More Benefit than a Back Rub

What a week for the Media Jolly! – Monday kicked off proceedings in style with a lavish champagne charity event at the Guild Hall, followed on Tuesday by a ‘quiet client lunch’ which ran right thorough to an evening spent supporting the French wine growers of Bordeaux in their dominance of the London market. This was then followed by a truly decadent Wednesday enjoying treatments including a facial and massage at a luxurious spa day kindly laid on by a media owner in thanks for recent business. Now Friday has arrived and it goes without saying that there are hangovers a plenty today following the City am and Media Week Awards last night.

Yes, even though media agencies are no longer quite as liberal in the drink trolley department as those portrayed in the ever popular Mad Men, the Media Jolly remains a firm favourite pastime. But is this penchant for wining, dining and entertaining merely an indicator that media types like to indulge themselves more than the norm? Or are there other benefits to be gained from such seeming frivolity?

In recent years overtly lavish hospitality spending has come under scrutiny as being surplus and inappropriate to the environment in which we have been working – an environment in which companies have folded and people have been left unemployed. Indeed, many traditional fixtures in the Media Jolly calendar have been cancelled over the last year as the industry gave a nod to the sensitivities of the situation; cocktail dresses were left languishing in the wardrobe, tuxedos gathering dust waiting soberly for their next outing…

Because of course there will always be the next Media Jolly to look forward to, no matter what the economic climate. Those with enough vision to realise that the benefit of such events runs deeper than mere personal enjoyment – from the contacts made, information exchanged and gleaned, to the deals done signed and sealed, will always continue to put their hand in their (often rather large) wallets. To my mind it is true that success within the media industry is synonymous with success at building human relationships – both inside the workplace and at the 19th hole when most self-respecting professionals are working slavishly over a keyboard. Therefore experience tells me I can look my boss in the eye with a clean conscience and tell her that I really did get more benefit from my day at the spa than simply just a back rub.