Adland_ Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet - James P. Othmer [48]
Incidentally, in China, where there are now more than twelve hundred KFC franchises, “Finger Lickin’ Good” translates to “Eat Your Fingers Off.”
How good is that?
*1 According to online conspiracy theorists and fast-food chicken freaks, the ingredients for the recipe are assembled at multiple locations, and the only known copy of the recipe is indeed kept in a vault in the Louisville headquarters. However, most hypothetical versions of the recipe posted online specify that no fewer than three of the eleven herbs and spices are (surprise!) sodium based (table, celery, and garlic salt) and the fourth is that family spice cabinet favorite, MSG (monosodium glutamate).
*2 The Colonel, incidentally, did serve in the U.S. Army, but as a private stationed mostly in Cuba during World War I. Sanders, an Indiana native, was given the honorary “Kentucky Colonel” title in 1935 by Governor Ruby Laffoon.
*3 My nephew, Joey Spallina, despite numerous warnings against it, has gone on to become a successful commercial composer and sound designer, not to mention a solo recording artist.
The Healing Power of Yogurt
My job was to make logos bigger. Once the logo got big enough, they would have a meeting. Then I would move the logo up or down, or to the right or to the left. Finally, I would be told to make the headline bigger. Because compared to the logo, it was now too small.
—Hal Riney
Only the Muffin Remains
One afternoon in the winter of 2001, shortly after the Kentucky Fried Chicken client had fired us, which was shortly after our mega-bank client had fired us, ending what for me had been six months of unprecedented daily torture and humiliation, my boss called me into her office.
Her boss, the creative director of the agency, had left her office just a few minutes earlier, so I knew something was up. While I stood in her doorway, waiting for her to get off the phone, I peeked down the hall to see if there were any clipboard-toting HR geeks coming to make sure that my exit interview would be done in a legally safe way, or if they had security guards at the ready to escort me from the building, or subdue me in case I went bonkers. But the coast was clear, and since I was white, straight, and not yet forty years old, I guess they felt I wouldn’t have a whole lot of ammunition for any kind of discrimination case.
As usual, my boss was smoking a cigarette, even though smoking inside corporate office spaces had been banned in New York City buildings for years, and as usual upon her desk sat a blueberry muffin that looked as if it had been briefly nibbled upon by a sparrow.
So, I thought, this is the end. The end of this job at least, and perhaps the end of something larger. Advertising. Commuting. Climbing. Hell, it had been a good run. That’s what I’ll tell her, after she gives me the news. Some high-road shit like that.
And maybe it was time for a change. Maybe it was the proverbial blessing in disguise. Blah, blah, blah. Plus, I couldn’t really blame her for this. She’d hired me, and for the last few years she’d done a decent job of protecting and compensating me. Often that meant having me work on things she’d told me I’d never work on, but shit happens. Everything changes when you lose business, and in the past year our group had lost two of the agency’s largest accounts.
“Maybe I’ll get a good package.” Looking for a place to sit, I wondered why every day she had her assistant place a blueberry muffin on her desk even though she never ate it. Wouldn’t you think at some point one of them would have put an end to it, or at least switched from blueberry to carrot?
“Maybe I’ll make more and stress less doing freelance.”
Usually I plopped down on a couch as far away from the smoke as possible, but that wouldn’t do for this kind of conversation. This time I decided to sit on the other