Adland_ Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet - James P. Othmer [33]
Our campaign launch, a re articulation of the “Life’s Better Here” manifesto, with Kris Kristofferson as our wise and weathered cowboy voice-over, was a fine piece of branding and positioning. But I soon found out that high-end branding—my strength—was only part of the assignment. The bulk of the assignment on the account would be coming not from US West headquarters in Denver but from its products and retail team in Phoenix. And it was also revealed to us that the retail team had been quite happy with its former agency and thought our “Life’s Better Here” strategy was all hype and no substance. I also soon discovered that the retail people pretty much couldn’t stand their own brand people.
So, to hear the retail folks out and hopefully ingratiate ourselves to them, I was instructed to fly my newly empowered ass to Phoenix once a week to try to discern how to do ads that would bring the disparate aspects of their business together. Often I’d stay for several days, but as much as possible I’d fly out and back on a red-eye in the same day. After almost fifteen years of marriage, my wife and I were expecting our first child.
In the months that followed, we created some great retail spots that were built upon the “Life’s Better Here” brand foundation that the brand people loved and the retail people hated. Then we created some great hardworking retail spots with considerably less attention given to the “Life’s Better Here” credo that the retail people loved and the brand people hated. Each group accused us of pandering to the other. I’m sure there was a way to make them all happy, but after three months on the business it was eluding me. High-end branding may have been my specialty, but being a corporate mediator clearly was not.
Youth is a wonderful thing in a profession known for eating its old. But if a young person in a position of leadership, especially creative leadership, begins to falter, he can quickly become the meal, too.
The clients from both camps stepped up their complaints about the work. It’s amazing how many times I’ve seen agencies fired because of infighting within the client ranks, and this seemed to be one of those times. At one point, two young creatives who worked under me produced, with my guidance and encouragement, a very funny retail long-distance commercial featuring Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots that, in retrospect, probably wasn’t the best fit for any part of that client dynamic at that particular time. Too quirky. Too much fun.
Part of the “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em” fallout was that I was told I should stop managing the work of others and do what I did best, which was to create more of my own. I did. Then, just before Christmas, my partner and I sold a flight of new work, a three-spot campaign, that we were scheduled to shoot for three weeks starting on New Year’s Day. My wife was eight months pregnant at the time, and neither of us was thrilled by the prospect of another long-term separation.
The lifestyle of an executive at that agency at that time was 24/7/365 (the day I got the new title, I was handed a new phone and a pager, and I’m fairly sure some kind of tracking chip was implanted under my skin). Because my account and the agency were constantly on the precipice of disaster, my days and nights were filled with anxiety. Sometimes I’d wake up at 3:00 a.m. thinking about a line in a commercial for voice messaging (based on the ironic strategy that this communications product would give you more freedom and control in your life), and then, more out of the grip of addiction than the siren call of curiosity or responsibility, I’d check my e-mail. Invariably, there were messages. An account exec half-drunk in a Denver hotel room setting up a meeting or relaying comments on our latest work, the CEO parsing some upper-level client angst. And of course, I would answer their messages, an act that I’m still ashamed of.
But the only thing more disturbing than answering someone’s e-mail at 3:01 a.m. EST is getting a response at 3:02 a.m. EST.
On one flight home from Denver, after an extremely