Alice in wwwLand. Episode 2.0 - The Backstory
Three months later: It was now apparent to Alice that she had been kept in the dark, going back as far as the call she received from the FARS (Far Ranging Solutions) recruiter 3-months earlier. Alice was not informed that besides recruiting her, FARS was also simultaneously working to buy an already established media department, as an alternative to the mission she was given, to create one, organically.
She had no idea that discussions between FARS and PURE (People Understanding Real Evolution) had been going on for a while. If Alice had known this, she would have thought twice about taking the "Chief Mentality Officer" position.
If it didn't occur to Alice when she joined, it soon became clear to her that she and her team had - in reality - been brought in as a contingency plan, in case the plan to buy PURE fell through. In essence, she and her team were brought over as "plan B."
FARS very much needed to be prepared to organically grow the media department if the PURE merger fell through. This was done at the behest of FARS largest shareholder and bankroller, OMNIPOTENT (omnipotentcomm.com).
Alice realized essentially that she and her team were essentially a fallback to corporate. Now that option 1 had been accomplished, Alice feared that Sue-Mo would soon lose any interest in Alice's thoughts, plans, ideas, feelings, and promises she made to Alice and her and new staffers.
OMNIPOTENT was all that Sue-Mo cared about, the giant corporation Sue-Mo like to brag about, who was a minority investor of the company. Sue-Mo's ego was larger than the planet Uranus. Having been fired from "Big Apple Magazine" 5 years before, because of being accused of stealing a stapler from the office; accused of this by a jealous female supervisor who envied Sue-Mo's already established position NY society, Sue-Mo had a distinct distaste for all things media-related since.
Sue-Mo had re-established herself in NY within the field of technology, with great ego-reinforcing satisfaction. Alice soon learned that she had been brought in only to satisfy OMNIPOTENT's direction. Sue-Mo felt the same way about PURE as she now did about Alice. She disliked PURE immensely, though OMNIPOTENT had insisted that FARS have a media component, if only to increase the total value of FARS for the soon to be held IPO.
Sue-Mo had mixed feelings about taking direction from OMNIPOTENT as it represented everything Sue-Mo hated about her past. After all, it was also a media company. Sue-Mo and OMNIPOTENT had joined forces as a marriage of convenience. The attraction between the two was simple. Each needed what the other had. OMNIPOTENT needed technology while Sue-Mo needed cash. Sue-Mo liked to throw around that OMNIPOTENT was only a "minority investor". OMNIPOTENT owned "only 49%" of FARS, so that this claim was technically true.
This was convenient for all parties, since the goal was to offer FARS's technology services beyond OMNIPOTENT heritage clients such as "Buddy-Wiser"* (www.buddy-wiser.com) and "MickeyMcBurger"** (www.mickeymcburger.com). It also served the purpose of being seen as an attractive, hot, new media company not affiliated or owned by OMNIPOTENT that major marketers might consider selecting to help them figure out this new thing called the Internet.
In particular, OMNIPOTENT's plan was always to be perceived as a minority investor. FARS's "independence" were an attractive lure to large corporate marketers not affiliated with OMNIPOTENT that were dying for an online services company such as Sue-Mo's and her white-hot shop. It would help OMNIPOTENT get a foothold into companies currently being services by other large holding companies. Companies like PM, a company OMNIPOTENT lusted to infiltrate.
Corporate politics on MadAve being what they are, large marketers like PM (Potent Motors: www.potentmotors.com) based in Detroit, were loyal to their legacy-based agency partners. Having parked its account at its current list of agency partners over 80 years before, PM was less than excited about working with a new media firm that was majority-owned by a competing agency conglomerate such as OMNIPOTENT. It might upset the legacy agency's feathers.
Sue-Mo was in a great position to woo PM, because she could state truthfully that OMNIPOTENT's equity position was just as a minority shareholder. This made everyone feel much more comfortable at PM that FARS was not a Trojan horse. PM would never have allowed FARS in for even a preliminary discussion if it saw a potential conflict down the road.
Being an automotive company, the excitement with "bending tin" (insider jargon for making cars) - and then selling tin with high profit margins - was due to the sizzle MadAve brought to the process. Upscale, educated and affluent people with the ability to spend lots more money on expensive cars than the average car-buyer, was largely due to the image-makers magic.
Therefore, few PM executives would have ever green-lighted entering into serious negotiations with FARS if it was perceived as a threat to its current agency roster. Why rock the boat if it would challenge the harmony between PM and its non-OMNIPOTENT.com agency partners.
None of this mattered to Alice. Her boat was by now taking in water and sinking fast. She was still in the process of getting her sea legs in FARS - in the i-media sea - which was a different part of the MadAve ocean she was unfamiliar with. Up until then, Alice had always worked for privately held companies. She was new to the world of corporate "roll ups" which she thought was a vague term. As she began to understand the game, over time she came to the conclusion it was a polite term which in reality smashed together two or more companies, disregarding the differences in culture, energy or the glue that held each of them together. All of this done for the sole purpose of creating a larger company to appeal to Wall Street vultures and the opportunity to make a killing on the IPO.
*Buddy-Wiser (www.buddy-wiser.com)- The Dallas-based vitamin and health-drink company who rose to the top of the new-age dietary beverage category due to OMNIPOTENT's award winning creative work. A family owned company, they experienced astronomical growth in the late '90's due to the agency's imagery that strongly implied heavy-usage would increase one's IQ. This was largely attributed to the brand tagline, "Get Higher Intelligence". "BW" was an account FARS thirsted for.
**MickeyMcBurger (www.mickeymcburger.com)- The Portland-based salty snacks company who invented and perfected hamburger-flavored potato chips. Now leading the category - due to OMNIPOTENT's brilliant "Meat-IN--Potatoes" (www.meat-IN-potatoes.com) positioning - it represented another account FARS was hungry to work on.
To be continued...
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