From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor - Jerry Della Femina [91]
I got a tapeload of reactions. Little did I know that things like this can blow a whole presentation. I figured the tape would immediately strike them that they needed an agency like us, one that thought ahead and really was interested enough to know the problems that they might be facing. At the first meeting I knew something was wrong when the guy whom Bob had met in the bar said, ‘Bob, you didn’t have to do anything like this.’ Bob says, ‘Well, we thought we would show you what our ideas on the …’ And the guy said, ‘Look, I thought this would just be a meeting where we would talk a little bit.’ When you hear that phrase, duck. Also sitting in at the meeting was one of the Tisch brothers – I forgot which – but one of the owners of Loew’s Hotels.
They’re waiting for the presentation to start and I said, ‘Gentlemen, I’d like you to hear this tape.’ The tape goes on, you hear the telephone ringing, and my voice saying, ‘Is this the Magic Carpet Travel Service?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘My name is Jerry Dell and I’m looking for a place to stay when I go to Puerto Rico. I was wondering if you could tell me something about the place.’ And the travel agent’s voice comes on, ‘Well, there are a lot of nice places in Puerto Rico.’ One of the Loew’s guys says, ‘That’s Hymie Smith.’ They start whispering around the table, ‘Hey that’s Hymie, that’s Hymie.’
I said, ‘What place would you recommend?’ Hymie says, ‘Well, I would recommend …’ and he recommended something other than the Americana. My voice comes on again. ‘What about the Americana? I hear a lot about the Americana.’ Hymie says, ‘The Americana? It’s too close to the airport. It hasn’t got a swinging crowd. You’re a young guy, right?’
The next voice I hear is one of the Loew’s Hotel people who says, ‘That prick! Stop the tape!’ I stop the tape and the hotel guy tells a secretary to call in a guy named Sid, who evidently is in charge of travel-agent relations. Sid is a very fat guy and when he walks in he’s very cordial and gives everybody a big smile and makes a big thing of shaking all hands. ‘Sid,’ says the hotel guy, ‘when’s the last time you spoke to Hymie Smith over at Magic Carpet Travel?’ ‘Hymie? I took Hymie to lunch just the other day.’ ‘Would you say that Hymie is your friend?’ ‘Oh, Hymie is one of our good friends.’ ‘Play the tape.’ I replay the tape and Sid is perspiring a lot.
At this point I’m ready to go into the presentation. They couldn’t care less. At this point they’re so aggravated at Hymie over at Magic Carpet Travel that they don’t know I’m in the room. ‘Well,’ I say, ‘now I’d like to show you what we’re going to do to combat this indifference to your hotel.’ Nobody’s listening. The Loew’s guy is going on in this vein – ‘You spend money, you take these guys to places I don’t go to, and then they show you this? Those bastards have no loyalty.’ Guys are walking around muttering, ‘How could you spend money on those bastards?’
I try to butt in with ‘I’d like to tell you how we’re going to solve this marketing problem of yours …’ One hotel guy looked at me as if to say, ‘What, are you still here? You caused all the trouble, you bum, now go away.’ I said, ‘Here’s an ad we have featuring James Bond …’ One guy says, ‘Look. We got advertising, we got good advertising. We’re not interested in a new agency. We’re worried about the off season.’
Meanwhile we’re trying to back out the door without getting hit. Now it’s a case where you have to grab your equipment, and suddenly it feels like you have a lot more equipment than when you went in. You’re plugging things and unplugging things and the tape recorder is falling on the floor and ‘Bob, hold this,’ ‘I got it,’ and they’re still yelling at Sid. The whole thing was such a disaster that it probably was the greatest thing that ever happened to me in advertising because I learned one thing out of it: that was, never be afraid of a presentation. I mean, what could go worse? Worse is that they could physically attack you. That is the end. I’ve seen people who were uptight about presentations.