Ad Execs Are Using This Blog To Get Revenge On Their Creepy Bosses And Clients

A blog called "The Creative Confessional" started life as a place where art directors and copywriters at ad agencies could go to anonymously confess their weird quirks and dislikes about the job. A typical confession would be, "For fun, I convinced an AE to only use Bing."

Amusing, but harmless.

Until recently.

The confessions have taken a dark turn in the last few days, with execs posting material on the blog that identifies specific workplaces and even individuals.

For example, this confession is, obviously, all about TBWA/Chiat/Day, the ad agency for Apple:

It's not too mean. But then there's this ...

BHP Billiton is the world's largest mining company. It has used Lawrence Creative as its agency. I'm not saying that a Lawrence exec wrote that confession. But a person could be forgiven for thinking that, based on the confession's words. Which is why the blog is so (unintentionally) vicious.

Here's another example:

Copyright and trademark law in the fashion business is nebulous at best. It's difficult to own a look or a color. But companies can use expensive litigation as a weapon. If this person is employed at a small company, Lululemon could put them out of business.

It gets personal, too. Presumably there are three women out there who know exactly what this was all about:

This one is kinda funny ...

... but creating fake likes is not only against Facebook's rules, it's a legal issue too. Reverb PR was once cited by the FTC for writing fake product reviews for its clients.

Likewise, this move is professional suicide:

Pepsi is the blue brand, in case you live under a rock. Clients have fired agencies from their accounts for screwing up this kind of thing.

Then there are the petty acts of revenge by underlings:

And power-plays by egomaniacs:

The blog also covers the unpleasant side of agency life that could occur at any office:

Although this woman has issues only she can solve: