Adland_ Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet - James P. Othmer [40]
“Maybe their problem is beyond advertising,” I said. “Maybe it’s their scuzzy restaurants and incompetent employees. Maybe it’s their unhealthy menu, or people are just sick of the Colonel, live, dead, or animated.”
Veteran account guy glared at me. I had forgotten that he had met the Colonel and the experience had apparently been life changing, similar to meeting the pope, the Dalai Lama, or Hannah Montana.
“Don’t you bad-mouth the goddamn Colonel, Jimmy.” Jimmy. “Listen, I know this business. I know the way chicken works. And I know what the franchisees want.”
“Maybe what the franchisees want,” I said, “isn’t necessarily what is best for them.”
In addition to my nephew, some of my favorite people were working with me, good friends but also exceptionally capable professionals, including a young writer and art director team, a producer I had known since my start at N. W. Ayer, and a film editor with whom I’d been friends for more than ten years. Turns out that this was a mistake.
In part, this was because exceptionally capable professionals were not what the account as it was then constituted called for. But more so because it’s one thing to be reamed out by an arrogant, ignorant client in front of strangers, and quite another to have it happen in front of respected peers, friends, and relatives, including a nephew who once looked up to me and my supposedly flashy ad job. Several times a day, for several months.
Finally we settled on concepts for three spots, versions of two of the original spots—“Dem Bones” and “Chicken Strippy Rendezvous”—as well as a promotional spot with a jingle that someone else had presented and the client had us shoehorn into our campaign. Next we found a director. Two directors, actually. One was to shoot the live action, and the other, a first for me, was a tabletop specialist, hired exclusively to have his camera make intimate, close-up love to the chicken.
The first part of the filming, for the promotional spot, was at a modest house in a middle-class neighborhood in Rockland County, about fifty miles from Manhattan. We were scheduled to film some interiors, a few backyard-party/eating scenes, and a sequence of teenagers munching out in a moving car we’d tow around the neighborhood in a camera car.
The call time was to be on set at 8:00 a.m., but the client didn’t arrive until after 10:00. His plane was late; his driver had gotten lost. He was not happy, and it was obvious that he was not happy with Rockland County or our set, either. If he was going to get out of Louisville, he wanted to be in L.A., staying at Shutters on the Beach or the Sunset Marquis. And if he was going to have to film in New York, a less than spectacular ranch house in the suburbs wasn’t going to cut it.
He lit into the set design. The wardrobe. The lighting. The texture of the chicken. The bucket’s lack of ubiquity. The account person looked at me. It was usually her job to put him at ease, to change the subject, offer him a fresh smoothie from crafts service, or take him to a nice restaurant. But at times like this the hand-holding job was mine. I explained that we wouldn’t see any of the downscale imagery that was troubling him. We were framing the shots to maximize the more interesting aspects of the location. And of course, the chicken. The chicken was looking fantastic. After I said this, the director yelled, “Cut!” and the on-camera talent, a young woman who had just taken a bite of a drumstick, bent over and spit out the half-chewed food. Into a KFC bucket. Which I thought was hilarious. The client, alas, did not.
Next we showed him an abundance of wardrobe and set decoration options. I promised to lose the party streamers, the pink flamingos on the lawn, and the scruffy-faced kid who looked like a junkie. Too downscale. Then we had a sit-down with the line producer from the production company and the