#307 In which our hero recounts a mysterious and new word he learned at his new agency.

I’ve been at the new job for about eight months now. I feel like I’m getting into the groove of this place, finally, but the first couple weeks were a little rough. This agency is a purely digital agency, and my experience is primarily print and collateral. I’ve done plenty of websites and online banner ads, but I’ve never gotten into the finer points of search engine optimization, highly-interactive user experiences, rich media banners and all the other stuff that takes the online experience to a much higher level.

I expected there to be a learning curve, but it was steeper than I thought. There was a lot of information presented in orientation that had me scratching my head; stuff that I assumed I would pick up as I got settled in.

But then, there was the lingo. This agency is thick with jargon and agency-specific titles, programs and processes.

My first week on the job I was anxious to prove myself and jump in and start producing good work. I was almost immediately pulled into a project for a smaller east coast bank. During the briefing, the Creative Director mentioned that we were going to have to turn around a concept pretty quickly, and would be producing an adlob to sell the idea.

Adlob?

This is a term I was not familiar with. He mentioned it in passing, like it was something that everyone would know. I wrote in my notebook “ad-lob? WTF?” and planned on looking it up later. Maybe it was a banking term? I’ve done lots of financial stuff in the past, but that wasn’t ringing any sort of bell.

But I let it go. Then, a couple of minutes later, the CD mentioned it again. I stopped him, saying, “Okay, sorry, but what’s an ad-lob?”

He explained that it was an “ad-like object.” Adlob. I laughed and shook my head. In my previous agencies we would have probably said it was a mock-up. Most likely something that looked similar to an ad you might see in a magazine. Nothing that was to proper dimensions or even with finalized copy and graphics—just something to get in front of the client so they know where our thinking was.

This was my first taste of much more silly jargon to come.

###

#301 In which our hero reveals the rather unlikely story of how he got his job, part 2.

When we left off, I was again trying to get my foot in the door of a new agency.

I saw the creative director’s tweet, so I fired off the following email:

Hey D.,

Word on the street is you're back in the market for a copywriter. I'd love to continue the conversation we begin at Starbucks way back when.

My resume is attached.

Thanks,

craig.

I didn’t hear anything back for two days. On the afternoon of the second day I figured I’d send a “hey, you got my resume, right?” sort of email just to remind him that I was still interested. I was also very aware that last time we talked it was mentioned that I didn’t have a lot of online experience. I was assured this wasn’t a big deal, but it still concerned me. As it so happened, I had just finished a really cool internal website project—featuring zombies. It was for the agency Halloween party, and the art director I worked with did a fantastic job. As of this writing the site is still up and functioning at this link, but I imagine it will be taken down at some point. I thought it really expressed my creativity and I hoped this guy would appreciate it.

So I logged into my email account to send off the reminder email and the zombie website link, to find this email waiting for me:

Hey man...good hearing from you. Quite honestly...I worked with you and Brad says great things about you (which is key) but quite honestly, my guess is you're a bit "high" for our salary...I wanted to hire someone a bit more junior...not unless you're interested in taking a big pay cut ;-) Be happy to chat or grab a cup of coffee with you sometime...thanks for the note.

I was disappointed, but what could I do? If they were looking for a entry level writer, I most certainly was out of their price range. So I wrote back:

Yeah, if you're looking for an entry level person, I'm sure I'm way out of consideration.

I'd love to work with you and Brad again. If a senior level position opens up I hope you'd consider me.

In the meantime, here's a project I worked on recently that was a lot of fun:

http://www.malonealert.com

It's a website for our agency Halloween party. We had a week's worth of games, including a contest where you had to shoot cut-out zombies with a NERF shotgun. I wrote everything you see, including the scripts for the PSA videos on the bottom of the page. I shot and edited those, too.

I'll hit you up for that coffee sometime when I'm in the area.

Take care,

craig.

And I figured that that was it. But then, about 20 minutes later, I got this email:

Dude..I consider myself a zombie expert...me and my son. Have you read The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks? Classic! Thanks for sending...keep in touch...I'll be sure to do the same.

I had no idea that this guy was into zombies, of course. But fate seemed to give me an in. So I followed up with this:

I haven't read that, but I did read "World War Z" by the same author. Highly recommended.

Not to brag, but I won "Best Zombie" in the costume contest this year.

And got this email in return:

Photos?

So I sent back this:

(Actually, this isn't the photo I sent back. I had a much better one, a close-up on my face where you could tell I was wearing one red contact.)

And almost immediately got this in return:

Dude...LOVE the red contact...killer! Where did you get it?

And at this point, I’m kinda like, what’s going on here? We’re chatting back and forth like old friends, but the whole point of this exchange was that I wanted a job, and it seems like we’re moving away from that. But I figured what the hell and sent this:

The contacts are a brand called "Gothika." You can get all sorts of crazy lenses. I bought these online a couple years ago for a vampire costume (photo attached).

Now, not to toot my own horn, but that Nosferatu costume was bad ass. It is by far my best Halloween effort ever. I loved it, but in no way did I expect to get this kind of response back:

Get the fuck outta here! That rocks! Did you shave your head?

Keep in mind that there are actual emails I'm cutting and pasting here. So when I get a f-bomb email in response, like we're best buddies, I’m still very much where’s this going? But replied with this:

You bet. Shaved my head, shaved off my goatee, the works.

The best part? I lost the costume contest. To a guy who came in drag. Three years later, I'm STILL bitter about it.

And then, got this in response:

I want to hire you more than ever now.

I was home when I received this email and called The Scientist over. “What am I supposed to make of this?” I asked her. I mean, I was all about winning this guy over and making the jump to another agency, but then I started to worry that he was some sort of flake that would make a hiring decision based on a Halloween costume.

But, things at my current agency were really rather shitty, so I continued to play along.

Shit, say the word and I'll shave my head TONIGHT.

And I honestly figured that would be the end of it. This guy would send me an email that said Ha, ha! But unfortunately, like I said before, you’re too expensive for us. But keep in touch!

What I did not expect is this:

Let's grab coffee next week. I think it was the vampire picture. Let me know what works for you.

So we met for coffee. Spent the first 20 minutes talking about zombie movies. This guy, as it turns out, is a zombie NUT. He told me how he and his son will play a game where they pick the best places to hole up in case of a zombie apocalypse. He is INTO zombies.

The funny this is, I’m not. I mean, yeah, I enjoy a good zombie movie as much as the next guy, but I like most monster movies. It was just through a weird twist of fate that I suggested that the agency Halloween party be zombie themed, allowing me the present a zombie website for consideration and giving me the excuse to dress up like a zombie, which in turn gave me an in to showcase my vampire costume from three years ago which, it appears, so impressed this guy that he decided to interview me again.

Weird.

I mean, I have a good portfolio, and I took his advice and updated it with samples that better showed off my digital experience and my “big idea” creativity in general. I think (I hope!) that he wouldn’t have given the job to any smuck who happened to share his love for zombie movies.

So, long story short, he did offer me the job in the end. Not on the spot or anything, I still had to jump through several painful hopes for their HR department—including talking to SEVEN different HR people. But here I am, working for one of the largest agencies in northeast Ohio, the largest privately-held digital agency in the world, and the #1 “Agency to Watch” as rated by industry mag Advertising Age.

Thanks, Nosferatu!

###

#300 In which our hero reveals the rather unlikely story of how he got his job, part 1.

As promised, the tale of how I landed my current job.

About two and a half years ago the agency I was working at hired a new writer named Brad. When I was looking at Brad’s brief background info on the “welcome new hires!” wall, I noticed that we had worked at a lot of the same places. In fact, he had been hired in at my old job at The Columbus Dispatch shortly after I left.

We chatted and hit it off. But Brad was fired after three months. No fault of his own; the agency had staffed up anticipating that we would win at least one of the three new pieces of business we were pitching. When we ended up with none of them, the decision was made to “de-staff.” I’ve seen agencies make this sort of move before, and I’ve always thought it was pretty shitty.

Brad and I stayed in touch after he cleared out. He ended up going to Wyse Advertising, the same agency that I worked for when I first moved to Cleveland. Our careers were on weird parallel paths.

About a year ago Brad emails me out of the blue and tells me that he’s at a new agency, and they’re looking for a writer. Up to that point I had been really happy with the agency I was at, but things had started to go south there, and I was growing increasingly unhappy. So I shot Brad my resume. Someone from their HR department contacted me and the wheels of the interview process began to turn. But they were turning veeery sloooowly.

I had to fill out some online employment forms, and have a pre-interview phone interview with another recruiter from the agency and jump through a few other hoops. I was a little frustrated by the glacial pace of things, but I think Brad was even more frustrated. Which was understandable since he was the other writer and was getting severally shit upon with a ridiculous workload.

Finally Brad calls me and says, “Screw this! I’m just setting up an interview myself. You can meet me and my boss at Starbucks and we’ll talk.” He tells me his boss’s name and I’m like, jeez, that name sounds familiar.

About a week later I show up at the appointed time and place and find Brad already there. We get some coffee and chat for a bit. Then his boss (who’s the Group Creative Director for Cleveland) shows up and I realize that I do know this guy. In fact, we worked together at Wyse which is, remember, the same one that Brad went to after he was fired from my current agency. The advertising community is pretty insular in northeast Ohio.

He remembers me and we BS for a minute about how Wyse is doing, and the people that worked there, and so on. Then we get to my portfolio and start going through it.

Then, in the weirdest of coincidences, as we’re sitting at Starbucks with my book wide open on the table when who walks in but my old Creative Director from Wyse. He and the department’s writer (a guy I also worked with) just happened to be on that side of town for a client meeting and popped in to get some coffee. This guy sees Brad’s boss first and says, “Hey D. Good to see you.” Then he notices Brad (he didn’t know those two were working together now) and says, “And Brad! Hey!” Then he notices me, and says, “And Craig? What the hell is going on here?!”

We all laugh and share a small world moment. Then he sees my portfolio and starts flipping through it. It’s funny because I still have work from my time at Wyse in there and he’s like, “Oh yeah! I remember this project!”

It’s all rather odd.

We finally get back to my interview and it’s all pretty positive. My work is mostly traditional advertising (i.e., print ads, radio, brochures) and the place I’m interviewing for is a digital agency (mostly websites and email) so there’s a little concern there… not so much that I can’t do the job, more that the work I’m showing doesn’t put me in the best light to get hired.

Hands are shaken all around and it’s over.

What follows is a really disappointing series of emails from Brad and the HR department, that boil down to this: you’re awesome, but we’re not going to hire you right now. We’re going to hire a freelancer instead. Catch you next time.

So that’s that.

A year passes. Brad and I stay in touch, and he laments how the freelance writers they’re getting in suck and how they should have hired me.

Then, about five months ago, the creative director tweets “Immediate opening for a copywriter in Cleveland. Send me your resumes.”

I pat myself on the back for being smart enough to add this guy to my Twitter feed after our last meeting and shoot off an email right away.

What happens next is so strange that I still have a bit of trouble believing it’s all for real.

###

#299 In which our hero tries to catch up.

The blog’s been dark for a couple months not because I don’t have anything to write about, but just the opposite. Lots of big stuff has been happening lately. Some highlights:

Mom’s Health

After all the doom and gloom in the past six months, mom is actually doing really well. I mean, she has COPD and as such, she’ll never have the quality of life she once did. She progressed rapidly from needing oxygen when she exerted herself, to needing it for longer periods while she recovered from illness, to full time. For a long time she keep telling me that she was sure that she’d get off her oxygen as soon as she recovered from the latest bout of flu or pneumonia or whatever.

She doesn’t say that any more.

It’s pretty clear that she is now permanently tethered to her O2 tank. In fact, there was an incident several weeks ago where she lost power in the middle of the night, meaning her oxygen concentrator machine stopped working. She didn’t think she had enough bottled O2 to make it through the night (she only keeps a few small bottles in the house, enough for her to take with her when running errands) and she panicked. She called 9-1-1 and the local fire department brought her a big bottle of O2. Of course, the power came back on an hour later.

She said it was quite the fuss in the neighborhood. She laughed it off, but I know full well that the reason it was a fuss in the neighborhood is that when people see an ambulance in my mother’s driveway, they assume the worst. And they should.

But, as of now mom’s in pretty good shape, all things considered. Even her latest cancer scans came back clear. And the weather’s finally starting to turn, so mom’s getting back out and about. Being how social my mother is, this is a critical turn of events.

Bullying at School

Lily (my 7-year-old) had a run-in with a bully at her daycare. She had mentioned had N. was sometimes mean to her, and both The Scientist and I witness N. being a little bossy, but we really didn’t make much of it.

But one day while my wife was picking up, she was there when this little girl mouthed off to the teacher. The Scientist chided her (that the teacher didn’t immediately address this disrespectful kid is a whole other story) telling her that she was being rude, and shouldn’t talk to her teacher, or any grown-up, like that. She pouted a bit, and stomped off. A couple minutes later one of N’s hangers-on came over and told my wife, “N. says she doesn’t care what you say, because you’re not her mommy.” So The Scientist went over to N. and said, “Y’know what? I know your mommy and maybe I’ll just talk to her about your behavior directly.” This seemed to put the fear of God into her, and she straightened up. For the rest of that day, at least.

But soon after Lily started telling us that N. was bothering her at school. We told her to ignore N. as best as she could and not engage her. But Lily said that she tried that, and N. would follow her around the classroom, taunting her and basically being a shit.

So, the next day of daycare, The Scientist pulled the center director aside and told her what was going on. And then the director pulled N. aside and said something to her. Whatever it was, the situation seems to be handled. N. isn’t bothering Lily any more, and even plays with her sometimes. Lily is such a sweet kid that she holds no grudge whatsoever.

It’s tempting to just dismiss this as kids being kids, but it worries me. Mostly because Lily is such a sensitive soul, and it only takes something minor, like being excluded from group activities by one mean girl, to set her off. And bullies, like the proto-mean girl N., feed off of that. I worry that Lily will constantly be the target of shitty kids who enjoy making other kids cry. Part of me wants to always be there to intervene and smack down anyone who dares hurt my child; but another part of me wants Lily to learn to be tough, and deal with crap like this herself. I’m sure the real answer is somewhere in-between the two.

Employment

And now, the really big news! I quit my job! And got another one! Not necessarily in that order!

I’d been increasingly unhappy at my job for some time. First, it was in Akron, meaning a 45-minute commute every day. Which sucked in terms of gas consumed and wear and tear on my car but, honestly, after five years I had gotten used to the drive. In fact it was kinda nice to have the time to listen to the news or, more often, audio books. But still, in the winter you could count on at least a couple days in which the 45-minute drive turned into two hours or more. And it was always a pain to juggle kid pick-up and afterschool activities with the drive.

The agency had also changed considerably from when I first started. Five years ago it was fairly laid back, and really tried to keep things fun with monthly activities like a 5 o’clock ice cream social, or 2 o’clock margaritas or an impromptu pancake breakfast.

But, over time that stuff started to go away. My department used to have departmental outings; for example, we all took off at noon one day and went bowling. That stopped happening, mostly because the volume of work demanded that we needed people there at their desks churning out the work at all business hours.

And that’s really the biggest thing that got to me, the agency turned into a factory. It felt like we were all on an assembly line, and the overriding goal to was crank out a large volume of work. If it was good work, and creative work, that was a plus. But mostly we needed to hit the deadlines. Which became shorter and shorter, most of the work due in a day or less. And even the projects where we had enough time to give them some good thought got short shrift, since they went to the bottom of the pile so we could address the short deadline stuff.

I had some run-ins with account people who actively dissuaded creative thought in favor of “safe” concepts that would sail by the client. More and more I was put into the position to create copy that wasn’t the best, just the least objectionable.

Everyone in the Creative Department was worn down. I didn’t even put up much of a fight anymore when confronted with absurd deadlines or piss-poor direction. I just rolled over and did what I was told.

Which is the worst possible situation a creative person can him themselves in. Because I really believe that creativity is a muscle, and if you don’t exercise it regularly, it will atrophy and die. I was very much in jeopardy of having that happen. Which could mean that not only was I not doing my job very well, but I might actually be hurting my chances at ever getting another job. I’ve seen co-workers who have a portfolio of work they did five, ten years ago. With nothing creative to show done recently. That’s a huge red flag to a perspective new employer.

Even so, I only half-heartedly looked for another job. And, as it turned out, a job found me. This is such a ridiculous story that I’m going to write it up as its own post. Stay tuned!

###

#289 In which our hero makes a pointless post.

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that most of what I do at my job is pointless.

As my long-time readers (both of you) already know, I work in advertising. I actually love it, which seems to fly in the face of what I’ve written above. But I don’t see advertising like other people do, i.e., blaringly loud TV commercials that interrupt your favorite show just as it’s getting good, or obnoxiously scented ads that fall into your lap when you open your favorite magazine.

I see it as a dynamic job in which I help connect people with products they need in creative, entertaining ways. I get to do something different every day, and am faced with new challenges that push me to improve my skills.

That is to say, that’s what my job should be. That’s not the day-to-day reality.

No, the fact is that at my current agency my real job is to creative advertising that makes the client happy. That’s job 1. Not connecting with customers, or positioning the brand or, even, selling product. It’s making the client happy.

And not even that, really. What I’m really tasked with is not making the client unhappy. So, if I work on advertising that touches on brand promises, clears their legal department easily and doesn’t offend anyone… they’re happy. Not happy like “Wow! That’s great advertising! This is really going to move some product!” More like, “Good, this won’t rock the boat and force me to do more work then the bare minimum I need to.”

Let me give an example. Well, not an example really… I don’t want to lose my job, so I’ll speak in generalities.

One of the clients I work for is a large food manufacturer. One of those mega-conglomerates that makes everything from frozen pizza to gumballs. One of the many things we create and execute for this client are FSIs. FSI stands for “free-standing insert,” and it is that loose piece of paper printed with a coupon that you find stuffed into the center of your Sunday paper.

And coupon is the critical part of that description. The only reason that FSIs exist are as a vehicle to get that coupon into the hands of a shopper. They aren’t designed to build brand awareness, make you feel good about the company, or any of the touchy-feeling stuff that Marketing Directors love to talk about. One reason: coupon into hand.

And I’m sure you get that. I mean, if you’re a coupon clipper you’re used to flipping through all those sheets and putting aside the coupons for products that you like or would like to try. I seriously doubt that you take the time to really read the rest of the page… the part that talks about the wholesome ingredients or the earth-friendly manufacturing process or whatever. You just want the 50 cents off.

The clients I work with, however, do NOT get this. They think that this FSI is just as valuable as a marketing tool as it is a coupon delivery tool. And part of me gets where they’re coming from. They’ve been taught through marketing classes or from their superiors that each touchpoint on the path to purchase is an opportunity to herald that brand position and blah, blah, blah.

Coupon. Into. Hand.

But these clients labor over every tiny aspect of the FSI. Should it say “delicious ingredients” or “taste-tempting ingredients”? Are we showing enough racial diversity in this ad for hot dogs? We need to change the photo because the kid shown is a little overweight, and that doesn’t support our health and wellness platform.

And so on.

I want to shout at them, “Hey! The only part that people look at is the coupon! If you want to up your redemption, make the whole fucking page your coupon!” Honestly, that’s all you need to do: slap on a nicely shot photo of a slice of your frozen pizza or mini corndog or whatever and make the 75 CENTS OFF as big as you can. Or better yet, if you want people to buy your stuff, give them more money off. A $1 coupon will redeem better than a 75 cents coupon any day of the week.

Instead, I say things like, “Okay, we’ll try to find some stock photography with a more fit child,” or “Okay, we’ll try stacking the packaging vertically instead of horizontally,” or “I’ll change ‘healthy’ to ‘healthful’ to make the lawyers happy.”

This pointless revision and effort over such minor advertising vehicles is exhausting. And, worst of all, it seems like that’s most of what I do nowadays.

###

FAB AD

Advertising can suck.

Not advertising in the sense of a commercial coming on just as the movie was getting good, or half a dozen inserts falling into your lap when you open a magazine. I mean Advertising, the industry, capital “A.”

I’ve been working in advertising for almost 12 years. I’m a copywriter, and in the decade plus since I’ve been a professional advertising writer, I’ve written copy for nearly everything you can name: print, TV, radio, online, direct response, experiential, outdoor… I’ve never done skywriting, even though I’ve suggested it a couple times.

My experience in this industry is that most everything you do is extremely frustrating. Nine out of ten times when you recommend something interesting, engaging or “out of the box” (dear God how I hate that overused term) the client tells you how much they love it, how much they appreciate your thinking… then they take the safe, boring route.

I’ve seen great ideas destroyed by a casual glance. Wonderful concepts die a painful death because another idea is 2% cheaper to produce. Powerful executions that never see the light of day because the client is too cowardly to take even the smallest chance.

I’ve written entire ad campaigns knowing that it was an exercise in futility; that the client was too enamored by the status quo to give my ideas more than a passing glance.

As I’ve gotten more experience and become better at my job, it seems like the clients have pulled back even more, become terrified to try something fresh. I’ve never had a shortage of idea, just a shortage of client with nerve.

And I’m not even talking crazy, wild ideas. Just things that haven’t been done a thousand times before. Something that’s not a print ad with a coupon. A 30-second radio spot. A banner ad that links back to the client’s (worthless) website.

Over the years, my frustration has done nothing but increase. There are days when I can barely stand the monotony of writing the same bullshit claims for the same bullshit products over and over. Days when I’d love to spit in the eye of the sycophantic account managers who are nothing more than order-takers for the client. Times when the sheer banality of my job forces me to get up and walk away from my keyboard before I start to weep.

But then, there are days like today.

Today I sat down with an art director to brainstorm some concepts for a corporate video. I’ve worked with this guy a lot, and we’re good partners. We think along the same lines. Oddly enough, when we work together I often come up with visual ideas, and he comes up with copy ideas.

We walked into a conference room with ZERO ideas. This video is going to come together quickly, and we needed something, and we needed it now.

Ten minutes in, we had the skeleton of an idea. Twenty minutes in, it had flesh and began to breathe. We played off each other’s thoughts, each building on the last, improving with every step. We finished each other’s sentences. We got up and paced the room, getting excited about our shared vision.

This is why I’m still in advertising. This is what makes it all worthwhile.

When you work with someone smart and creative and collaborative to pluck fantastic ideas out of thin air and mold them with your brains to create something amazing… there’s nothing else like it. Nothing for me, at least.

We came up with a truly kick-ass idea. And because we were working against two other teams and didn’t want to walk into the presentation with just one concept… we did it again. The second idea wasn’t as inspired as the first, but it was still damn good.

And they got better as I put them on paper, working out the details, finessing the language, adding in little things that maybe only mattered to us. My partner and I talked about it some more, hammered out some things we didn’t agree on, and they got better yet.

I live for days like this.

Of course, it will never be filmed as we envisioned it today. In fact, it may never go any farther than the client pitch. And even if it does, it’ll be picked apart, watered down and chewed up until only the remains bare only the slightest resemblance to what we dreamed up.

And that’s okay.

Because today was about creating a great idea for a corporate video, and we did that. Big time. Hours later, I’m still jazzed about it. This is why I got into advertising. This is what it’s all about.

I love my job.

###

#272 In which our hero receives a message from the past.

I’ve previously mentioned this cool website, Futureme.org, in which you can send messages to yourself in the “future,” that is, these messages are stored somewhere and not delivered until the future date you set.

I had sent future-me a message at one point, but I forgot how long I set it to wait. Every once in a while this website would bubble up to the surface of my mind and I’d wonder if that message would ever come. But it had been so long I assumed the service just didn’t work.

But I got my past message yesterday!

I had completely forgotten what I had written, and it was really funny to (re)read. Message follows with commentary.

Hello Future Craig!

It is June 10, 2004 as I write this. The kinda cool website futureme.org says it will send this to you any time in the future... I'm going to set it for five years. I wonder what'll be different by then.

Right now, Lily is only seven months old. Just in the past week has she started to really crawl, she can get around now! By the time you read this she should be walking and talking (something she can't do at all now), and will be even more a real little person. I hope to God she finally grew some hair.

Wow, it’s amazing how little I knew about kids then. I though she’d be walking and talking at age 5? Holy crap, this kid can run like a demon. And talk? She spins these amazingly elaborate tales that never fail to surprise and delight me. She’s so much more of a real person at age 5 that I could ever of imagined.

And it’s hard to remember that it took Lily so long to grow hair. Now she has thick, luxurious red hair halfway down her back.

You're working at ADPRO right now... it's not terrible.

Well, it certainly got terrible. This would have been my first year there, and it was, as reported, okay. Not terrible, not wonderful. That would come later. As an aside, I’m going to censor some of the names that follow, but I don’t have to obscure the agency name since it went out of business less than a year after firing me. No real surprise there… it was struggling financing well before I started working there.

Your boss is XXXX XXXXXXX, who isn't a horrible boss, but he's clearly out to cover his own ass first, and screw everyone else. At the beginning of the month you were turned down for a raise, even though XXXX (says he) wanted to give you one. You're still more than a little bitter about that.

This was the first sign that ADPRO was not a healthy place to work. My boss outright lied about compensation, making it sound like it was likely that I would get a raise at 6 months, 12 months, 18 months… while the truth was that no one in the agency had received a bump in compensation in YEARS. So yeah, I was bitter… and still am. This is alleviated somewhat by the information I received a while back that my former boss is now working for an extremely small shop (like 5 people) and the two principals work him into the ground and don’t appreciate his work. This may or may not be true, but I choose to believe that he’s getting a taste of his own medicine now.

You work with XXXX XXXXXXX and XXXXX XXXXXXXX, graphic designers.

The first of which was fired four months before me, the second of which quit several months after me. I’m not in touch with either any more.

AE XXXX XXXXX is one of the bigger assholes you've ever had to work with.

Man, that was the truth. In a weird twist of fate, this guy came in to interview at my current agency. I really wanted to run to the general manager and torpedo any chance he had to actually getting hired… but I didn’t. I guess I believe that what comes around goes around, and I’m not willing to roll those dice. Man that guy was a dick. He wasn’t hired here anyway.

You and [The Scientist] and just starting to pack up the house in preparation to moving. Actually, [The Scientist] has started, and you're dragging your feet because you fucking hate moving. I hope you guys found a nice house... bigger, nicer room for Lily, bigger kitchen, PLEASE.

This must have been when we were just moving stuff into a storage area to de-clutter it and make it feel bigger. We ended up selling our house much quicker than expected, and had to scramble a bit to find a new one. Which we did in short order. But not without first having to deal with a bunch of bullshit which is chronicled here.

And a bedroom for Lily's new brother or sister? S/he should be born by now, huh? Wonder how that went. Another C-section for [The Scientist]? I hope it was less stressful for you guys this time.

Let me do the math. This was sent June 10, 2004. Macey was born June 9, 2005. So, The Scientist wasn’t even pregnant yet, by a couple of months. I don’t really remember this, but The Scientist and I must have planned when we were going to try for #2 pretty carefully.

[The Scientist] just started the job at XXXXXXXX. Knowing her, she'll be at this job for 10 years. I hope she still likes it... after hating her job for so long, she deserves one that she likes at least a little.

She still likes it. So, yah!

You're still driving the Neon. I really hope by the time you read this that you have a new car.

Ah, my old red Neon. How I loved that car. I really wanted to get another manual, but The Scientist insisted that I get an automatic. Which has worked out for the best, I suppose. But I miss that zippy little 5-speed.

You love your wife very much. Looks like[REDACTED].

This section detailed some personal stuff that my wife and I had to work through which you--nameless, faceless Internet--need not know about. Suffice it to say that we did indeed work it out.

Man, she's one hot piece of ass.

That sentiment is no less true now than it was five years ago.

Hope all is well with you and yours,

craig, circa 2004.

The Scientist thinks I should write another one. If I set if for another five years, that would make Lily 10 and Macey 9. I can’t even imagine what those kids will be like then. And The Scientist and I will have been married 13 years.

Here’s hoping that her ass remains as hot as it is now.

***

#255 In which our hero discusses what was said to him by a coworker recently causing flames to shoot out of his eyes (our hero, not the coworker)

nIf you follow my Twitter account, you already know that a coworker called me an “asshole” last week. And I mean really called me an asshole, in anger, with malice. I have to make that distinction because when creative people in the advertising industry get together the conversation often quickly drops to the level of 8-year-olds on the playground.

I’m not going to get into the particulars of the project because a.) it wouldn’t be wise for me to discuss actual client work on my dumb blog and b.) it’s irrelevant to the story. What this really is about (other than the account executive (or AE) in question being an arrogant knob who’s pretty piss-poor at his job) is the constant and universal struggle between AEs and the creative staff.

I’ve worked at several agencies, and it’s always like this. The reality is that the system we all labor under is really set up to fail. It works like this: the client gives some sort of direction about what s/he wants in the latest print ad/radio spot/brochure/whatever. The AE in turn takes that information and relays it to the creative staff, usually in the form of a written document (generally called a “brief.”) The problem should already be obvious: the creative staff, ie., the people who will actually write and design the end result, are getting the information from the client second-hand. To make matters worse, we’re getting the information in a written document, usually well after the actual meeting between AE and client. So we don’t have the opportunity to ask question as the information is being relayed to us, then, if we do go back to the AE and ask questions, the information is no longer fresh in his/her mind.

So every project generally starts at a deficient.

But that’s just a little background, and not really important to what the AE called me (which, you’ll remember, is “asshole.”)

So we have a industrial parts manufacturer with a new product. They are very excited about this new product, so they’re pulling out all the stops to tell the world about it: brochures, trade show panels, email alerts, new mini-website and more. So we, the creative staff, get all this crap thrown at us and we start digging through it, producing the most important bits first. The website, which this tale hinges on, is pushed to the bottom of the pile, because it’s not a critical element and is quick and easy to turn around.

So early last week the AE suddenly sends out an email saying, “Hey, what’s up with the website? I want to show the client something on Friday.” He hadn’t indicated that there was any urgency with this part of the project up until this part. And honestly, it wasn’t a big deal, because the art director and I had been working on it, off and on, all along, and we had finished stuff to show.

Then it got interesting.

The AE looks at our work, then sends out an email the next day. It’s a three page mini-site and he has commentary about each page. And this next part is the problem.

Account executives aren’t writers. They aren’t designers. The best of them have insights into what the client likes and dislikes, what hot buttons set them off or make them fall in love with projects, and can share this insight with you to make the project better. But this guy isn’t the best of the best. And in his commentary, he wasn’t providing any insight anyway, he was art directing the project. And more to the point, it wasn’t really about his comments, it was about the way he delivered them. He was arrogant and condescending, and gave himself a lot more credit then he was due. “This layout is too busy,” he wrote in his email, “and where are the bullets that were outlined on the brief?”

So, hackles up, I write an email in response, saying that the creative team doesn’t think the layout is too busy, and that all the information from the brief is in there, if he would look for it (I said this in a more polite way). The emails keep going back and forth, and get a little heated. His attitude is clearly: I TOLD you want to do, why aren’t you art monkeys following orders?

My attitude is “fuck that guy.” Because he’s trying to act as a creative director, and he has neither the experience or aptitude to do it. My email responses are getting shorter, but haven’t crossed the line to insulting yet.

Finally, the associate creative director and I end up in the art director’s office. The AE storms in all in a huff. The ACD says “Okay, what’s the problem with this layout?”

The AE says, as closely as I can remember it: “ALL I need to know is how this animation is going to work. THAT’S ALL. You just have to give me the information. There’s no need”--and here he looks directly at me--“to be an ASSHOLE in emails!”

Yeah, I know, a little anticlimactic. He didn’t say, “Hey, you’re an asshole!” but it was clear from his body language that he was saying exactly that.

Anyway, I am FURIOUS. And, I’ve been known to fly off the handle once or twice, especially when needlessly confronted by incompetents, so I immediately get up and square off with the guy and say, “Look! I’m not the one being an asshole here!”

The ACD intercedes and brings things back down to a reasonable level--which is nothing short of miraculous being that this ACD is an angry little man--and we hash things out reasonably. I think some of it was miscommunication, but more of it was this AE needed a dumb amount of hand-holding because he can’t properly do the job on his own. All the information he needed really was right there, if he took a moment to think about the project and look at the supporting materials.

So now the guy is all fakey nice-nice with me, as usual. Maybe he’s already moved past it. But I have been known to keep grudges FOREVER and can’t imagine I’m going to forget this any time soon.

But that’s just me being an asshole.

WORK SHIRK

When I eventually go into Lily or Macey's classroom for Career Day and some snotty-nosed kid asks me what it takes to be a good copywriter; I'm going to tell him this:

"Think of something you don't care about. I mean really, really don't care about. Something that never even entered into your consciousness before. Maybe it's the Snail Darter controversy; maybe it's hair replacement surgery. After you've got it, sit down and write a 16-page brochure about how amazingly awesome that thing is. If you can do that--you have the chops to be a legendary copywriter."

I, myself, will probably never be a legendary copywriter.

###

WORK JERK

I've been thinking about my job a lot lately; my career, actually. Nothing I'm dumb enough to post publicly, but it's been on my mind. Ugh. Big thoughts. Make my brain hurt.

Here's a video that you may or may not find amusing. I find it hilarious, because it's true. A hack. An egomaniac. That's me.

###

#237 In which our hero thinks big thoughts.

I’ve been thinking about my career quick a bit lately. Not surprising, being that next month is my two year anniversary at this agency. Assuming I manage to avoid being fired for the next 30 days, this will be the longest I’ve worked at any agency since moving to Cleveland.

I try not to be negative about it, but in my career, I have cause. In the six years I’ve been in Cleveland, I’ve worked at five agencies. That’s probably higher than the norm, but not terribly unusual in my field. Economy goes down, advertisers cut budgets, agencies go down, agencies cut people… it’s a vicious circle and I’ve been on the bent-over end of it several times.

Here’s the first time.

Here’s the second time (The Scientist was eight months pregnant for this one).

Here’s the third time (Macey was two months old for this one).

And being that the economy appears to be heading to another recession, this looms large in my mind. Except, I don’t really expect to get fired any time soon. I’ve probably just jinxed myself by typing that, but I feel like I’m in a really good place at this agency. In my two years here I’ve proven myself, stepped up to any challenge thrown my way. I’ve been rewarded with high profile assignments, and made the main writer on several big name clients. I even started a recycling program that has been so successful that the entire building participates in it, not just our agency.

But.

I can’t stop thinking about some insight I got from a co-worker years ago. The only way to get a substantial raise, he told me, is to go to another agency.

And in my decade of experience, I’ve found that to be absolutely true. If you get a regular raise (which in my experience has NOT happened more than it has happened) it’s always cost of living, never any more. Regardless of stellar job performance evaluations, it’s always the absolute minimal that an employer can get away with.

And I get this. It’s management’s job to keep costs low, and salary is the #1 cost to an ad agency. I don’t begrudge them, really. But I do want to be rewarded for doing good work. And most of my career, the reward for good work was not being fired. It’s really hard to shake that lingering fear that I could once again be called into Human Resources and told to close the door.

But, being respected (to my face, at least) and liked at this agency has given me the confidence to ask around, poke at some people and see what are my chances of actually making some more money.

And answer is slim to none.

I gently asked my boss today where she saw me going in the future; what promotions might exist. She said that while she didn’t know if a promotion to associate creative director (the next rung on the ladder in my department) would happen this year or over the next couple years (translated, that means it will NOT happen) she definitely saw me in the position of being the “lead” on more major clients and maybe even a “creative manager.” There are two roles which entail more responsibility and more work… but no more money.

This bums me out.

So the big question is: should I start looking around again? I have my resume up on Monster.com and all the appropriate job sites, of course, but I haven’t actively sent out resumes in two years. Not since I got this job.

The big problem is that I love this job, and this agency. The client list is good, my co-workers are nice and talented, management is hands-off for the most part. It’s a fun place to work.

But if I want a big bump in pay, I think I’m going to have to jump ship. But I kinda don’t want to. Even if I ended up at a place as enjoyable as this, there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t be laid off the next month when the economy shits the bed. So I’m wrestling with the concept of how much money is enough money to roll the dice again.

The entire concept frightens me, and I’ve generally shied away from things that frighten me. But, I also think that the only way to gain great rewards is to take great chances.

I dunno.

###

SURVEY NO WAY

Helpful hint of the day: if a telemarketer calls you with a survey, and you want to get off the phone but don’t want to be rude, tell them you work in advertising. Call I got last night:

TELEMARKETER: Hello sir, I’m {didn’t catch it} with {didn't care} and I’d like to ask you a few brief questions.
ME: Okay.
TM: Is there anyone in the household between the ages of 30 and 34?*
ME: Actually, no.
TM: Is there a male between the ages of 34 and 42?
ME: Yes, I am.
TM: Great! First, do you or anyone in your household work in any of the following professions? Advertising or--
ME: Yes.
TM: Advertising?
ME: Yes.
TM: Um, what is it you do?
ME: I’m a writer.
TM: Oh, do you have anything to do with radio advertising?
ME: Sure. In fact, I wrote some radio scripts just today.
TM: Oh. Um, I think that might disqualify you from the survey.
ME: It usually does.
TM: Let me just check… {moment later} Yeah, I’m afraid that disqualifies you from the survey.
ME: No problem.

Now, unlike most people, I want to take these surveys, because I’m often using the info on the other side. I’m always curious about how the questions are phrased, if they are leading or misleading, and what order they are presented in. Phone surveys are notoriously unreliable, because there’s nothing stopping the recipient from lying outrageously.

And, depending on how clever you are with the questions, you can really get just about any result you want. Typically, on the surveys where they allow me to participate, I have a really good idea by the end of who’s sponsoring the research and/or what product(s) they are gathering information for. It’s fun. Well, for me, maybe.

I guess I could lie myself, and tell them I’m a bricklayer or whatever. But then I’d just be giving some poor copywriter down the road bad info.


* WTF? This is the first time that I’ve been aged out of a survey. For a long time I’ve been in that golden zone, the male aged 18-35 that all marketers want to target. I’m going to be royally pissed if I get bumped up to the next age range, and find myself lumped with 40-65-year-olds.

###

#229 In which our hero considers his choice of footwear and what affect it may have upon his career, part II.

Couple of agencies ago, my Creative Director was a real jackass. To be fair, he was a good Art Director, but a suck-ass CD. Just a terrible manager. When I first spoke with him, he told that he hadn’t yet fired the guy I would be replacing. He wanted to make sure he had a new writer lined up (me) before he let the guy go. Which seemed a little underhanded to me, but it’s the way of the world, I guess. We met at a coffee shop for our first interview. Later, he brought me into the agency after hours, when everyone else was gone. He made me an offer, I accepted. Since I had been unemployed in advertising for more than a year, I was anxious for my first day to come.

Now, since I never saw anyone else at the agency, nor did my new boss mention anything about a dress code, I assumed I could wear my usual attire: jeans, t-shirt and sneakers. But when I arrived for my first day, he nearly crapped his pants when he saw me. “I’d hate for you to make a bad impression on your first day,” he explained. “Could you maybe go home and wear something more business casual?” Being my first day, what am I going to say?

So I go home and change. Which is completely ridiculous, of course. This guy should have grown some balls and just said, oops, my bad. I should have told you about the dress code. Well, you’ll know what to wear tomorrow, huh? Instead I’m gone for an hour and a half, since this place wasn’t exactly close to my house.

Here’s the point to this story: when I got back, he pulled me aside and said this: “I’ll give you some advice. If you want to go anywhere in this agency, you should try to dress more like an account executive, and less like a creative.”

Again, being my first day, I nodded along. But inside I was thinking this: fuck THAT.

Now, I know I’m spoiled in this regard, but I’ve been lucky enough to work in an industry full of misfits and eccentrics. Generally speaking, no-one would bat an eye if you were to wear shorts and flip-flops year-round. Most agencies put a premium on creativity, and embrace the concept that you need to feel comfortable to be at your best, creatively speaking. Dress codes are generally only enforced when you’re meeting a client (and even then I tend to wear jeans, albeit nice jeans).

However, I have worked in agencies (two of them, to be exact) that have a dress code. Other than the above-mentioned business casual, I worked at an in-house shop where I had to wear a tie every day. That sucked.

I don’t know if being allowed to wear jeans and sneakers really makes me more creative, but I certainly resent it when told I can’t. I’ve been fiercely anti-dress code all my life. In fact, when I first moved up here to work at a (dress code-free) agency, I put all my ties in a box labeled “NEVER TO BE WORN AGAIN.” Which proved not to be true, but anyway.

So, maybe you can understand why I feel like a sell-out being that I haven’t worn my sneakers to work in a week.

Like I wrote yesterday, I’ve been giving my career a hard think. I’d like to stay at this agency (and make more money), progress my career (and make more money) and maybe even create a little job security for myself (and make more money). And while opportunities may be few and far in-between, they still exist. So when management is talking in their star chamber about how they want to create a new position in the creative department, I want my name to be the first that comes to mind.

So, I’ve been trying to act the part. I mean, this is part of my job, and it comes naturally to me to be vocal in brainstorm meeting, and present to the client well and to write good copy (the part that doesn’t necessarily come naturally is to be patient and kind with dull-witted account executives. But I’ve been working on that. Honestly, the AEs from my first agency up here wouldn’t know me now).

That said, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to try to look the part, too.

Not that I’m going to stop wearing jeans. I’m comfortable in jeans, so I don’t see them going away anytime soon. But I have been wearing dress shoes. But, “dress shoes” is maybe not the right term… these are Doc Martens, so they’re still cool. Right? I’m cool, right?


Yeah? No? Hello?

Anyway, what all this boils down to is that I’m trying to be more professional in all aspects of my job.

Professional.

In the not-so-far past, I might have equated being “professional” with being a jackass. Mostly because the word “professional” is often used by non-creatives as a codeword for wearing a tie, not rocking the boat and kissing the client’s ass. All of which I’ve done before, and will certainly do again--but I don’t make a habit out of it.

But I’ve started to become more thoughtful about my job… and, I dunno, maybe I’m not selling out as much as facing reality. Advertising is all about appearances, and the people who work in the field certainly aren’t exempt from that. Not only that, but dressing more professionally (ugh, I hate even typing that) puts my head in a different place. I’m not just going to an office and screwing around for eight hours, I’m working on my career. And if I do that every day, every month, every year, someone is bound to notice. And that, one hopes, will pay off in the end.

Because when management starts casting around for the next manager or whatever, I don’t want there to be any discussion about how I don’t fit the part, or how they’re unsure if I could successfully tackle a new role; I want them to say, “Craig’s the perfect candidate for this position. Hell, he’s already doing it in everything but title.”

And then they back up the dumptruck full of cash.

###

#228 In which our hero considers his choice of footwear and what affect it may have upon his career, part I.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my career lately. And my shoes. In truth, I’ve probably spent more time thinking about shoes than work, but that is still career-related. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Let me back up.

For several years now I’ve been telling people that I have “nearly 10 years experience” as a copywriter. This is, for the most part, a big fat lie. Once I hit the five year mark, give or take, I felt like I could make the 10-year claim. This is stretching the truth to nearly breaking, but if you consider the time I spent thinking about advertising in school, and my feeble attempts to free-lance early on and, um, watching TV commercials during the Super Bowl, it was close. Well, it wasn’t really, but no-one ever called me on it, and besides, this is advertising we’re talking about. Whenever someone starts asking if an ad is “true” or “factual,” my response is that I'm a marketer, not a journalist. Meaning that my requirement to hew strictly to the truth is someone more… relaxed… than in other communication fields.

But I can honestly make the 10-year claim now. More to the point, I can say that I’ve been a copywriting at honest-to-God advertising agencies for eight years (or, “nearly 10!”). This is an important distinction in my industry. Agency writers are generally legit, at least compared to freelancers or people running their own “agency” out of their bedroom who maybe aren’t really writing every day for a variety of clients, like I am.

And I’m currently at an agency that I really like, and I really feel like I fit in. I could see a future here (now that I’ve written that down, I’m sure I’ll be fired tomorrow). But what kind of future? Career progression at an advertising agency isn’t always cut and dry. I’m a Senior Copywriter, which has everything to do with my past experience, and nothing to do with my time at my current agency. The next step up the ladder is “Associate Creative Director,” of which we have two, currently. This title falls somewhere between copywriter/art director (which are parity positions, except that one writes and the other designs--don’t be confused by the “director” in there) and Creative Director, who’s top of the heap in creative. Usually. We have two creative directors, both of whom have been here forever. If one of them where to suddenly quit, they’d be replaced by one of the many people here with more experience at the agency than me, if the agency didn’t bring in someone entirely new from outside the agency. So my chances of ever seeing Creative Director at this agency are pretty slim.

But Associate Creative Director? Maybe. It seems like this title is given to people who are the lead writing/art person on one of the big accounts and/or someone who’s been here a long, long time. I don’t know if that would ever happen to me, either. At the very least, it would be politically unwise, since there are lots of people with years and years more experience at this agency than myself.

Sometimes it feels like I don’t have much in the way of upward mobility. Except, maybe I do. Every now and again the agency just invents a new position. With the last major restructuring of the creative department the title of “Concept Development Director” was unveiled. This is a wholly new title, and one I’ve never seen at any other place I’ve worked at. So, if the agency really wanted to do something for me, they could create a new position. For me. But they probably won’t.

Of course, this is all really about money.

The one thing I’ve learned is that you don’t get big bumps in pay by staying in the same position. You have to jump to a new position or, much more commonly, jump to a new agency. That’s really the only way to command a BIG pay increase.

And this is what has prompted my recent introspection. I like working here--a lot, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to say that--but the only practical way to start making more money is to leave.

But what’s this have to do with shoes? More than you might think. More tomorrow.

###

#220 In which our hero is part of a well-received presentation, the accolades of which swell his head considerably.

I had a rather unique experience last week.

At the advertising agency for which I work, we have monthly agency meetings. These are generally an opportunity for the President to stand up and say inspirational things to us, detail what new business we’re pitching, introduce new employees, celebrate anniversaries and the like. We often have a case study, too; something cool or interesting that the agency did for a client recently that bares sharing.

I was tapped to present a case study at last week’s meeting.

This isn’t a big deal for me, I’ve spoken in front of crowds before. And even though I still get a little nervous beforehand, I’m a pretty decent public speaker. Besides, it wouldn’t just be me, it would be the entire team who worked on the project. My part would only cover the actual creative stuff, and I’d present that along with the art director I worked with.

Now, in the past, I’ve been very careful about talking about clients and client work on this blog, because I don’t want it to come back and bite me in the ass. But it’s going to be hard for this story to make any sense unless I reveal some details. So… promise not to tell anyone else, okay?

The client in question is a major manufacturer of rubber products. Headquartered in Akron, OH. (Figure it out yet? Famous for its tires? Rhymes with “hood deer”?) Anyway, we don’t actually work for their major division (ie., tires), we do work for one of their affiliated smaller companies. This one in particular produces consumer and industrial belts and hoses (as in hoses for your car or for steam cleaning machines, stuff like that. Not just garden hoses, even though they do make those, too). The project was to stage a big event at a major industry trade show for hose.

What’s that? A trade show just for hoses? You bet your ass. I had no idea before working on this account just how big a business industrial hose really is. And there’s plenty of distributors out there trafficking in hoses and accessories--so much so, that there’s a trade organization that only deals in hoses and they have this big conference every year and on and on…

So this trade show is a big deal. And while there’s the typical big convention center room with booths displaying new products, the real draw is the after-hours parties. This is where our client (and the other manufacturers) rent out a room in the convention center and throw a big ‘ole party. Of course it’s a big smooze-fest so the client can wine and dine their customers without having to take them out one at a time.

The client puts a lot of stock into this event, so we need to blow it out, make it impressive. So every year there’s a theme, and the entire party/event revolves around the theme.

The theme we choose for this year’s event was “magic.” We paid this off by transforming the suite into an old-tyme magic hall circa 1900. Think Harry Houdini or the movie “The Prestige.”

We got to work creating a bunch of elements to create this mysterious feel. We sent out a pre-event “save the date” mailer which included instructions on how to do a simple card trick; we sent out another mailer right before the show reminding the client’s customers of the big party; we created in-room gifts for the attendees which included a magic wand, a customized Magic 8-Ball, “tickets” to a performance by the magician (“One night and one night only!”), a “magic” pen, and a few other odds and ends, all collected inside a black top hat. Pretty cool.

But once you got into the room itself is when you got to see the really cool stuff. One of our major tasks is to set up exciting and engaging displays of the actual products. This is no small feat, considering that the products are hoses. I’m sure they work really well… but they’re not that interesting to look at. So, what we did was create displays that were meant to look like magician’s props or tricks. We had a water-filled display that looked his Houdini’s famous Chinese Water Torture Cell with a hose (a hydraulic hose, get it?) suspended in it; another display featured a hose that was spiraling out of a wicker basket so that it looks like a snake charmer’s trick; another high-temp hose was suspected above “fire,” and so on. Beside each display was a big poster in the style of the posters of the time, full of hyperbole and carnival barker-esque patter. These were a whole lot of fun to write.

Anyway, at the agency meeting we went through the process we used to come up with the concept, mentioned all the elements, and showed a bunch of photos of all the stuff. The presentation was well received… people laughed at all the right places.

But here’s the crazy part.

When we were showing the displays and their accompanying posters, I read the copy to one of the posters out loud (since it was in a PowerPoint slide you couldn’t really read past the headline from the audience). Now, the copy on the posters were a fun combination of attributes the client wanted to get across and the crazy claims I came up with. MARVEL as this hose withstands temperatures up to 350 degrees F and QUAKE IN FEAR at its working pressure of up to 450 psi… and so on.

So I read this poster in my best sideshow barker voice and when I’m done, the audience actually applauds. I actually have to stop talking because people are applauding so loudly that they can’t hear me.

Needless to say, this has never happened to me before. I mean, I’ve had people tell me, hey, that’s a cool ad or great job on that radio or whatever; but I’ve never had 200 people applaud my copy before. Crazy.

Anyway, the kudos just kept rolling in after the presentation. People said that it was the best presentation at an agency meeting EVER. It all totally went to my head.

But, that was last week, and the realities and deadlines of this week are already bringing me back to earth. There’s not a lot of room between “Hey, you’re the guy who gave that great presentation” to “Hey! You’re the dick that missed my deadline!”

But, for one brief shining moment, I was the star of the show.

Now, back to work.

###

#219 In which our hero discusses Heroes, heroes and Hiro's.

ince I owe the world a post and I owe the lovely Miss Kate an email reply, why not kill two birds with one stone?

Miss Kate is a Heroes nerd just like me, and she emailed me yesterday with comments about the premier. Her thoughts are presented in orange, which my disjointed ramblings follow.

BTW, this reminds me a great deal of how a friend and I used to discuss the X-Files after every episode. One of us would call and the other would answer, saying simply “discuss.” Glad to see that six years later my complete nerdity hasn’t wore off one bit.

So, didja watch it last night?? I did. If you didn't, read no further.

See? This is why I like Miss Kate. So considerate.

I'm a little miffed about the very obvious Nissan Rogue product placement - but I guess that's the price you pay when they sponsor your "less commercials than usual" premier.

Being in the advertising industry, I’m torn. I mean, I wasn’t surprised at all that a Nissan was featured prominently because you’re right… Nissan was paying top dollar for that sponsorship, and they had every right to get something in return.

That said, it was a little heavy-handed when HRG gave Claire the keys to the car and she said, “The Rouge?!” It feels obnoxious to me mostly because the scene didn’t work. Mostly because nobody knows what the Rouge is. It’s a new model, and doesn’t have much in the way of buzz yet. If it had been a known quantity like, say, a Mustang or a Mini Cooper, then it would have made sense. Instead, we’re left to wonder why this girl is so excited about a new mid-level car that no-one has ever heard of and that’s not especially sexy to look at.

But, this is product placement at it’s greatest. And before anyone bashes Nissan too much, you should really spot and take a look at your favorite show next time. It’s no coincidence that every can of soda has it’s label perfectly oriented so you can see the brand name.

In the product placement biz, there’s three levels:

• Product appears in the background at some point in the show.
• A character interacts with the product; picking it up, moving it, etc.
• A character interacts with the product and mentions the brand by name.

Clearly, the premier hit big on all three. But honestly, I’m willing to deal with a little intrusive product placement for limited commercial interruption. We probably got 10 minutes more show because of Nissan’s sponsorship. And the Nissan was only really featured at that one point… be glad that the plot didn’t hinge on that car or something equally annoying.

Actually, what I found even more obnoxious was that when the show did go to commercial, Nissan only had ONE Rouge spot (with some subtle versioning) to show.

The new kid that's kind of stalking Claire from school is creeping me out. I don't like that he followed her home.

Agreed. And he has his own powers, huh? And it’s flight, too… just like Claire’s birth-father (Nathan). Hmm… maybe Nathan was fooling around with women other than just Claire’s birth-mother?

I like that her dad put his new manager in his place. I hope he broke his finger.

I guess. But how realistic is that, really? He wouldn’t just get fired? Come on… this feels like a lazy way for him to have a job as a cover story (but it’s still dealing with paper products, which I think is a nice touch).

I'm still wondering what Mama Petrelli and Hiro's Dad's powers are/were.

Me too. I’m still assuming that they do have powers… but they’ve only been shown as puppet masters/power brokers up until this point. Do they really have powers? And in the case of Hiro’s father we can assume his power isn’t/wasn’t flight.

I have no clue who killed Hiro's dad. Could have been Sylar (maybe). Could have been Nathan (maybe). Could be someone we've not met yet.

Sylar doesn’t really make sense, because his thing isn’t murder, per se, but rather the “collecting” of powers. Whatever he does (actually eat the brains or just fool around with them) seems to take a little time; so this doesn’t seem like his MO at all. Nathan? Could be, but I doubt it. I’m going with someone we haven’t seen yet.

I'm totally curious about who is stalking Molly in her nightmares.

Yeah, the new Big Bad! I’m guessing we won’t see him/her/it for a while. At least not until Sylar leaves the show to go film Star Trek XI.

I'm curious to know how Peter got cuffed inside a storage container, wearing that half-DNA symbol pendant, with apparent amnesia.

Amnesia! The ultimate panacea for what ails ya (or the plot) in the comic book world! I’m not bashing the writers, I think, again, it fits in well with the comic book feel of the series. And I am also, of course, curious as hell as to what happened.

And I have to say that I’m surprised that they didn’t try to string out the mystery of the Petrelli brothers (are they alive? Are they dead?) for a longer time. But it’s cool… I find it really interesting that even though everyone came together at the end of season one, that now everyone is spread out again. They know of each other, and a few of them are actually working together (notably Mohinder and HRG) but they didn’t come together like the new Justice League or something. I mean, Niki, D.L. and Micah didn’t even appear in the episode! That’s pretty impressive, I think.

I really want to know how that symbol plays into everything - starting as the symbol for that Kensei guy, being tattooed on Nikki's shoulder, being the pendant around Peter's neck, and also the "sign" that "you're going to die" by the hand of a member of your little mutant clique.

Yeah, I really hope the writers can pay that off. I hope it doesn’t become their version of “The Trust is Out There” with the X-Files; where we finally learned the truth at the end, and it was that aliens really are real and the government is working with them to… do what again? Something with bees? Shit, ya lost me.

Anyway, it’s really intriguing.

And, last I checked, wasn't Mohinder *already* working for The Company when he was curing Molly last season???? What's with this guy following him around Egypt to ask him to join them... again.

I’m not real clear on this bit either. Are we talking about the same Company? Maybe these are different guys? I dunno.

Finally, I have to say that I think the writer’s are taking a bit of a chance. There’s probably a lot of people who never watched season one, but heard good things about the show, who are willing to give it a go now. But that premier wasn’t that easy of an entryway to the show… if you don’t already know what happened in season one, you would probably become lost really quickly. I mean, it’s good for us… we don’t have to slog through a bunch of backstory we already know; but I just hope it’s not bad for the show (because they still need to keep ratings up).

But all in all, I fun start to the season.

PS: My big hunch for this season? Kensei, the legendary hero that Hiro worships? Hiro is going to do all those heroic deeds of legend, effectively becoming Kensei himself. Meaning that in the future he never stole Kensei’s sword… it was his own sword all along.

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#203 In which our hero discusses a common element of advertising, which is none the less annoying for being commonplace.

A word about disclaimers.

But first, you know what I’m talking about, right? When you see an ad and it says something like “$5 off Colgate Whitestrips*” and the asterisk points to tiny print at the bottom that reads, “*Limit one per customer;” that’s a disclaimer.

As someone who works in advertising, I know non-advertising people think disclaimers are stupid, disingenuous, misleading, deceitful and, at times, outright lies. But here’s a secret about people who work in advertising: we think so, too.

No copywriter or art director ever said “Hey! Let’s throw in a disclaimer in 6-point at the bottom! That will really take this ad to the next level!” We do it because the client asks us to do it… and the client only does it because their lawyers insist that they do it.

And sadly, often the lawyers are right. It’s a little pathetic that we live in a culture where this is necessary, where people try to game the system and sue companies not to recover damages, but just to screw them out of a couple bucks. Next time you see a contest or sweepstakes (is there a difference, you ask? Legally, yes there is) at your grocery or wherever, take a look at the official rules. There’s probably a lot of them. That’s the company’s legal department working hard to cover their collective butts from any conceivable legal threat.

I’ve been thinking about disclaimers a fair amount lately, because I have a client who is, let us say, disclaimer-obsessed. Once again, to comply to “I Don’t Want to Get Fired” guidelines, I won’t give out this company’s real name or industry; but for the purposes of this post let’s say they are a smallish (but still national in scope) retailer of eyeglasses.

As part of their complete service, this company provides free eye exams. This is one of the things they like to promote, as in “FREE Eye Exams!” They never charge for their eye exams… I know this because any time I’ve written “FREE Eye Exam” I’ve had to add an “*” and the words “Our eye exam is always free.”

This disclaimer (one of many they liked to plaster their direct mail pieces with) always confused me… see, it wasn’t “free eye exam with $50 purchase” or “Free eye exam on Mondays only” … it’s a free eye exam. Period. Doesn’t seem to be a reason for a disclaimer. I mean, disclaimers are there to protect the company, but since they’re actually doing what they say they’re doing, I don’t see why any protection was needed.

But by God they wanted--nay, demanded!-- that that disclaimer appear any time the free eye exam was mentioned, which was at least once in every piece.

Now, this client was a bit problematic, which honestly has more to do with the AE on the account than any unreasonable demands, but regardless I’ve learned not to push too hard about questioning these unnecessary disclaimers.

But.

This last round of direct mail was pushing it, even for this client. See, every month the direct mail has an offer, like “Come and get $50 off designer frames” or “Free gift card with purchase.” For the recent DM, the client wanted the offer to be “FREE Eye Exams this month only!” Which is fine, except we’ve been doing a year of DM that reads “Our eye exam is always free.”

Naturally I questioned this, and the AE helpfully told me, “Well, that’s what they want,” and left it at that. I pushed back*, trying to point out how ridiculous it was.

* Hey look! A disclaimer! Actually a note, really. At my agency the AEs always say “I’ll push back on that,” meaning they’ll go back to the client and try to get them to change their mind. Note that the AE never says, “I’ll tell the client ‘no’” or “I’ll make sure the client knows we won’t do that,” because, you see, our AEs NEVER say no to the client. I suspect that most times when they “push back” it goes something like this:

CLIENT: I want you to change that box to plaid.
AE: Um, plaid? You sure?
CLIENT: Yes.
AE: Okay! Plaid it is!

After this particular AE pushed back, the client came back and said, “look, it’s like this: the eye exam is free, but y’see, this month we’re also going to throw in a free frame fitting, which isn’t free. So that’s the ‘only this month’ part. Get it?”

Which again, would be fine, except that below the disclaimer that says “our eye exams are always free” is another disclaimer that reads, “our frame fittings are always free.”

Finally, the client saw the light and realized that they couldn’t bullshit their way through after they had so thoroughly established this free exam disclaimer. They changed it to just “FREE Eye Exam!” and took out the only this month businesses. Which finally makes it a truthful, albeit weak, offer.

And as dumb as that all was, it in no way prepared me for the following month’s offer.

For the next direct mail piece, the client wanted the offer to be “FREE 30-day trial” (if it doesn’t make sense that a company would make you a pair of glasses to wear for a month for free, remember that this client isn’t really in the eyeglass business, okay?) The client had heard of some businesses like theirs having a great deal of success with a free trial offer, and they wanted to give it a whirl.

So far, so good.

But after I had written the thing (“FREE 30-day trial! No risk! No obligation to buy!”) they came back with the disclaimers. Which read thusly:

* Payment required for 30-day free trial. Restocking fee for returns is $80.

To which I said, “This is a fucking joke, right?”

But sadly, no. It would appear that the trial period was free, but if you didn’t like your frames and brought them back, you had to pay 80 bucks. The only way to really get a free trial was to buy the frames.

Which makes it sound like it’s not really free at all, doesn’t it?

Keep in mind that it wasn’t us--the agency--suggesting this overtly deceptive approach, it was the client. People in advertising have to eat a lot of shit over “tricking” people into buying things, so naturally it really pissed me off that our client was trying to pull a fast one like this.

I voiced my outrage and got a “well, that’s what they want to do” from the AE--which is just bullshit. But, a couple days later I got word that the client was going to change the disclaimer. “Well thank God,” I thought. “They came to their senses.”

The client changed the “Payment required for 30-day free trial. Restocking fee for returns is $80” disclaimer to one that reads, “See store for details.”

Now the client isn’t just lying to their potential customers, they’re making those customers come to the store first so they can lie to their faces.

See? It’s not always the ad agencies. We hate disclaimers as much as you do.

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#202 In which our hero rants a bit about the ridiculous state of our fine country.

Couple times now I’ve sat down and started to write down my thoughts about this Don Imus thing. But I just can’t organize my thoughts in a sufficient manner to properly express my outrange about the vast over-reactionism and hypocrisy that has assailed the airwaves these past 10 days. I think I can best sum it up thusly:

America has gone mad.

First, let me get this out: I’m a white guy (and, judging from these photos, I’m just about as white as you can be) and I get it that I’ll never get it. The color of my skin prevents me from ever fully understanding what it’s like to be denigrated because of the color of my skin.

That said, I’m furious about the hoopla surrounding the firing of Don Imus. Understand, I don’t really give a crap about this man; I didn’t listen to his show, and the few snippets I heard of it here and there never gave me any incentive to tune in. He sounded like a doddering old kook with a mouth full of marbles.

But here’s what has me so angry: the constant stream of talking heads on the news who proclaim with extreme confidence that Imus was fired because of his “hate speech;” because he finally went way too far with his insults directed at people of all colors and creeds; that a new morality is sweeping the nation and it’s no longer acceptable to say such things on the public airways.

Which is all bullshit.

You want to know why Don Imus was fired? Here are three reasons:

1. Procter & Gamble
2. Staples
3. Bigelow Tea

These were the first companies to announce that they were pulling their advertising from his show. Here’s six more reasons:

1. General Motors
2. American Express
3. Miralus Healthcare
4. Sprint
5. GlaxoSmithKline
6. PetMed Express

These are companies that quickly followed suit and pulled their advertising from his show. And there you have it, the real reason Imus lost his job: because his show became unprofitable.

And that’s okay… or at least it’s the reality of the situation. I mean, radio is a business, and radio stations want to stay in business. So when a segment of their broadcasting day starts to lose money, they react. This sort of things happens every day; it just so happens that in Imus’ case it happened with great fanfare and in an amazingly accelerated timeframe.

Now, if the radio people would just be honest about this, I wouldn’t care. But they aren’t.

"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society. That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision."

CBS President Leslie Moonves

Liar.

This isn’t about “young women of color,” this is about money. This is about cutting off the diseased limb that Imus became as quickly and efficiently as possible before it poisoned the rest of the body and sponsors starting pulling their money from other CBS radio programs.

And don’t think sponsors are without blame. They happily shilled their products on Imus’ program up until the second that there was a public backlash.

“Because of the recent comments that were made on the program it did prompt us to take a look at our decision to advertise on the program and we have decided to stop advertising. … Once we became aware of the comment, we sort of stepped back and took a look at it."

Staples spokesman Paul Capelli

Liar.

There was nothing about Imus’ “recent comments” that was significantly different from what he says on a daily basis. Staples (and any other of the bailing advertisers) didn’t give a crap what the man said until the threat loomed large that Imus’ commentary might reflect badly on them. Then they ran like scarred rabbits.

“[This is] a victory for public decency. No one should use the public airwaves to transmit racial or sexual degradation.''

Rev. Jesse Jackson

Liar!

This is not a “victory for public decency” this is a witch hunt that was quickly and efficiently concluded when one man lost his job. The sum effect on public decently is ZERO because there are a hundred small-time radio personalities that are set to jump in and pick up where Imus left off. If anyone seriously thinks this firing will make a difference in the moral climate of this country, then they really haven’t been paying attention.

And using the airways to “transmit racial or sexual degradation” ? To forestall my head from exploding I’ll just leave you with some lyrics from rap legend The Notorious B.I.G.:

Moonlight strolls with the hoes, oh no, that's not my steelo
I wanna bitch that like to play celo, and craps
Packin’ gats, in a Coach bag steamin’ dime bags
A real bitch is all I want, all I ever had (yeah, c'mon)
With a glock just as strong as me
Totin’ guns just as long as me, the bitch belongs with me

Thank God Don Imus has been stopped. Moral American can sleep easy tonight.

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MONSTER SPONSOR

I came across a link for Monster by Mail a week ago. For $20, this guy will draw you a monster based on a word you send him. And he posts a high-speed video of him drawing the monster. How cool is that? The catch is that you can only send in one word. Some of the words people sent in were pretty predictably, like "bigfoot" or "Cthulu." But some other words were unexpected, and ended us as pretty cool monsters--I especially like "purple," "insane" and "pensive." I figured I could spare twenty bucks, so what the heck. At first I was going to send in "pustulant,” figuring it would make a cool-looking monster. But I decided on something a little closer to my heart. I sent in “advertising.”

And I got an email this morning that my monster was done! I present to you, “Advertising.”

And it’s got tentacles! Pretty cool. I find it really interesting how this guy interprets the words people send him. When I was thinking of “advertising,” naturally I was thinking of it from the creation side, since I’m in the business. But he took a different angle, from the consumer side--which only makes sense. Still very cool. If I could do it again (which I can’t, since he stopped taking submissions after 150) I’d send “copywriter.”

Click here for a YouTube video of it being drawn.

My monster should appear in my mailbox in a week or so. This guy just made $3,000 in a week by putting up a website and drawing cartoon monsters. Once again, I long for the ability to draw.

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