Ad Nomad

by Eric Jay Sonnenschein

  “You claim you have no time to work with me. Then I find you schmoozing with junior creatives. They have partners. I don’t!”

  “Excuse me!” Gwen replied. Her eyes widened and rolled in their sockets as her temper flared. Dane knew he was in trouble. “I have a demanding husband at home and now one at work?”

  “I’m not your husband!”

  “Precisely! Dane, what do you want from me?”

  “I want you to be my partner. I’m the writer of record and I want an art partner!”

  “Fine!” Gwen turned to the screen and slammed the keys with her fingers, then swept the papers from the desk with a backstroke of her arm.

  “Dane, I thought you had aspirations to be a supervisor. Shouldn’t you look at what others are doing? Shouldn’t you mentor the less experienced?”

  “I am one of the less experienced!” he reminded her.

  Gwen glanced at her watch.

  “We’ll have this discussion some other time.”

  “Some other time!—that should be my tagline!” Dane blurted and stormed out.

  In his office, Dane laid his head on his stack of Refluxydyl “New drug application” documents like a primary school child giving himself a time out. He was as forlorn as he had ever been. Gwen was right. He knew he should apologize. But what good would it do? He had given her every reason not to work with him.

  Gwen had him pegged. He behaved like a needy house-husband. Now she would file for professional divorce because Dane was a ‘head case” with an “attitude problem.” Then Dane realized that his successual relationship with Gwen had been over for awhile. When the success was gone, she moved on. The writer of record on a blockbuster drug launch was left with a blockbuster heartache.

  22. PROVED, IMPROVED

  Dane’s agony was not about to go away. It was chronic, degenerative, and systemic, migrating from one disaster to another. Everything up until now was an appetizer for the putrid entrée that awaited him.

  A new cohort of freelancers was hired. One freelancer was a 40ish woman from Westchester named Jenna. She was known as “Queen Cobra” back when she ran the Bangkok office of Boshko & Benershke, once the most creative shop in Southeast Asia. Jenna had been around the world, writing award-winning copy for major global brands like XOXO shower products, Zeus lambskin sheaths, Yugo and Dr. Shill’s anti-itch powder. She wore oversized tinted glasses and had long, dark hair with a white stripe down the middle. When Jenna huddled over her copy, a skunk seemed to be sleeping on her head.

  On her first day, Jenna studied the creative output on the wall. She immediately focused on Dane’s Left off…takes off concept.

  “Intriguing,” she said. “This is the way to go but it’s not there yet.” She set out to perfect his concept.

  It was a new experience for Dane—and a new threat. People typically liked or hated his ideas. Jenna was the only person who ever set out to out-Dane him.

  “Nobody can do me better,” he told himself with more pride than confidence. “I’ve drilled the well dry.”

  For a week, Jenna sat lotus-style on the floor of the free-lancers’ room, scribbling and scratching out headlines. Finally, “Queen Cobra” and her art director showed a simple ad with two pills on it. The capsule on the left was Esophogard, going off patent. Underneath it was the word “Proved” in Times-Roman, 72 pt. Next to it was a longer Refluxydyl capsule. Below it was the word, “Improved.”

  Proved. Improved.—a simplification of Left off…takes off—quickly morphed from sensation to contagion and rocketed to #1 launch headline.

  Account people adored it. Doctors muttered it under their breath. The chief executive at Refluxydyl’s drug company, who had craved a “Think Small”-style ad since he was an ad-struck child, was ecstatic.

  Dane’s morale plunged to bathyscaphic depths. Jenna pumped up his idea and rode it like an elephant. Damn it all! Dane could have been riding high. He, too, had a “pill concept” but Gwen swore she would never do a drug ad with pills in it.

  “And by the way,” Dane pointed out to anyone with ears, “Proved. Improved. makes a false claim.” Data showed that Refluxidyl had better results than its predecessor—but only at twice the dosage! The FDA would never let this stand.

  The writer of record was an angry prophet, unheeded amid the widespread rejoicing over the glorious mantra, Proved. Improved. Only one person hearkened to Dane and believed his prophecy: Gwen.

  She was in more pain than he was. As the art supervisor, Gwen would be making those pills look good for a very long time.

  Here was the basis for a successual reconciliation. Dane and Gwen would never have what they had before but they were old allies who needed each other now. Together in Gwen’s office with the door closed, they commiserated.

  “I begged you to do the pill concept, but, no, that would have been too easy!” Dane fulminated.

  “Pill ads are cheesy,” Gwen replied.

  “People love cheese!” Dane snapped back. “Especially when it’s proved and improved cheese.”

  “So do rats and mice,” Gwen rejoined.

  “Get used to hating pills in ads. You’ll be seeing them for years!”

  Gwen stared at Dane abstractedly like he was a pill on a billboard. Suddenly, her eyes widened and rolled in their sockets. Dane feared he had set her off—again!

  “There won’t be pills in my ads,” Gwen growled. “Let’s think.”

  Together, Dane and Gwen mobilized their brains and struggled to top Proved, Improved. They came up with “GERD be gone: The Next Generation.”

  People smiled and nodded but it wasn’t nearly as cute as Proved. Improved. Once you had E=MC2 could you ever be happy with a2+b2=c2?

  For hours Dane and Gwen muttered and shouted word couplings that might be as darling, simple and direct as Proved. Improved. This was no longer creativity but concept radiation.

  “A tank and a Pope-mobile! Dane shouted.

  “An ostrich and an emu!” Gwen snapped back.

  “A purple dromedary and a purple camel. The extra hump!

  “Genius. Ingenious.”

  “Hey, that’s good! What about star, super-star?”

  “Oh, yes!” he yelled. “Mortal. Immortal. That’s it!”

  “It provides heartburn relief, not everlasting life!” Gwen pointed out.

  While they performed this mutual concept extraction, shouts and laughter burst from the adjacent office. The Boys were at work and play. The thud of a body slam echoed from the wall.

  “What are they doing?” Dane asked.

  “It’s a perpetual office party,” Gwen replied.

  “Have you said anything to them?” Dane asked.

  “In passing. Nicely. They got louder.”

  On cue, the dry wall thundered from another body thump. Gwen’s “Golden Pencil” award wobbled on her side of the sheetrock and fell. A radiator pipe hissed, punctuated by a groan and giggles.

  “Fine, refine!” Dane shouted to drown out the ruckus next door.

  Someone crowed next door. A chair collided with a file cabinet. A groan was trailed by a torrent of curses.

  “Shut up!” Dane shouted, pounding the wall with his fist.

  “Fuck you!” was the response, punctuated by a fist clouting the wall.

  “Don’t start a war,” Gwen warned.

  “You don’t think we can take them on?” Dane retorted, smiling. Gwen was a big woman with a fiery temper. He liked their chances against anyone.

  Gwen grimaced. “I have too much to do.”

  “You suck!” a male voice bellowed next door.

  “No, you suck!” a voice responded.

  Pause.

  “You suck!” a chorus of men shouted. It sounded like an angry reunion of The Village People.

  Dane could no longer tolerate the relentless ruckus, nor pretend it did not disrupt his thoughts.

  He burst from Gwen’s office and knocked on Krassweiler’s door. No answer. A yowl of pain issued from inside, followed
by giggles.

  Dane opened the door. Krassweiler had Austin Weebler, Landon’s junior copywriter, in a headlock. Austin laughed, vermillionfaced, while he struggled to break the hold.

  “You’re having way too much fun!” Krassweiler shouted, heaving young Weebler at the wall.

  “Hey, watch out!” a writer shouted when Austin’s body crashed next to him.

  “Could you guys keep it down?” Dane requested.

  “Sorry we woke you from your nap!” Krassweiler jeered.

  “We’re working,” Dane said.

  “Oh, they’re working,” Krassweiler repeated ironically. “I didn’t know you guys had work.” The leader of The Boys glowered. “Why don’t you run along to your office and relieve yourself?”

  Abashed by this reference to his kimchee disaster, Dane withdrew to Gwen’s office and resumed.

  “Credible. Incredible.”

  23. GRAMMATICAL CASTRATION & OTHER THINGS THAT STINK

  The next morning, Dane smelled a fetid odor in his office, emanating from a desk drawer. He found a plastic baggy of melted feces with a specimen tag reading, “Winning concept.”

  That was not the only embellishment. On Dane’s bookshelf, amid plants and nick-knacks, sat a novelty plastic troll, its hands grasping a soft-eraser erection. A tag tied to its leg read, “What I do best.”

  It was definitely an inside job, Dane thought. He had not watched The Maltese Falcon twenty times for nothing. Someone was sending him a message.

  At the Refluxydyl team status meeting, Dane made an announcement.

  “Someone left a bag of crap in my desk.”

  “The cleaning service is not doing their job,” Gaines Burger replied crisply.

  “It’s not a custodial matter,” Dane said. “A bag of crap should not be in my desk.”

  “As much as I want to talk about your crap, Dane, we have other crap to discuss,” Gaines said. “Something important has come up.”

  “We all know ‘Proved. Improved.’ tested extraordinarily well,” Landon said. “The client loves it. It looked like our launch-headline-apparent.

  “Now there’s a glitch. An editor on the client side vetoed ‘Proved. Improved.’ Apparently ‘Proved’ is grammatically incorrect as a past participle. It must be replaced by ‘Proven.’”

  “Did you ever hear of anything so insane?” Gaines Burger, the creative director of art, asked with rhetorical outrage as he emerged from silent shock. “Like grammar matters. When was advertising ever grammatical?”

  “Like never!” the team agreed.

  “The meaning of the ad remains intact,” Landon continued as Gaines Burger covered his head with his hands.

  “Proven. Improved. has no balls!” Gaines Burger cried.

  “True, the grammatically correct version lacks laser phrasing,” Landon said.

  “Proved. Improved. was hyper-connective communication. It bypassed the brain and went right to the heart,” Gaines Burger expatiated.

  “We’re all sorry for the loss, Gaines, but we must go on,” Landon said.

  “Wait. Did Cybil call their top guy? He had a hard on for Proved. Improved,” Gaines suggested.

  “He’s traveling in seclusion,” Landon reported.

  “I think I have his in-flight cell number! I’ll get it,” Gaines Burger bellowed, slapped his hands and lunged for the door.

  “Sit down, Gaines. We’ve tried every channel, every frequency, and every device. Refluxydyl’s top management will not override an editorial decision. Proven. Improved. must be replaced.”

  “Why was I ever born!” Gaines asked. This question prompted a wave of speculation in the room.

  When the meeting was adjourned, Dane knew he had to suppress all smiles and flatten the spring in his step. Green’s creative directors and account people were in despair. A second status meeting was scheduled as a Proved. Improved. support group. A therapist from Green’s sibling medical education agency provided grief counseling.

  Typical questions were posed at an open coping session. “How could a client tamper so irresponsibly with the creative? How could grammar get in the way of a great ad? But they all distilled to this: Why did bad things happen to good advertising?

  Dane was more than relieved; he was elated. It was the best he felt since he conceived, “Left off. Takes off.” For the first time since his concept was killed, he no longer took its death personally, since it was clearly a common outcome. The failure of “Queen Cobra’s” concept felt almost as good as success. He knew his reaction was petty and he was ashamed of it. Had advertising corrupted him or revealed the corruption already there?

  Either way, he could not let it fester. Dane pined for change. He knew he must escape this toxic environment and seek a healthier one. The belief that such an atmosphere existed in advertising sustained him.

  Case 2-D

  OFFICE VIGILANTE

  24. LOCKED OUT, ACT OUT

  Now that the enemy concept was routed by editorial intervention, Dane’s status as the writer of record was reinforced, his judgment vindicated. He and Gwen reconciled, their mutual strife creating a more durable bond. In a corporate setting, Dane showed something more important than talent—toughness—and did something more impressive than produce a headline of genius—he survived one.

  With time running out on selecting a launch concept, Green and the Refluxydyl manufacturer reverted to Bushkin’s Glowing Hands, the image of hands cupping a mysterious light—the client’s original favorite. Dane wrote a headline that grew more vapid and meaningless with every regulatory review. No one was happy with the campaign, but all creatives were satisfied that it was the client’s fault.

  Dane felt more secure now than he had for months. He exuded confidence and calm. He expected the work to go more smoothly.

  Unfortunately, when he banged on Gwen’s wall and interrupted The Boys’ violent revelry, he antagonized them. The melting turd in his desk was no isolated prank, signifying the end of hostilities. It was a calling card. The pitch-meisters’ perfect record had been marred by recent losses and there were fewer pitches. Eton Krassweiler, the alpha boy, was restless. The great predator fed on vast quantities of raw opportunity. When he was underfed, he prowled for mischief. He had become so bored of late that door-slamming no longer satisfied him. He now flew into violent fits, body-slamming his crewmembers at all times. In their disgruntled down time, The Boys perceived Dane’s aura of success and took offense.

  One evening when Dane was working late, he returned from the men’s room to find his office door locked. The maintenance men had left for the weekend and were not at their favorite Friday after-work watering hole. An experienced lock-picker, working in the studio, helped Dane gain entry. The incident was blamed on an overzealous cleaning woman.

  The following week Dane was locked out of his office when he arrived at work and a third time while he chatted with a colleague down the hall.

  Dane was sure he was in a sequel to Melted Feces and Priapic Troll, titled Locked Door, starring The Boys. Still, he brushed it off. Then, one afternoon, he stopped by his office after lunch to retrieve a file he needed for a meeting, and found his door locked. Now the prank sabotaged his work and he could no longer maturely ignore it. He needed to be bold.

  He stormed into Krassweiler’s office. It was full of younger creatives—men and women. Before Dane opened his mouth to speak, his intrusive presence made the co-ed gang go silent. They regarded him with fear. If the Boys had an aptitude for closing doors Dane knew how to open them.

  “Somebody in this room is locking my office door!” he announced sharply. “This bullshit behavior is not funny and it’s got to stop now.”

  The ten people crowded in the office were stunned by his raid. The slack jaws, wide eyes and gaping mouths of the ordinarily swaggering, young creatives testified to Dane’s powers of intimidation.

  Dane withdrew to his office, pleased to have stood up for himself and confident that his office door would never be locked again.
As he applied himself to more headlines and slogans, Krassweiler bounded into his office, leaned over his desk and stuck his large face in front of Dane, tempting him to punch it. Dane forswore the bait.

  “Who the hell are you coming to my office and threatening my group members?” Krassweiler demanded with theatrical vehemence.

  “Who the hell are you to barge into my office and shout in my face?” Dane countered calmly, yet with enough resonance that anyone could hear he was not backing down.

  “I am a respected employee at this agency—that’s who!” Krassweiler shouted.

  “Then act like one,” Dane replied.

  “Who are you to tell me how to act? I bring money into this agency, money that pays your pathetic salary.”

  “I was going to ask for a raise,” Dane pointed out.

  Krassweiler was trying to regain the face he lost when Dane violated his sovereign domain and scared his “tough” team members speechless.

  “What are you trying to prove, old man? You’re a laughingstock. How does it feel to know you’ll always be second-string, lower than a man a generation younger?”

  “It could feel better,” Dane admitted candidly, determined not to let Krassweiler anger him.

  “Yeah. Well, it’s not going to. Get this. You will never work on a pitch while I’m here. You’ll be a copy janitor and pretend you’re a writer.”

  Trash-talk works like many drugs. It is more effective as it accumulates. The power of an insult, meanwhile, is proportionate to how accurately it describes the recipient’s situation. A good insult erodes self-esteem, whereas a great insult taps self-perception.

  Krassweiler was a master of insults. He laid them on with speed, volume and precision. By calling Dane a janitor, he reinforced Dane’s perception of his inferior status and of Krassweiler’s success as a permanent obstacle to his progress.

  Dane was clinging to self-control; Krassweiler tried to make him lose it. The young creative director was face to face with Dane, breathing garlic-rich lunch in his face, reinforcing his disdain and Dane’s subservience. Then Krassweiler belched. It was the office version of a “face wash” in ice hockey—when one player stuffs his smelly glove in an adversary’s face—the ultimate provocation.