Looking back to those far off days, I wasn't in a brilliant place professionally. It was not long after my major topple off the career ladder. I say (a little tongue in cheek) that I was a victim of the times. Presciently, or ominously (whichever is correct) my interview for the Head of Planning job I'd recently vacated had been 11th September, 2001.
When the ad agency had to close two of its three German offices, it was last in, first out. Me. My trial period wasn't yet over, which made it easy for them to choose. But I was left with the Arbeitsamt and their unsuitable offers, a two-year old child to provide for and a lot of half-baked ideas.
In those days, I didn't even have my own laptop. I'd been used to having one from the agency and now I had to share an Aldi computer with my husband. In fact, Aldi rather became my home-from-home in those days. But more of that later.
Idly leafing through the Stern magazine, the world there still seemed to be in order. There were ads upon ads for stuff I couldn't afford - watches, cars, alcohol, airlines, cameras, glossy magazines (freebies excluded).
But looking through this Stern before I ditch it, there are precious few ads for today's biggest brands. There's a bit of tech, but most of this is rather dull hardware - printers, DVD players, camcorders, PCs, rather like the Aldi one in our sitting room.
But, wait, what's this? Here is one of today's top brands:
Then we have a couple of today's giants in telecoms or the connections economy, or whatever it calls itself. (Currently having a spat about who was there first with the "connecting" idea.)
Vodafone weren't too bad at the brand identity game back in 2002. But look how Telekom have overtaken them since this rather dire effort - while not chucking out the basics (the magenta colour, the "T").
And what about Samsung?
My 2026 eyes wonder if this might have been an attempt at kitschy irony, but my 2002-experienced brain says sadly not.
Oh well. The cover story was Aldi and "The Magic of the Cheap & Cheerful", which goes to show that some things don't really change.
And it was a happy end for me, too. The tumble off the career ladder proved to be one of the best moves I (inadvertently) took. "Secret Agency" (formerly known as "Ideas for Sale") was born, I set up on my own and the rest is (ongoing) history.
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