Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash
“Huh.” A breath, hard and sharp, passed her lips, her eyes scrunched as though staring at a puzzle.
Me and the other two guys exchanged looks. “What is it this time?” I asked, weary.
“This is the advertising campaign you think will reach women?”
“It’s worked before.” Barry jumped in. Good man, taking the hit for us this time.
Our intern eyes hardened. “When.” Not a question, that single word, more like a sharp probe into a festering wound we needed draining.
“Recent?” Barry glanced around the table.
The gray-haired Trap shook his head. “Early nineties, that is thirty years ago. We’ve been using it ever since with a bit of refresh, new faces, clothes, hairstyles, but same theme.”
“Right.” She glared at the set of ads, and then looked at us with the same anger. “Look again, only with #metoo eyes.”
I shrugged, closing my eyes for a second, trying to put myself in a woman’s place. Getting ready to see whatever it is we have been missing. What our client has been missing with a loss of market share for a decade now.
Barry, being the youngest of our firm, did the flipped first. “Oh, fuck.”
I winced knowing it would be bad, then looked at it with the new mindset our college girl … our valued professional colleague … had been teaching us old men.
Oh, fuck indeed. I sighed, running a hand down my face. Another client needing a complete overhaul to reach 50% of today’s market share. Every single picture with a woman “buyer” has a man handing her the keys. I ground my teeth.
(words 268, first published 9/4/2022 – from a picture prompt for a Facebook writing group. Aim is about 50 words)