Derek Zoolander inspires Total

By AdNews | 22 February 2008

SYDNEY: Total Advertising & Communications has added a touch of blue steel to its operations, introducing a new training program for staff inspired by a character created by Hollywood actor Ben Stiller.

The program is called “The Derek Zoolander Centre For Children Who Can’t Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too?”, or Derek Zoolander Centre for short, and was developed by Total business managers Helen Bond, Michelle Pelikan and Kate George.

It is designed to be a hand on accompaniment to the more traditional media training offered by the agency, and entails weekly homework and awards presentations.

“The Derek Zoolander Centre is our way of consolidating the group’s training but without taking ourselves too seriously. The whole program has been really effective and all the guys working on it have absolutely loved it," Helen Bond, business manager at Total, said.

Bond said the weekly homework included  “light hearted and imaginative Q & A’s and dummy briefs” to support systems such as Roy Morgan, TV Mapping, Radioadvisor and ETAM used by staff.

Account co-ordinators, account managers and implementation executives will participate in the program. Scores are tallied each week and a presentation lunch will be held in March.

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