Body Copy - Michael Craven [6]
And expanded. Gale/Parker began growing at a break-neck pace, hiring top-notch creative and account manage-ment people from the best agencies in the country. With Roger Gale and Gale/Parker becoming synonymous with cutting-edge campaigns, many of the people who joined the agency came knocking without solicitation.
The agency got huge and, as the years passed, opened offices all over the world. But the flagship office, where Roger Gale had been found murdered, was right down the road from Tremaine, in Playa del Rey, California.
In various articles, Roger Gale was referred to as a “vi-sionary,” a “genius,” a “workaholic,” and a “brilliant advertising mind.” The New York Times, in the obituary that Tremaine had read more than a year earlier, said, “Roger Gale was the West Coast’s single most influential advertising person and, in fact, ranks right up there with the all-time giants, David Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, and Bill Bern-bach.”
A lot of the campaigns Roger Gale had created Tremaine remembered. They were famous. Stuff for Old Spice and Panasonic and Puma and, of course, Rogaine, the campaign he had discussed with Nina. Just admit it. You want your hair.
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But the main focus in nearly every piece Tremaine found wasn’t the specific campaigns Roger Gale had created. It was Roger Gale himself. The maverick, the inno-vator, the leader. This wasn’t just a guy who created some memorable commercials. This was a guy who changed the way the industry operated. Under Roger Gale, there was no such thing as proper work attire, you could wear what you wanted. Out were the suits and loafers; in were the T-shirts, ripped-up jeans, and flip-flops. And you didn’t have to sit at your desk. You could work outside in a tree if you felt like it.
Just as long as you were willing to die for your ads.
Roger Gale’s employees, as a result of this new attitude, saw him almost as a god. Even though they were made to work long days, nights, and weekends, they deeply respected him and were fiercely loyal to him. They respected his passion, his commitment, and the fact that even as a living legend, he walked around the office carrying a red pen and would stop mid-stride to excitedly jot down an idea, sometimes on his hand or arm.
The Gale/Parker agency—the physical appearance of it—got almost as much attention as Roger Gale and the work his agency produced. The agency’s headquarters was a massive old airplane hangar that had been turned into a state-of-the-art ad agency. No traditional offices, just a gargantuan, wide-open space with clusters of work centers everywhere, bright orange walls, and a full-size basketball court inside.
Tremaine looked at the agency on the Gale/Parker Web site, where they offered a virtual tour. On the outside, the building looked like nothing more than a massive orange 19
Michael Craven
warehouse. But inside, it was an irreverent, modern office space to say the least. It was the physical manifestation that Roger Gale’s agency did things differently. In Gale’s words, it was “built to fuel creativity and show prospective clients that contemporary thinking is literally the founda-tion of the place.” And, Tremaine thought, if prospective clients wanted to play a little five-on-five, they could do that, too.
On a personal front, there wasn’t much interesting stuff about Roger Gale. At least not on the Net. Tremaine did find out a little, though. Roger Gale’s first wife died in an automobile accident, he had no kids, and he was survived by his second wife, Evelyn Gale, his sister, Rita, must be Nina’s Mom, and a stepson, Peter, who lives in Los Angeles.
Tremaine took a break from the computer and sat thinking for a moment, processing his cursory investigation of the great ad man who had been struck down by murder.
Tremaine thinking, all this praise, all these achievements, all the respect from the people who worked for him, yet someone wanted him dead. And