Maurice gets a Promotion for his Success with Promotional USBs

Following Maurice’s success with his message with promotional USBs in a bottle campaign and Gerald’s return from Tenerife a marketing meeting was called by Robert, the project manager.  Robert was a director of Global C.O.N.S. Ltd and had invited his American co directors, Richard and Edward, to attend the meeting.  Maurice had been invited to lunch with them prior to the meeting and since Gerald was en route from the airport to the office was not aware of events that had taken place in his absence.

Over lunch Maurice explained that he felt the company name was not really enhancing confidence in the product since timeshare was already in the headlines with a reputation for shady dealings and the letters C.O.N.S. realistically implanted the word Cons into the minds of prospective buyers which from a British point of view would mean they were about to be ripped off.  The Americans pointed out that Gerald had influenced them to use this name and Global Condominiums on Nice Sites Ltd was a bit of a mouthful  which is why it had been abbreviated.

Maurice then went on to say that Condominiums was an American word and it would be more likely that the British would relate to apartments.  However, he did feel that the company name should be changed because it was doing more harm than good.

The Americans commended Maurice on the success of his message in a bottle campaign not only because he had received such an enormous response from it but also because so many sales had since been converted.  The idea of using promotional USBs had been outstanding they said.

They then went on to ask who had been responsible for the Global Challenge drop card campaign and Maurice said that all direct mailing was handled by Gerald so he had probably overstepped the mark by sending out the promotional USBs in the bottles.  The overall response was that they Americans were all for people taking educated initiative and that he had done well.

As the meal progressed Maurice was asked about his family, his interests in general and his aspirations.  Maurice told them that he really enjoyed the challenges that each marketing campaign presented but felt that the company’s promotional gifts were really letting them down.  They were cheap, lacked quality and in many cases just weren’t appropriate to what the company was selling.  He would like to purchase his own promotional gifts and have his budget increased to do so.  He would also like to handle the direct mail since he was already handling most of the other marketing programs.  There wasn’t much feedback from the directors apart from the fact that they intended to discuss many of these aspects during the meeting.

After lunch they all made their way back to the office and as they entered the building, Gerald was standing in the foyer with his suitcases.  He seemed rather surprised that all the directors of the company were there and said that he would just freshen up and then he would join them in the conference room, asking if he could just have a quick word with Maurice before he went in.

Maurice followed Gerald into his office and Gerald told him to shut the door.  “Where have you been?” Gerald asked.

“I was invited out to lunch with the directors” Maurice responded

“And why exactly would they invite you out to lunch then?” sneered Gerald.

“Well, they were so impressed with the success of the mailing campaign that they just wanted to show their appreciation”, Maurice said.

“But it wasn’t your mailing campaign, it was mine” Gerald shouted, “I hope you put them straight on that because I made it clear to you that you weren’t going to take any credit for the Global Challenge”. 

“Oh yes”, Maurice responded smiling, “I made it very clear that the whole idea was yours from start to finish and that I had nothing to do with it”.

The meeting commenced at 3:30 pm and Robert apologised to everyone for the short notice they had all received but he felt it was important to iron out some issues within the Marketing Department that couldn’t wait.  He also formally thanked Maurice for showing such great initiative on his mailing campaign.  Gerald immediately interrupted, glaring at Maurice, and said that Maurice had not been responsible for the mailing campaign.  The Global Challenge has been entirely his own idea and Maurice had nothing to do with it.

The other directors looked at Gerald as Robert told him that they weren’t referring to the Global Challenge which had possibly been the worst marketing campaign not only in the history of the company but in all the years of their combined experience together.  2 million drop cards delivered with only one response was an abysmal result by anybody’s standards they said.

“Then what are you referring to?” Gerald asked.

“So you don’t know what is going on in your own department?” Robert asked.

Blustering and confused, Gerald went red in the face and struggled to answer. Robert then went on to explain what Maurice had achieved with his message in a bottle campaign.  He said that the idea of using promotional USBs for the company presentation rather than printed materials was nothing short of genius and would save a lot of money on printing costs in the future.

Gerald was speechless but eventually joined with the directors in congratulating Maurice.  Robert said that the company had decided to reward Maurice with a new company car, 20% increase in salary and a promotion to Assistant Marketing Director.  He advised Gerald that it might be appropriate to hand over the management of direct mail campaigns to Maurice since clearly he had a flair for getting it right, adding that they were going to increase Maurice’s budget  so that he had sufficient money to purchase promotional gifts of his choice for each of his marketing campaigns.

Maurice was then asked to leave the meeting as the directors wanted to speak privately with Gerald so Maurice thanked them and left.  Maurice was obviously grateful for all the concessions and rewards he had received by he really felt that the promotion was going to cause difficulties.  He would still be working under Gerald and he didn’t see how this was going to be possible considering that Gerald was probably, yet again in trouble with the directors.

Two hours later, Gerald arrived in Maurice’s office and was clearly furious.  “How dare you take it upon yourself to run a direct mail campaign without my knowledge” he stormed, “that is a complete breach of company rules and could have easily led to your dismissal.  Never mind that it worked out all right in the end, what if it hadn’t?  Whose neck do you think would have been on the line? I can’t see why you should be rewarded for blatantly breaking the rules.  I’ll be watching you from now on and trust me, one wrong move and you’re out.”  With that Gerald strode out of the office slamming the door behind him.

Maurice smiled as he looked through the Zest Promotional website and made a list of promotional gifts that he would need for his existing and new campaigns.