Right, because Honda "never intended" to leave Grey (Grey?) with their motorcycle business...because they`re tricksy and false? I dunno what the point of that premise was.
 
And you`re probably right about that, Jessica; even in the eighties it was hard for a Japanese company to do business without That Guy somewhere in the company, so Honda would likely have been used to that treatment at this time.
 
By the time I was working for the big Japanese manufacturer in the 90`s it did not appear to be as big a deal. Although I was export sales, so I was mostly dealing with, say, how New Zealand perceived they should do business with a Japanese company.

Right, because Honda "never intended" to leave Grey (Grey?) with their motorcycle business...because they`re tricksy and false? I dunno what the point of that premise was.

That's a thing all big business does with their agencies. See also pitting print/broadcast/web agencies against each other for control of the creative.

...because they`re tricksy and false?

Because if they make Grey think they're going to leave, Grey is motivated to woo them back (lower rates, better media packages, more attention, etc).

[eta: Clients do this to us ALL THE TIME. We generally respond by pointing out that they are more than welcome to license Walter Cronkite footage from any other archive they wish. OH WAIT THAT'S RIGHT YOU CAN'T.]

Because if they make Grey think they're going to leave, Grey is motivated to woo them back (lower rates, better media packages, more attention, etc).

Particularly with the upcoming car business.

That's standard practice in all kinds of business.

Here's a great bunch of Mad Med behind-the-scenes pictures from Rolling Stone. I'm linking to one in the middle because love the incongruity: [link]

The picture of Alison Paré is stunning.

My god. I've just been reading the White Collar thread at TWOP, and boy, are they full of hate.

I know I can't judge the fandom as a whole by what I see there, but there is a lot of (proportionally) concern that Neal's been dumbed down this season, and Peter's been propped up.

I've also read second-hand that there's a lot of Sara hate (I didn't go that far back in the thread to see what they said about her episodes, but what little mention of her I did read was almost ad hominem negativity).

It's always weird reading such starkly dissimilar viewpoints to your own taken as close to gospel (there is a "Peter was always cool" debate going on, thankfully). I just...I just never even had the idea flit across my mind.

Though I do think they dress Sara ridiculously.

OMG, it's evil Santa!

Hardison and Elliot are killing me.