Mark Garner (Gordo) borrows mission statement from the BBC (sort of)

There’s no question about it. Mark Garner, or as his alter ego is known, Gordo of Manchester Confidentials, is a legend in his own lunchtime. And if you want to know all you need to know about Mark, food critic extraordinaire and business philosopher manqué, simply refer to his Linked In mission statement. It states his mission is to inform, educate, entertain and irritate. Borrowing heavily from the famous BBC mission statement, but with the addition of the irritation factor.

There’s no doubt that Mark can sometimes irritate the unsuspecting restauranteur, because he tells it like it is. In his words “we’re completely and utterly honest and that’s why we’re a trusted brand throughout the North West of England”. As for doing business with Mr Manchester Confidential, some may say “approach with caution”. However, when we were approached to undertake a project, we saw someone who may have the odd skeleton in the cupboard, but who was now in rude health (no pun intended) and running a highly successful and leading edge on-line publishing group.

We were definitely up for the challenge of somehow capturing Mark’s very personal, idiosyncratic and at times very funny sales pitch. Mark and his people tried to brief us to produce a Sales Presenter and Media Pack for his expanding sales force. But how could any agency capture the unique, ad-libbing, charismatic style of Mark Garner. There was only one way to do so. And that was to invite Mark to come to the agency and pitch to us as if we were a new restaurant setting up in Manchester.

The session was duly recorded, studied, agonised over and finally we came up with a tone of voice and visual style that was as close as anyone would ever get to the maestro’s sales pitch. And given that Mark is renowned for only accepting the very best, be that from a restaurant or anyone else, we were more than pleased that our proposal didn’t irritate him in the least. In fact, he rather liked it. So much so, that it’s now helping to convince an ever-increasing number of restaurants, that Manchester Confidential is very much to their taste.

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