The brainwash

I'm back. I was supposed to be brainwashed by now, but I survived the process.

What a weird business going on there...

Anyways, went to the hotel on Sunday, met my room mate, lovely and sweet Idil.

Met the other boys (we were only 2 girls) and spend a nice afternoon together, having some tapas. We were from Portugal, Turkey, Canada, Brazil, Belgium, UK and Spain.

We didn't know much about the job, we were all eyes and ears. We were all there for the adventure. We didn't know what the job was exactly about.

To summarize it, they send teams of 3 people (a girl and 2 boys) to mainly underdeveloped countries in order to sell advertising in the country report that these teams will help elaborate. They are sent for a minimum period of 3 months and their goal is to sell as many pages as possible. How? By trying their utmost best to sell advertising space on their report which might be published on the medium they work with, so it might be The Economist, The New York Times, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, etc etc.

These are valid country branding, in the sense that their goal is to attract foreign investment and help consolidate a good image of a country. But it's more appearances than we think, as if I can't have the company, whose CEO my 'journalist' just interviewed for an hour, to buy an ad in this report, his comments aren't going to be published, meaning that if they don't give us money, we aren't taking him into consideration, saying quite the contrary during the whole meeting. The prices of these ads are absolutely incredible, and we must convince these top leaders to sign the contrat on the spot. This in Africa, for instance.

They said, indirectly, of course, that I was to use my feminine charms and that was why I was there (I felt cheated and on a very machist environment). And although the team is comprised always of 3, it is always the role of the girl to sell and the boys to pretend they are journalists and photographers for all these famous publications. And the money we get is supposedely transferred from an offshore bank account.

In a nutshell, the whole thing stunk but I've learnt how to do a presentation of 20 mins, memorise all that, present myself impecably, watch my gestures and body language, maintain eye contact, smile, chit chat, boost people's egos, get them to trust me... I can't say these are bad, I really enjoyed these. It's just on what they are used that made me feel a bit bitter. Like interviewing Mr Taha, who is one of the architects of war in Sudan, or the dictator of Congo. All of this with a smile, saying he is so incredible and we must have a nice photo of him in my paper which reaches the right audiences for him to get the foreign investment he deserves.

It's against my morality. This is not selling a physical thing, it's selling an idea, selling an utopia for the price of one too. It's being really pushy, really annoying but with a smile and a hand on his arm. I know all sales have that component of persuasion, but this is really low, it's making people believe they are so special they must be part of the editorial, but if they can't see the point of also being in the advertising side of it, then they are totally dispensable.

And as I'm not like that, I can't get my enthusiasm felt if I don't feel it myself, they told me I didn't have that commercial profile they were looking for. To tell you the truth, I was happy I didn't have the profile of person they wanted...