUNDAY, duh) Religion used to pitch a certain lifestyle to people, "Thou shalt not do this", and eventually your life, or afterlife, will be much better. Buy this product, drink this soda, make your teeth whiter, and your life will be much better. Just like religion, only you reap the benefits in this world and not the next.
So as we approach the one day a year where "Crap, more commercials!" becomes, "Get in here, the commercials are coming back on!" let's take a minute to celebrate marketing, something I do all year around. One of my jobs is tangential to the advertising industry, because those agencies that have those accounts often hire animation and effects companies to make the magic happen, and the rep company I work for gets 8-10%, which can be a significant piece. (It could be worse, I could be helping to market industrial lubricants.)
So what we do is like marketing to marketers - pitching to the people who are pitching to America, while trying not to realize how ironic that seems. We have to be subtle, because they are a savvy and yet cowardly lot, so we take them to lunch, take them for drinks, take them to the movies, and try to get our message out between "How are your kids?" and "Have you done any skiing this year?" For me this means maintaining a database of the movers + shakers in the industry, where I'm constantly updating their accounts, e-mail addresses, and other personal data - and these people change jobs about as often as other people change their socks, so it's a constant battle to stay current.
(ASIDE: I personally am not very good at schmoozing, which I believe is the industry term. I tend to ask about people's personal lives only when I genuinely care, which admittedly is not often. I feel like inquiring when I don't care is a form of lying, which I try not to do, but I suppose I can see how not inquiring about personal matters could make me seem callous and uninterested. But at least my friends know that when I am interacting with them, I am not only listening, but also understanding.)
What this film gets right is the type of social lubrication required to land a client - nobody these days throws a Christmas party, or hosts a screening, or invites you to a stadium suite without a hidden agenda. Maybe the process doesn't involve as many hookers and drugs as it used to in the "Mad Men" days, but the principle is the same. It's amazing that we haven't raised a generational of cynical people (oh, wait, yes we did) who are immune to all forms of marketing. But no, marketing merely moved onto Facebook and Twitter and SnapChat or pops up while you're trying to play Candy Crush.
For the second night in a row, I'm just too close to the subject matter to really find this topic funny. The general rule is that you shouldn't discuss religion with clients, but yet one of the characters defies that logic and enjoys a measure of success. But what is religion but another form of marketing? Preaching and pitching - same thing. I'm trying desperately to find something else to cling to in this portrait of jaded experienced salesmen and one rookie, but so far I'm unsuccessful. Some people have compared this to "Glengarry Glen Ross", but that was about a real-estate scam, and this just seems to be about normal, everyday business. Ho hum.
Also starring Danny DeVito (last heard in "The Lorax"), Peter Facinelli.
RATING: 4 out of 10 nametags
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