Agency Introduces 12-Step Client Detox for Account Managers Struggling to Feel Again
WELLINGTON — After three years of back-to-back pitch seasons, five failed rebrands, and a particularly traumatic Midwinter Christmas Dinner activation, local ad agency Timber & Fog has launched a pioneering internal mental wellness initiative: a 12-step Client Detox programme aimed at helping account managers reconnect with basic human emotions.
"We've noticed a worrying trend of our staff referring to family members as 'stakeholders' and describing holidays as 'Q3 decompression sprints'," said Managing Director Callum Renshaw-Forde, while stress-drinking a juice cleanse. "When someone called their baby ‘a net-new onboarding experience’, we knew it was time to intervene."
The programme includes activities like walking barefoot on grass without asking for a purchase order, engaging in small talk that doesn’t circle back to budget constraints, and practising saying 'no' without a pre-read deck. Step 7 involves sitting through a conversation without optimising it for cutdowns. Step 9 is reportedly just crying at an ad. Not analysing it. Just crying.
Early results are promising. One junior suit, who hadn’t blinked in 14 months, is now confidently using punctuation in Slack messages. Another deleted LinkedIn for seven minutes. The agency has already nominated itself for three wellness awards, two of which it invented mid-brief.
"We've noticed a worrying trend of our staff referring to family members as 'stakeholders' and describing holidays as 'Q3 decompression sprints'," said Managing Director Callum Renshaw-Forde, while stress-drinking a juice cleanse. "When someone called their baby ‘a net-new onboarding experience’, we knew it was time to intervene."
The programme includes activities like walking barefoot on grass without asking for a purchase order, engaging in small talk that doesn’t circle back to budget constraints, and practising saying 'no' without a pre-read deck. Step 7 involves sitting through a conversation without optimising it for cutdowns. Step 9 is reportedly just crying at an ad. Not analysing it. Just crying.
Early results are promising. One junior suit, who hadn’t blinked in 14 months, is now confidently using punctuation in Slack messages. Another deleted LinkedIn for seven minutes. The agency has already nominated itself for three wellness awards, two of which it invented mid-brief.