Girl Jungle

I love you, you're perfect, now change.

Well, the big show is over.  Our Superbowl Admeister, one Gino Bona, has returned from points North, West and South to resume life as a better-than-average ad man in Portland, Maine.  His fifteen minutes of fame turned into more than a month of superhoopla shining radiant light on him, on us and on Maine.

Yahoo. Well, sorta. To tell you the truth,  we're all just a little let down. The commercial we fell in love with...Gino's tribute to end of season angst...the sight gags, the silly fan moments, the hilarious ending isn't exactly what turned up in the finished ad.

Seems that the NFL (and über director, Joe Pytka) had other ideas. And as is the case so often in our business, the original idea, the one we loved, prayed for, and voted for got lost a bit in the crucible of groupthink that is advertising.

Truth is, advertising is all about compromise. And input from other sources. And decision making that under the best circumstances makes the work better.  Gino's concept (and those from all the other consumer-generated ads this year)  was formed with little or no input from the client.  No creative brief.  No strategic underpinnings save those he knew intimately as a die hard NFL fan.  Here in agency land, creative concept would never be developed before client input. So it comes as no real surprise that certain aspects of Gino's original concept were, well, off strategy.

Turns out the NFL really didn't like the idea of dragging out an old icon like Dick Butkus.  And the notion of big fat bar tabs?  Not so much.  And Pytka really couldn't stand "Boyz II Men."

"So Hard to say Goodbye" changed. Not the same, but oh-so-good. From the New Orleans Saints funeral march, "Saint James Infirmary" to an insider nod to Brett Farve's wishy- washy future, Pytka and Gino crafted a masterly nod to the symbols of die hard fandom. Not laugh out loud funny but smile 'n nod evoking. And real. Real good. 

Taking a Chance on Love

Sometimes, running an ad business can feel more like braille than brilliance and this Halloween, I was confronted with yet another "hold yer nose and jump" situation. See, in the creative industries, it's not so much about stimulating your staff to greatness with cattle prods.  Things managerial at the ad ranch usually feel more like herding cats.

So, one of my favorite young turks, aptly employed as Official Corporate Troublemaker (aka New Business guy,) sidles up to me and says, "Boss, you gotta fly me to the Meadowlands. I want to pitch an idea to the NFL."

Now, I celebrate optimistic thinking and derring do as much as any card-carrying entrepreneurial crazy, but this gambit felt a little speculative, even to me.  Tempted to accuse the boy of thinly-veiled sports lust, I cautiously asked for a little more information.

"You're kidding, right?" I asked with my mentor hat slightly askew.

"No, it's great! The NFL is holding a contest for the Best Superbowl Commercial Ever and I think I've got the winning idea. They're asking fans from all over the country to come and pitch their ideas.  It's just ninety seconds between me and ad glory!"

"Ninety seconds, thousands of people and a rats chance in hell," I thought to myself.

I tried hard to contain my skepticism. Not wanting to quash the man's enthusiasm, but with a sincere desire to box his ears, I relented.

"Pitch me."

He did, complete with a heart-filled rendition of the Boyz II Men sobber, "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye."

I loved it, and so it began. I bought the ticket and threw caution to the wind.   

Yesterday, a banner headline in USA Today announced our guy had won it all.  National recognition,  trips to LA, NY and South Beach,  and a chance to work with the legendary Joe Pytka.

Some things never change. Follow the love. It's the strongest emotion there is.

When blogs (and other ether words) go wrong

Recently, some business colleagues of mine got embroiled in a real nasty business on line. Seems a disgruntled acquaintance decided to take them to task (and then some) in his blog. And what started out as a little snarkiness on the blogger's part has grown through a regrettable snowballing of undisciplined parry and thrust to absurd proportions including law suit threats and sleepless nights for everyone.

It got me to thinking about how our civility toward one another has been compromised in the on-line environment. If you're like me, more than once you've hit the "send" button when you should have cooled down first. Fired off a snide remark when judicious silence would have done better or hidden behind an alias to say mean, unfair or cruel things.

What is it about email and its webular cousin, blogging, that turns the most kind, thoughtful correspondent into Jack the Ripper?

Somehow, I guess, we're emboldened by the computer. We sit alone, tap-tap-tapping our raw thoughts into the cybersphere as if our words have no consequence. Things we would never say in person, (or even on paper) somehow blaze through, hurting feelings, causing damage, making enemies.

It seems when people can hide behind the curtain of their computer they lose their critical judgment. Perhaps it's the speed with which we can craft a snappy response or the psychological distance an email creates between two people, even when they're mere feet from each other. It's an odd sort of detatched bravery. Perhaps communicating on-line relieves us in some perverse way of our moral and ethical compass.

In the blog environment, it's awfully easy to ratchet up an issue by piling on, and sometimes innocent people or their businesses get hurt in this largely unregulated “democratized media.” When we're attacked or maligned or lied about, it's no wonder we -- or our supporters -- rally behind us fanning flames that might have gone out with less attention.

Plenty of business people these days blame email for breakdowns in corporate communications. Not only is email, (and its evil spawn, the insidious cc list) a robber of productivity, it damages relationships amd work product since not only do we say things we probably shouldn't, we also react too quickly, speaking before we think; acting before we consider.

Now don't get me wrong. Blogging and other forms of cyber communications can be wonderful. Liberating, efficient, creative. It's when we forget we're speaking "with" not "to" our fellow humans that we get in trouble. Like everything else, I suppose, the rules for online communications come down to some permutation of the Golden Rule. You know, "Do unto others as you would they do unto you."

Or maybe it's like the old Abe Lincoln parable...write a letter then place it in your desk drawer for a day. If it doesn't stink after aging, let it go. Good advice.

Ho, Ho Hooey

All right, holiday fans, it's time for my annual yuletide rant. A festive missive in which I bitch, moan and complain about the stupidity that is the Christmas season these days.

Now I like family times, a piece of brown sugar fudge, sugar cookies, balsams and carols as much as the next Congregationalist, but this headlong plummet into cynically commercialized chaos drives me nuts more and more every year.

Let us begin with the fact that the "holiday season" now officially begins the moment the Jack O' Lantern is extinguished. No more waiting till after the post-prandial turkey nap to start the madness that is Christmas. Nope, cruise any X-mart in late October and expect to hear motivational holiday tunes for your shopping pleasure. Christ. (As if He has anything to do with it...)

So. How about "Black Friday?" The bellwether day (Friday following Thanksgiving) that supposedly makes or breaks the retail year. Some stores open as soon as the blue laws allow (at 1:00 bloody AM in some places, for heaven's sake) with toilet bowl prices to gain what, market share? Bragging rights? Surely not profitability at those prices. Might make retail sense, but it sounds more like the black death to me. I can't imagine anything worse than lining up in the middle of the night with a zillion half-crazed perfect strangers outside a discount store for the opportunity to ring in the holiday.

Next, shall we discusss this year's most absurd holiday products? Second place goes to the all new, counter-space wasting "appliance," the Black and Decker Lids Off, a fifty dollar boat anchor that promises to automatically remove the stubbornest jar cover with the flick of a switch. Good grief. For a tenth the price, the Vermont Country Store will sell you a nifty little clamp device that even the most arthritic of hands can use to pry open the pickels. And it fits in a drawer. Imagine.

Top honors this year are reserved for the new Oral B Triumph toothbrush, however. No mere placque remover, this: the all-new Triumph features an ON BOARD COMPUTER to aid in more efficient teeth cleaning. An on board computer? On a miserable cordless toothbrush? I didn't know one could actually BOARD a toothbrush. Oh my.

It may be open season on unwary consumers, but there are some bright spots. Take Kodak's new holiday advertising, for example. I don't know about you, but there's something about a great American brand fighting hard to stay in the game that warms my heart.

And a clever series of commercials for diamond jewelry featuring a poor bloke marooned at an anonymous airport on Christmas eve is pretty good. While the commercials themselves aren't anything to write home about, the advertiser gets extra points for devising a campaign that uses sequential placements of 30 second spots to tell a story.

Finally there's Castrol, (nothing says "Christmas" like motor oil...) that has perhaps the best positioning line I've heard in a long time. "Liquid Engineering." Not bad. Not bad at all.

Anyway. Thank you for taking time away from your important pre-holiday activities to read this. To escape from Festive Canned Merriment, I can only suggest you do as I do at the holiday season. Give money to causes you care about, sing, kiss your family and pray for peace.

What a good ikea...

Don't you just love it when a company gets it right? I mean, REALLY right.

A tight brand, great products, fine staff, superlative market position. Oh boy, oh boy. It's practically better than sex. (Well, okay. Maybe better than new shoes.)

College boy, now happily resident at Trinity College at U. Toronto arrived in his swell little Canadian city-by-the-lake with two giant LL Bean duffle bags full of excruciatingly correct prepster fashion and little else. Problem? Dormroom doldrums: smallish cell-- all ugly, sparse and uncomfortable.

Solution? A family outing to IKEA! Sweden's answer to cheap, stylish lifestyle accoutrements for students, singles (and everyone else.) In just a couple of hours, we had lounge chairs, tables, mattress pads, storage cubes and pillows. Hangers, rugs, a swanky tool kit with all the special gizmos necessary to assemble all the new stuff, and a belly full of delicious, Swedish meatballs, potatoes and gravy. For real. And for far less than we expected.

Ikea's idea of stylish, reasonably high quality, cheap, assemble-yourself furniture and the acessories to go with is smart. But the overall experience is even smarter. From the smell of cinnamon buns in the morning (to be replaced by eau de afore-mentioned meatballs at lunch) to great merchandising, easy accesorizing and tempting extras to seamless pick-up-and-pay, these guys understand the ethos of retail. And while their web site and online retail is a little less than perfect, for a big-ass-retail-box, this is nirvana.

We came expecting to spend sixty minutes and left, giddy with possibilities four hours later.

Brand converts, we. Pass the meatballs.

Requiem for an ad man

I have lost a friend. A great and good man whose life and works were as large as he. My friend, Kakha Kupatadze, Founder and Director General of Advertising Agency Imperial-BBDO was a post-Soviet success story from Tbilisi, Georgia. He died very suddenly last week. I doubt he was more than 43.

In his short life, following a childhood in Cuba, Kakha earned a Masters Degree in Economics and set off to make his fortune. A classic right place and right time story, Kakha was poised for success as the cold war fizzled. He was one of the founders of the Georgian Stock market and built an advertising company in the wild west economy of the Caucasus. An affiliation with global advertising giant BBDO rocketed his firm to success. He was recently named Georgia's Honorary Counsul to Slovenia. He told me just last week of new ventures in real estate and the " best restaurant in Tbilisi."

We met several years ago when Kakha came to the United States on a business exchange program. Handsome, charming and of monumental stature, Kakha crackled with warmth, fellowship and intelligence. Together, here in Maine, we explored my world: advertising, technology, restaurants, even the Rocky Horror Picture show. (Kakha greatly enjoyed firing his water pistol throughout.) Wonderman and I were planning a reciprocal trip to Georgia in October.

As years passed, Kakha and I collaborated on work my company was pursuing in Russia. His advice and knowledge of the market saved me from disaster more than once. We talked frequently, and enjoyed watching each other succeed.

To men and women alike, Kakha always signed his letters and emails "Love." And it is so I will remember him. With love.

When I Grow Up...

As president of a moderately successful advertising agency with great and interesting clients and a fabulously talented staff, I arguably have a pretty good gig. And as I sit here on my porch looking out over Casco Bay smack in the middle of a normal Friday afternoon, I guess I've got little or nothing to complain about, at least from a career standpoint. And indeed I'm grateful. And happy.

But I've been reading this book by former NY Times restaurant critic, (now editor of Gourmet Magazine,) Ruth Reichl, and it's got me to thinking. How do everyday people get to do such cool things?

I wonder about folks who design costumes for Broadway shows like the Lion King. Or write questions for Jeopardy. Designers like Kate Spade and Donna Karan. Danika Patrick (the new female Indy car phenomenon) or Kitty Carlisle (whose big claim to fame, other than dressing mahvolously on "What's My Line" was marrying Broadway lyricist Moss Hart.) Food critics like Jane and Michael Stern of "RoadFood" fame, Faith Popcorn (the now slightly out of style self-proclaimed futurist) and my personal hero, agency pioneer, Mary Wells Lawrence.

Is it talent? Training? Family connections? Looks? Kismet? Who knows. Probably all that and more (not the least of which is hard work.) Perhaps what all these people with wonderfully interesting occupations have in common is the ability to see what might be and a willingness to pursue it. I suspect most of these extraordinary ordinary people put their pantyhose on one leg at a time like the rest of us, but they keep their eyes on the horizon. They're folks who have chosen the perfect moment (or moments) to make the most of what they've got. It seems they subscribe to that old adage "If you follow your passion, the money will come."

As wonderful as my parents, (the heros) are, I got the advice many a post-depression kid received from their "Greatest Generation" parents. "Get a good education. Know what you're good at. Work hard. Settle down and find a good trade. "

But luckily, in my case, they also drummed in the notion that I shouldn't expect to really succeed by working for someone else. Smart them. As entrepreneurial sorts, they knew risk tolerance and a willingness to work through both success and failure would yield a happier life than settling for stable (but unsatisfying) mediocrity.

Many kids aren't so lucky. Despite academic brilliance, good luck, hard work and perserverance, I'm amazed at how many deeply unhappy "successes" there are out there. People with impressive sounding titles (and hefty bank accounts to match) who are flat-out desolate souls chained to horribly unhappy careers. Scared miserable. Poor them.

If only we could learn something from the lives of extraordinary people, and whether their days seem as magical to them as they do to us, good for them for the example they set for all our aspirations.

My madness has new Method.

Ms. Compulsive (that would be me) has somethin' new to occupy her slightly warped mind. Discovered at Target, (discount store for the thinking yuppie) it's a wonderfully conceived and executed line of home cleaning stuff called "Method."

I love a system, (and have since I was a wee lass,) and this Method business is wicked swell. What first convinced me to try the products (other than a full line of great, glorious packaging, appealing scents and an environmentally sensitive rap) is the package size. Small. This is important when you haul your life on and off an island.

See, the laundry goo (Free and Clear!) is triple concentrated so the bottle requires two thirds less space than your gargen variety vat o' Tide. Plus it's cheaper, and biodegradable. And did I mention it smells nice? (In this case, like not much at all.)

Cleaners for bath and kitchen - including dishwasher cubes - come in swell fragrances like pink grapefruit and cucumber(!) and there's a hand soap and body lotion side of things to match. Candles too, but you've got to love a dryer sheet scented "fresh air."

I'll be stocking up next on the mint flavored glass cleaner and mandarine shower cleaner. Check this stuff out at Target or on line at http://www.methodhome.com.

Everybody dance now.

I'm always interested when College Boy provides some insight into the consciousness of youth. (and into lots of other people too, turns out.)

I came home the other day to find him in high dirge about proprietary sizing systems. Seems he and his buddy Hans had been to visit a new ice cream joint, Cold Stone Creamery where, like Starbucks, they've decided they can't just call their portions "small," "medium," or "large." No, instead, some wily Chief Branding Officer dreamed up a diabolical scheme to suck consumers into the brand experience by making them choose their ice cream by "Like It," "Love It," or "Gotta' Have It." Please.

To make matters worse, the disaffacted countermen-creamers have been trained (like seals?) to sing when someone tips them. And with such enthusiasm. Not. (Good thing Mr. CBO wasn't around or we would have had a little dance lesson on that!)

At Cold Stone and a lot of other joints, me thinks this "brand experience" contrivance has gone a bit too far. Consumers, like College Boy, are far too savvy to be taken in by shameless brand choreography. We can smell "trying too hard" a mile away and we don't like it.

It's not real, and it smells of manipulation. Of employees and worse, of customers. Brand "voice" sings (and dances) when it's authentic. The real deal. Unique. Cool cause it is, not because some evil puppeteer stages it to be so.

Brands with sustained cool, to my way of thinking, just ARE that way. Southwest Airlines, Ben and Jerry's, Target, Steinway, Harley to name a few. Internally and externally consisent in both voice and behavior, of relentlessly high quality, and desirable because, well, they are. And, oh sure, someone, somewhere really got something right when brands catch on. But generally, some "too clever by half" pastiche ain't the magic bullet.

The odd thing about Cold Stone? The product is really good. The unique bit they've got about custom, slab-blended flavors? Great! The stuff resonant brands are made of. Why muck it up with contrivance? Let the product sing, (and, by the way, I'll have a large. But no dancing, please.)

Steinway to Heaven.

As a serious piano-phile, I am pleased to report a recent pilgrimage to keyboard Mecca. In my role as consultant to Gettysburg College's Majestic Theater, I tagged along with Jeffrey Gabel, Founding Director of the Majestic and Dr. Mark Hansen of Gettysburg's Sunderman Conservatory of Music on a trip to the home of Steinway Pianos in Queens, New York to document their selection of a new concert grand piano for the theater.

Oh boy. If entering a cool, elegant demonstration room full of gorgeous, ebony instruments wasn't enough (and when was the last time you saw 10 grand pianos together in a single setting?) hearing Dr. Hansen audition each one was, well, transforming.

Who knew four seemingly identical "D" model instruments could sound so different? What a thrill to listen and watch an artist like Dr. Hansen put instruments through their paces? Beautiful, quiet pieces, Gershwin, arpeggio, sotto voce. Tests for treble and bass registers, brightness, creamyness. Dr. H. sought an impossible to articulate (in words) but certain, perceptible je ne sais quois that would identify the perfect instrument for the Majestic Theater's broad range of uses.

From work as a solo instrument to accompanying a singer or string quartet to a full orchestra, the Majestic's piano must, by definition, be a generalist, but even as a utility player, versatility means anything but bland.

Quickly, (and I mean in three minutes) four choices were two, then a few illuminating (but exquisite) refrains later, two options became one.

Dr. Hansen played each piano listening, feeling, intuiting the character of the instrument. I knew he had made his decision when a wry smile crossed his face and he said, "This one has a certain twinkle in its eye."

What was remarkable to me was how, with his help, I could hear it too...