Adland_ Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet - James P. Othmer [21]
I was sitting on a radiator against the far wall of Siano’s office when the phone company called to tell us that after three-quarters of a century, we were being disconnected. When I tell this story, I usually say that I could see the blood drain from Siano’s face, but I was probably too far away for that. What I saw was a man sitting alert behind his desk and smiling when he picked up the phone. Then I saw him nod yes, yes, yes as he slowly turned away from us and looked out his window toward the Hudson River. Then the smile disappeared. Then his shoulders sagged, and when he glanced back at one of his senior-management partners, the muscles of his face had gone slack. His look said, “There’s been a tragedy, get the children out of the room,” and before anyone said anything to us, we knew enough to leave.
Later it was confirmed that we would no longer be the lead agency on AT&T. Of course, out of some strange allegiance or perhaps to hedge its bets, the company would leave us a few scraps, their CALL ATT business, some corporate bullshit. But for the most part, it was over.
Of course this is only my opinion, that the phone call in Siano’s office was the beginning of the end of Ayer. Others who had worked at N. W. Ayer much longer than I had, many of whom had preceded the move from Philadelphia to New York and who held higher-level jobs and were privy to behind-the-scenes information, surely have a different take from mine on why the agency fell. I know this because over the years I’ve spoken with them. Some blame other events, other reasons, and other people. Others feel that at that point it still wasn’t too late, that the once-great top-five agency could still have been saved. And I have to admit that more than once in the immediate years after we shuffled out of Siano’s office that day, I thought it could be saved, too.
In retrospect, I couldn’t have been more naive.
Beware the Golden Boy (Especially If It’s You)
My boss was coming my way again, stumbling across the bar at the posh Midtown eatery. It was 1993, still several years before posh had worn out its welcome. We were at the after party of the Christmas party for our biggest client, and he was happy, my boss. And drunk.
He was particularly happy with me, not because I had been making and selling great ads, but because of my recent extracurricular client-nurturing activites, most notably a just-recited, shamelessly bastardized version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol that had made these clients laugh.
With accounts of this size, at an agency of this size, I was quickly learning, making high-level clients laugh could be infinitely more important than actually writing and producing a great ad. Apparently, the only thing better than making big clients laugh was making them feel special. This could be achieved by having a party in their honor at a posh Manhattan eatery. By ordering six $200 bottles of wine for their table. Or by commissioning (forcing) a young writer on the rise to spend billable hours rewriting classic holiday tales in their likeness.
On this night, we had done all of the above, and everyone was happy (except for the young writer on the rise, who, despite enjoying the hell out of the $200 bottle of Bordeaux, was on some level deeply ashamed).
On nights like that there were moments when it almost felt as if we were all in it together. “Partners” was the new name we’d taken to using with clients and even inside the agency: N. W. Ayer & Partners. On nights like that, at least before it got too late and they started passing around shots, you almost forgot about the layoffs, the shake-ups, the way some of your best work was often so rudely, summarily dismissed. You almost forgot that billings were down and accounts (including this one) were in review, and what client was banging what account person. On nights like that you thought perhaps we could still be a great agency.
The boss came closer, and I prepared myself for another kiss. The first had come fifteen minutes earlier, after I’d read my story (which, incidentally,