The ever-reliable Page Six recently shared some shocking-if-true news from the client side: startup executives tend to be egocentric and self-important.
In this case, the execs are the CEO and COO of Machine Zone, makers of the Game of War series. A trusty anonymous source claims that these two sort of killed the fun on the Croatian set of the most recent ad by Untitled starring one Mariah Carey, which launched earlier this week.
The charges:
“they threw a fit about the brand of water, huffed about catering, and moaned about the heat…
[CEO Gabriel Leydon] insisted his wife — as well as [COO Kristen Dumont’s] husband — appear in the commercial.”
That’s some pretty thin gruel. Page Six also appears to be offended by this scoop:
“Leydon’s wife, Taryn, has had designs on being a diva herself, and posted YouTube videos crooning tunes by Jewel, Jennifer Holiday and others.”
So she posted videos of her vocal performances to YouTube and this is somehow a bad thing. It’s like she forced the staff at Page Six to sit through them or something.
The ad’s director Alan Taylor also contradicts the source, saying:
“It was really fun to see people who weren’t jaded, who got into costumes . . . grown-ups acting like kids. It was like a fun day in summer camp.”
Machine Zone calls the accusations “false and silly” and Untitled, for its part, describes the campaign as such:
“…our main goal was to showcase the social aspect of Game of War – Fire Age and how it revolves around alliances that can be called upon whenever your empire might need saving.
With this work, we were able to have a little more fun, all while showcasing our love of melodramatic slow motion and passion for 90’s ballads.”
See, this makes sense.
The agency also made another ad for Game of War that doesn’t feature any famous ladies or (allegedly) egotistical executives. We can’t embed it here, but the theme is bored office workers taking out their hidden aggression against one another by playing a certain online game, and it’s a pretty cool spot.
Going to have to side against the gossip rag in this case.