A few years ago I worked as a freelancer writer in advertising. To demonstrate my wares I actually wrote ads that explained my skills. This is #3 of 3. The headline read: “And now a TVC by joe Di Stefano. Or how to PTC in 30 seconds or less.” The text below followed:

The commercial opens on a man, sitting beside a window reading Campaign Brief. From his P.O.V. we see he is reading an advertisement for a writer named Joe Di Stefano. The soft morning light, floods the room. Appropriate music plays throughout the scene adding to the mood. Probably something from Richard Clayderman.

Just over the edge of the magazine, through the window, an out-of -focus shape appears. The magazine is slowly drawn out of frame and we focus on the shape. It belongs to an extremely attractive woman in an apartment across the way. Her woollen bathrobe hugs a sumptuously full figure. Her hair is wet.

In slow motion, and in close-up, large beads of water slowly cascade onto a delicate, lightly tanned shoulder blade and rush headlong down the front of the woman’s bathrobe where they hurriedly disappear; obviously to live happily ever after.

Richard Clayderman’s music starts to swell, but comes to a sudden impasse. Silence. An instant. It is followed by a tense, sustained musical note.

Slowly, her eyes rise.

We see them in close-up. Deep pools of blue. They look directly at camera. At us. Through us.

We are pierced by them.

She has seen us watching. But she is not alarmed by it.

A subtle, mischievous smile plays across her lips.

We can’t move. We are immobilised by the sensuous power of her stare. While she holds us within its vice, her hand pushes back small strands of wet hair from her face.

A few drops fall across her full moist lips.

Her hands step lightly down to one button after another.

Each is slowly twisted and pushed through to freedom.

Beneath the bathrobe, white, young skin reveals its lustre and sheer attraction. She knows you are unable to break the spell her eyes have put on you.

And she is enjoying the game.

As Richard Clayderman reaches his climax, she slowly purses her lips and pushes air through them to emit a whistle.

In answer to the sound, a large, male donkey canters into the room.

It is at this stage that the client you’ve been presenting to, stands, grabs her things and leaves the meeting.

You should have realised there could have been a problem when the normal client, the balding one who constantly scratched his crutch, didn’t turn up. The one who often frothed at the mouth when he saw the receptionist.

And who one late night after a few drinks claimed to be so horny the crack-of-dawn better watch out. It’s amazing the people we have drinks with to pay the mortgage.

And it’s amazing the things we do to P.T.C. (Please The Client.)

Yep, the client had changed. If we’d known earlier, we might have used the sensitive, politically correct 90’s script.

What more can you say?