The Client I'll Never Forget

Over the years I’ve had good clients and, well, let’s just say the opposite of good. But every now and then I get a great client. The kind of client who makes the late nights, stupid deadlines and briefs on the back of an envelope worthwhile.

One such client was Philippe Daudy.

He knew nothing of marketing speak, or branding. He’d never heard of SEO, ROI, ABM or any of the acronyms so beloved by marketeers today.

Monsieur Daudy was a former member of the French Resistance.

If that weren’t enough to distinguish him, he was wounded in an attack on a Gestapo transport depot at Lyon and awarded the Croix de Guerre. 

Later he became a war correspondent in Korea, Greece, the Far East and Yugoslavia.

He was also a published author and wrote a book entitled 'Les Anglais', which poked fun at the English.

Cut a long story short he thought we were prudes, perverts and hypocrites.

I knew none of this.

He walked into a room and commanded it. Laughed loudly. Looked at you with gimlet precision.

All I was told was that he’d just bought a chateaux and Armagnac business and wanted to create a label that looked as if it was a few hundred years old.

This was in my account handler days in my twenties, when my job was to do whatever was required. Short of prostituting myself I did just that.

We met in his home between Fulham and Chelsea - nothing so crass as an office meeting. If memory serves me rightly it was a charming Edwardian pile with a wild cottage garden that takes real skill to cultivate, and a lounge full of artefacts that spoke of international travel, academia and taste.

As a girl from Essex I was a touch daunted. The most sophisticated object d’art in my parent’s house was a glass bottle in the shape of a matador.

Thankfully I was ‘ignorant of my ignorance’ to quote Ms Rowling. That’s no longer the case, unfortunately, but back then I could shrug off any stirrings of imposter syndrome before they took root.

Monsieur Daudy’s elegant wife treated me to tea and biscuits while we discussed what to do next.

There was no talk of ‘strategy’. No discussions of customer journeys. It was all about genuine love of Armagnac, and the centuries old tradition of transporting it on barges down the river Baïse in the Gironde.

He talked about the quality of the grape, viticulture, climate, and a certain aesthetic he was keen to emulate.

His passion became my passion. I found myself riffling through drawers of labels at the V&A. Then I sought out an artist who could produce genuine wood cuts. And I read as many books on Armagnac as I could from libraries.

This was pre internet. You had to search for knowledge, not google it or ask AI to find it for you.

At the time I was working as an account handler for a bijoux marketing agency in Holland Park where we pretty much made things up as we went along. In my case that included writing, just because I could, though I fully expected to hand over my scribbles to a copywriter.

But Philippe said he liked my copy so much, we didn't need one.

Looking back on my efforts I’m not sure he was right. The brochure I wrote read more like an historical essay than marketing blurb. And it’s entirely possible that Philippe wanted to save a bob or two.

But he set me off on a different path from the one I was on. He gave me the confidence — eventually — to switch to copywriting full-time.

I wished I’d known about his extraordinary life. But he never mentioned it, and of course I never asked.

All I knew was that he represented a world of sophistication and no-nonsense practicality. He made decisions quickly and was clearly having a lot of fun.

I've always measured my experiences against my time with him.

Work should be fun shouldn't it?

After all, if no one's shooting at you, what's the worst that can happen?