“Because a Scot is very canny when it comes to investing your money.”
Remember that ad?
Gordon Jackson, of The Great Escape and The Professionals fame, talking up the virtuous thriftiness of Scottish Amicable.
For readers under the age of 50 (I assume that’s most of you), Scottish Amicable was a life assurance society. We don’t insure a life, despite what your superannuation benefits page says.
The television ad played on the reputation Scottish people have for dying with the first pound they earned still tucked in their sporran.
I don’t know if the ad would pass the 2023 “woke” test of stereotyping nationalities and races.
Even writing about this 40-something-year-old marketing campaign will give this newspaper’s Readers’ Editor a bad case of heartburn.
I have brought up this old advertisement because remembering things like that ad gives me (and, I hope, you, dear reader) a little pleasure.
It’s also a neat segue to the topic of oil and gas company Santos and its boss Kevin Gallagher.
Kevin is Scottish. He used his tenure as the chief executive to reinforce the preconceived idea about the largesse, or lack thereof, of kilt-wearers.
He ran a very tight ship at Santos. There was a rumour kicking around a few years ago that the stationery cupboard was manned by someone who demanded you prove your Bic was inkless before you were allowed a fresh pen.
I hope Kerry Stokes doesn’t adopt that policy because every day for the past 20 years I have pinched a red, blue and black pen (plus some Post-It notes) from the store room with the intent of opening a stationery store in my retirement.
Kevin’s reputation for keeping his sporran strings tight took a battering last week when it emerged Santos spent more than $5 million on a private jet last year.
The company has justified the outlay by saying Santos’ merger with Oil Search meant there was a lot more travel for important company business.
Investor roadshows, meetings with financiers, events with major customers, negotiations with suppliers and . . . rugby matches. Specifically, a Scotland versus Ireland game to which Gallagher (who’s Scottish, remember) was invited.
And companies wonder why workers get cynical when they’re told they can’t get a pay rise because of tight budgets.
Santos has its own public relations machine but no doubt Big Oil’s masters of dark arts were there to support them.
Did I say Big Oil? Sorry, it’s now Big Energy.
APPEA, which was the acronym for the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, has changed its name to Australian Energy Producers.
AEP’s brief? Lobby for Australian petroleum producers and explorers.
The scriptwriters at Utopia would blush at that one.
THE DEIFICATION OF TREV
On the (loose) topic of corporate morality, it was good fun watching every sports “journalist” in WA go into a tizz on Tuesday when the West Coast Eagles called a press conference about the CEO’s future.
The big news? Trevor Nisbett is leaving. In a year. When his contract expires. Maybe.
You know how disinfectants kill 99.9 per cent of germs? Nisbett’s the 0.1.
Every time we thought he was dead, he came back. He’s the white walker of Australian sports and for 25 years there’s been no Jon Snow.
Nissie will have a few war stories when (and if) he does step down as CEO when his contract expires late next year.
Which premiership was most satisfying? Which near miss the most gut-wrenching?
Which outrageously high annual profit, posted at the expense of fee-paying members, was the most gratifying?
And which scandal was the most memorable?
Was it the one that triggered the official inquiry by former WA deputy premier Hendy Cowan which concluded that in the six years to 2007 more than a dozen Eagles were involved in 35 often illegal incidents?
Or was it the earlier one by former Supreme Court judge William Gillard which was so explosive Eagles management buried it deep so nobody would ever find it (until the Herald Sun did, 10 years later)?
This guy will be deified come next October, but let’s remember he ran a club where for a long time the players did everything short of the Auzzie the Eagle.