Onion Soup

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Posted on September 26, 2013

We left San Dimas a better place. No Chevettes were injured in the filming of the commercial. I, however, had to do some serious damage control. Friends, family, neighbors, and real estate people were told that the whole Parker/Datsun thing was a false alarm. Time to make the best of the approaching Michigan winter. One of the great things about being the “Small Car Guy” was the opportunity to work on Corvette. Corvette!!!! The love child of Martin Milner and George Maharis. The name carried great cache. At a cocktail party, casually dropping the fact that you “did” Corvette advertising was like saying that you were the manager of The Rolling Stones. Originally designed by the legendary Harley Earl, the Corvette was introduced in 1953 at the New York Motorama. A young engineer named Zora Arkus-Duntov saw it there, falling in love with the design, but being disappointed with what was under the skin. He wrote GM, offering some ideas. They hired him, and Zora became know as the “Father of the Corvette.”

Corvette’s 25th Anniversary was approaching. A special edition 1978 Corvette was already booked as the Pace Car of the 1978 Indy 500. We were going to produce a magazine ad commemorating the anniversary. The headline was “25 Years Of Men, Machines And Memories.” We shot the very first Corvette parked next to the current model. Knowing that there were a lot of rabid Corvettophiles out there, we had Chevy’s product specialists go over the artwork, checking its technical accuracies. Sure enough, within a week of the ad appearing, the Chevy Ad Department forwarded to me a nasty letter from self-styled “Corvette expert.” “You idiots,” the letter said, “the ’53 Corvette only had two convertible top tie-down buckles, the Corvette you show has four! You goofed.” Hhmmm. Pretty sure that the Chevy product specialists knew their stuff, but I had to respond to the letter. I called one of the specialists, who suggested that I go to the horse’s mouth. He gave me Zora Arkus-Duntov’s home phone number. Zora had retired from Chevy two years earlier, so I didn’t know whether he wanted to be bothered. I called, and he answered. He explained, “Tom, the ad’s correct. The very first production models had four. We found out that we could use only two and save a few cents about thirty vehicles in to the initial production run. In fact, they borrowed that car from me for the shoot.” I expressed my thanks and told him about the nasty letter. “Tom,” he said, “give him my home number. I’ll talk to him.” I did. And he did.

There were also some great large-scale media lunches. CBS Spot Radio Sales would have great lunches at The Recess Club. KNX would bring in their on-air celebrity,Chef Mike Roy, to prepare an incredible meal. I got word that Sunset Magazine was going to do an industry luncheon in Detroit. I called a friend back in LA who was a Sunset mag rep to confirm the rumor. The Sunset lunches in LA were legendary. They consisted of all the Dungeness crab, sourdough bread, caesar salad, and California chardonnay you could consume. They were bringing this Bacchanal to The Raleigh House on Telegraph. I made a simple request: can you get me on the Detroit invite list? No problem! I brought Gary Anderson, another Account Man, with me. Gary’s father had been one of my first Chevy Field clients. By the time we got out to The Raleigh House in Southfield, there weren’t many tables left. I chose a table near the kitchen were Gary and I would be the only two seated there. The all-you-can-out lunch surpassed my wildest hopes. After the Sunset speechifying, people began to drag themselves back to their cars. I told Gary to wait a few moments. Our waiter had been a kindly, elderly gentlemen. I called him over. “Sir,” I said, “do you know if they have any “extra” crab in the kitchen?” He told me that Sunset had vastly over-ordered on the number of meals, and the staff was wondering what to do with the leftovers. I gave him a $10 bill and asked him if he could grab a couple of crabs for us. About ten minutes later he reappeared with two 33-gallon garbage bags full of crab and bottles of chardonnay. Gary and I casually walked out of The Raleigh House with large bags slung over our shoulders. I still love Sunset Magazine!

The Recess Club was nestled across the street from the GM Building, in the Fisher Building. It was a very nice social/dinner club that every young Account Man was expected to join. Serving lunch and dinner in the main dining room, it was a great place for client lunches or dinner before seeing a play at the Fisher Theater. The real attraction, however, was the Men’s Grill. The ultimate man cave. No women allowed. Upon entering, one was wrapped in the sweet aromas of cigarettes, cigars, spilled beer, and juicy cheeseburgers. A pool table dominated the center of the eating area. A wonderfully stocked bar was against the left wall. A carefully-timed arrival would reveal a mag rep waiting to buy a client, any client, a drink. Against the far wall of the grill was the door to the health club. There, the iron fingers of masseur Henri Nussbaum could knead away the tensions of a creative presentation gone bad. There was a steam room where one could find out more about a GM client than necessary. The exercise machines helped work off the aggression that, if displayed at a meeting, could abruptly truncate a career. The real center of business, however, was the card table next to the bar.

One evening I made the mistake of going into the men’s grill after work. My wife was going to dinner and a movie with friends, so I thought I’d grab a burger and a beer, and watch the Tigers. As I entered, I heard the cry, “Hey Tom, come over here and sit with us.” It was Dick O’Neil, the SVP-Management Supervisor on the car account. He was sitting at a table with what could be called the all-star line-up of GM ad and marketing heavy breathers. Dick introduced me around. “This is great!” I thought. Dick said, “Come on, sit and play cards with us.” It was then I noticed that they were playing gin rummy. I know how to play gin rummy, but I’d rather play with undetonated hand grenades. But, I couldn’t pass up this chance to rub elbows with raw power. The bartender came up to our table. “Another round, gents?” he asked. Dick said yes. “Tom, do you want some onion soup?” Well, I was going to have a hamburger, but soup sounded good. “Sure,” I said. Five minutes later the bartender returned, carrying six glasses (more like large bowls) of vodka, each containing about eight cocktail onions. Onion soup!! It all went downhill from here. The cards kept being dealt, the soup kept coming, everyone was laughing at my jokes. Who needed food? The cocktail onions and bar peanuts satisfied my hunger. This was turning into a wonderful evening. I noticed that no money was on the table or being exchanged. I asked Dick about this. “Club rules prohibit playing cards for money.” Whew! Now I was really having fun, realizing that I hadn’t won a single hand all evening.

The club was closing, it was time for us to call it an evening. Everyone got up to leave, shaking hands with me as they left. I decided that I needed to go to the restroom before leaving. As I emerged back into the grill, the bartender asked, “Mr. Cavanagh, what’s your membership number?” “283,” I said.

I came back to the men’s grill for lunch two days later. As I sat down I looked at the wall behind the bar. I had always noticed the large pegboard with hooks and member numbers above each hook. Today, I noticed that five of the member numbers had large stacks of round metal discs on them. I got up and approached the board with some curiosity. What were all the tags doing there? Then my blood ran cold! Each tag had the number 283 written on it. I asked the bartender to explain this to me. “Well, Mr. Cavanagh, you lost big the other night. Each of the people you lost to now has a tag with your number on their member hook. Actually, lots of tags. Each tag can be redeemed for a drink” Each of my “new friends” had twelve tags with the number 283 on it…50 drinks!!!! I was out almost $300. I ran back to Dick’ office. I couldn’t afford $300. Dick told me not to worry. “It may take you a while, but you can always write off onion soup. Just give me the expense reports.”

This certainly was an interesting world.

Next: Another “Close But No Cigar.”

I Dodge A Big Bullet

3 Comments

Posted on September 23, 2013

All of the Chevy Account Men settled in to help keep Chevrolet #1. The Chevette was setting sales records, Chevy trucks were outselling the anti-Christ Ford trucks. Peace and love and harmony swept over all of us. Until late in 1975. A Chevrolet Merchandising account supervisor lost his mind and quit to move to LA and work at some place called Needham Harper & Sears (sic) on the Honda account. It was actually Steers, but nobody in Detroit knew that. Then, several key creatives bolted to LA to work at Clinton E. Frank on Toyota. They were dead to us. What a waste of a career…to leave the bosom of Campbell-Ewald to go try and sell cars that were ruining America. The agency decided that they needed to stop the hemorrhaging of talent. One day we learned that a bright young Account Man on Chevy Truck was leaving to go to BBD&O and be the #2 guy on the Dodge account. We were all very happy for him because we knew that he was getting a boatload of money, a huge title, AND a free car to move over to Dodge. His office was immediately emptied…when you go to a competitor, you have to leave right away lest the client think you are going to steal state secrets. Possible replacements for him were being interviewed. Several days later, in a moment of way too much candor while we were on our way to the airport, the Chevy Truck Management Supervisor gave me what he thought was wonderful news. “Tom, the negotiations lasted past midnight last night, but we’ve talked him into staying with Campbell-Ewald.” Hmmm. This young Account Man was giving up a boatload of money, huge responsibilities, AND a free car to stay in his old job? The memo came out the next day. It announced his promotion to VP-Account Supervisor on Chevy Truck. The current VP-AS was being “reassigned.” The Account Men who had been leap-frogged were more than a little upset. What was going on? We found out about two weeks later. In a phenomenal case of bad timing, Advertising Age ran an article titled, “When Tom Adams Retires, He’ll Be Replaced By Tom Adams.” The article explained that the agency loved smooth executive transitions. The new Campbell-Ewald HR Director was quoted, “We have what we like to think of as the ‘Crown Prince’ program working here. We’ve already identified the young man who will replace our chairman, Tom Adams, when he retires. We almost lost him to another agency recently, but we made sure he stayed with us.” Great!!! Every non-royal Account Man dusted off his resume…at home, since none of us knew how to type. After the article ran, executive recruiters witnessed Account Men running like grunion. I was somewhat tentative. We’d only been in our house for a little over a year. We knew that housing in LA was very expensive. I engaged my passive sonar, I didn’t want management to hear me actively pinging. In the Spring of 1976, I received a call from a gentleman from Parker Advertising in Palos Verdes, California. He was the Senior VP-Management Supervisor on the Datsun account. “Tom, your name was given to me by a friend. I understand that you used to work on the Chevy California Marketing Project, and that you now handle Small Cars nationally for Chevy.” The mating dance had begun. I did the pro-forma “I’m not looking to move, but wouldn’t mind talking” lie. He was in Detroit interviewing people. “How about we get together for breakfast tomorrow?” he asked. He was staying in Birmingham, so I mentioned an Elias Brothers Big Boy that was roughly halfway between us. Known as Bob’s Big Boy in the West, the three Elias Brothers knew a good thing when they saw it and became the first official franchisee in 1952. Breakfast went very well. I told him about the media friends I had made in LA, about how I knew that housing was expensive, and about where I thought the small car segment was going. We adjourned with him saying, “We’ll be in touch.” Chevette sales continued to grow as more and more people were being driven happy. The creative department had been using a photographer named Reid Miles to shoot a lot of the Chevette magazine work. He had become famous by designing LP album covers. Perhaps his most famous was the cover done for the group Chicago. Reid shot “idealized reality.” A little like photography’s answer to Norman Rockwell. There was a home-spun feel to his work. It was very present in the work he did for Chevette. If people were going to be driven happy, we wanted the people in the ads to look as though they had been delivered to this happy place. Reid often used an ensemble group of actors who had a “hometown” look to them. The Chevette print work exuded happy people. The decision was made to carry over the “Reid Miles” look into the TV commercials. We came up with a really big idea. What if everyone drove a Chevy Chevette? Everyone would be happy! There would be Chevette police cars, fire engines, convertibles, delivery vehicles, and ambulances. We chose the small town of San Dimas, CA., to be the location for our dystopian view of America. Located about 25 miles east of LA, the town had a “small town America” look to it. The city would gain more fame a few years later as the location for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Four days before I was set to leave for the shoot, two things happened. BBD&O came back to the “Crown Prince” and threw even more money at him. He accepted and was barely able to safely exit the GM Building as shotgun blasts tore the molding off of the elevator doors as he stepped inside. The second thing was a call from Parker Advertising. They liked me and wanted to fly me out to “meet the team.” I told them that if they could wait four days, I could save them the airfare as I was coming out anyway. Because I had learned that Account Men were not supposed to touch or say anything, I knew I could slip away from the set for a few hours. Telling everyone that I was going to visit some old friends, I sped to my clandestine rendezvous for lunch. The meeting went better than I could hope. As lunch was winding down, I excused myself to go to the restroom. When I returned to the table, a phone had been placed there. Both Parker guys had big smiles. “Tom. we want you to come work on the Datsun Account at Parker. You’ll handle the cars. We have another fellow named Bill Hagelstein handling trucks and the Z car. Here’s a boatload of money and you get a FREE CAR! We have this phone here so you can call Detroit and quit on the spot. We need you out here for a big meeting in four days.” I accepted, but told them that, since I’d been with Campbell-Ewald for almost six years, the decent thing to do would be to resign in person. I would still be able to make the meeting as I would most likely be hurled out of a window when they found out I would be working on Datsun. They agreed, and asked if I had time to go to the office and meet everyone. The offices were gorgeous. I met “the team.” We then went down to meet John Parker, the agency founder. His office was dark. the Management Supervisor asked where he was. “Oh, he got called over to Datsun for a meeting. he should be back soon.” Instead of waiting, they asked me to come back first thing the next morning to fill out my medical paperwork and order my free car!! That evening, at the hotel, I called my wife, my parents, my close friends in Detroit and in LA, to give them the good news. My wife was going to call the realtor and get the “For Sale” sign up ASAP. I got a call from the woman who did the Datsun budgets at Parker. She was also a real estate agent and offered to set up some home visits the next day. She told me how happy everyone was that I had decided to join Parker. Wonderful!! I pulled into the Parker parking lot the next morning and ran into the Account Supervisor on my way into the building. I didn’t notice the puzzled look on his face. As we got on the elevator, he said, “Uhhh, Tom, did you get a phone call last night?” I told him that I had. “Well, what do you think?” I told him that the budget manager had called and we were going to look at houses today. “Uhhhh, Tom, we lost the Datsun account yesterday afternoon. That’s where John Parker was…getting fired. In fact, there’s no job, we’ve all been fired.” Well, golly! I’m sure glad I didn’t quit over the phone yesterday. I had dodged a huge bullet. With trembling hands and a convulsing stomach, I drove back out to San Dimas just in time for the big finale. It was a huge parade scene that was going to be done in one shot. Marching bands, all of the customized Chevettes, beauty queens, local officials, and Cub Scouts would, on cue, turn the corner and march down the street toward the camera. We had talked San Dimas High School into letting the students off for the afternoon to cheer the parade. They each received $1 to give us the rights to their likeness. Reid was at the top of a huge cherry picker with the cameraman. He barked directions through a powerful megaphone that could be heard throughout the downtown area. “Action!” The marching band started playing the jingle as they came into view. There was the Chevette fire truck with a terrified Dalmatian on the roof. Sirens blaring, lights flashing, beauty queens waving, city officials in their Chevette limos giving the “thumbs up to the crowd. A Norman Rockwell painting come to life. The parade passed underneath the camera and began to move away, when Reid shrieked, “Cut!!” One of the students had taped his dollar to his forehead and was in the shot. The take was ruined. With the megaphone at full throttle he started,”You %$#&*% idiot kid. I’m coming down there to #$^% you in your @$#. As a matter of fact, this whole &*^$$ town can go and ^#$%& itself. What did you all do, marry your cousins? This is total &%$#@*!!!” I knew that, as an Account Man, I wasn’t supposed to touch anything on a shoot. I did notice the San Dimas police running down the street toward us. I nodded at the agency producer. He would go up on the cherry picker and subdue Reid.

Good Lord, I love this business.

Next: Onion Soup

Adventures In Creativity

3 Comments

Posted on September 21, 2013

Poor Chevy Nova! From its humble beginnings as the Chevy II, the Nova found itself being turned into a coat of many colors. In 1970, it was compared to O.J. Simpson. Future events would make this comparison eerily prescient and scary. By 1976, the marketplace had GM positioning the Nova as a “full-size” small car. Succumbing to a tidal wave of corporate hubris, the decision was made to make a commercial comparing the Nova to Mercedes Benz. The Nova had a larger wheelbase than the MB 230!!!!! Why would anyone want to pay all of that money for a Mercedes when they could buy a Chevy Nova with a larger wheelbase (one inch) for thousands less? No more comparing ourselves to Japanese cars, we were going after the Germans! And what better way to demonstrate the Nova superiority than to film it speeding along the German autobahn and cruising the mountains of Bavaria. We were going to Germany! Well, at least the agency producer and art director were. My job was going to be trying to clean up the nightmare that this commercial was going to become.

Chevy’s Small Car Advertising Manager, and my client, was Tom Boyle. He had done time on the agency side and knew what went on behind the green curtain. From the get-go, he had opposed doing this spot, but had been out-voted by the big-brains at corporate. One of Tom’s first questions to me was, “Are we going to have to go to the expense of shipping a Nova over to Germany for this thing?” I assured him that I had been told we would be able to find the appropriate vehicle in Germany. Wrong! I had to go back to Tom and tell him that we were going to have to ship THREE vehicles to Germany. Rather than beat me to death with his Chevy coffee mug, he just shook his head and chuckled, “Here we go!” Of course, rather than shipping the cars via ocean freighter, the vehicles had to be air shipped to stay on the shoot schedule. Of course, the production company hadn’t gotten the appropriate customs certificates so the vehicles were impounded at the Munich airport. Of course, this meant that the crew had to sit on their heels for almost a week while we frantically tried to get the vehicles released. Of course, I had to tell Tom all of this good news. Each time I visited him, I held a revised budget in my sweaty, trembling hands. After signing the fourth budget revision, Tom said, “Look, this thing can’t be saved. At least, let’s enjoy the craziness. You told me about a sushi bar that’s just opened out near the GM Tech Center. Every time you have a budget revision for me to sign, let’s go there for lunch.” We ate a lot of sushi in the next few weeks. Finally, the commercial was done. Tom and I watched the rough cut. After it was over, we looked at each other. Except for the announcer and the oom-pah-pah music, the footage looked like a curvy stretch of I-96 between Lansing and Muskegon, MI. The commercial was now done and scheduled to go on the air in three weeks. What else could go wrong? A few days later, I was sitting at home watching Charlie’s Angels when I saw a new Ford Granada (a Nova competitor) commercial My blood ran cold! My home phone began ringing. I already knew who it was. I answered the phone. “Hi, Tom. Yeah I saw it. Yeah, they shot a commercial in Bavaria too. Yeah, they compared themselves to Mercedes. Yeah, you could see King Ludwig’s castle in the background so you knew that they were actually there. Yeah, they even had some guy speaking German in it. Hey, you up for sushi tomorrow?”

Let’s just say that our “Germany” spot had a limited run. Who knew? There were still market segments to be exploited. I suggested that they not go Hispanic with the Nova. There was that “name” thing. For those of you who don’t know yet, Chevy Nova in Spanish can mean “Chevy Won’t” or “Chevy Doesn’t Go.” When I was still the LA guy, we talked Chevy into producing a Chevy Monza spot for the Hispanic market. It was a spot full of aspirational, familial, lifestyle stuff. Chevy’s Ad Director at the time said he “didn’t get it.” “Where’s the mention of rack and pinion steering and the wheel opening molding plastic chrome accents?” So much for Hispanic Marketing. What about marketing to women? Those Germaine Greer and Gloria Steinem chicks had women all riled up. Maybe they would get more of a say into the car buying decision than just choosing the color. It was worth a try. We could make the Nova anything for anybody. We’d make an ad that “appealed to women!” We came up with a layout that everyone agreed was spot on. It would be an interior shot of the Nova with a woman behind the steering wheel, dressed in Chanel and a big hat that looked like an orange juicer, who was looking across the front seat at the reader. Long white gloves were draped next to her on the front seat. The headline read, “Elegance, Style, Nova.” The late, great David E. Davis, former Creative Director at Campbell-Ewald, would call these “Modess Because” ads. If you’re old enough, you’ll get it. If you’re not, I’m not going to explain it here except to say their ads featured a woman standing next to a piano, open window, fountain, horse, grand staircase, or museum art piece. She would always be dressed elegantly, and the headline would simply say “Modess…Because.” We ran the ad in our magazine buy of “women’s magazines.” The mother of four kids who is about to lose it, definitely forced her husband to buy a Nova after she saw our ad in Family Circle. I’m sure the ad was very successful.

A few weeks later, we decide that we needed to give Monza sales a push. Time for some new magazine ads. The request for creative to develop ad concepts was ironically called a CPR…a Creative Planning Request. They came up with eight layouts. We, along with the client, had to choose two. The Chevy Ad Department showed up en masse. Various Campbell Ewald Creative Poo-bahs were there along with three account people…the Car Management Supervisor, the Car Account Supervisor, and the guy to blame (me), if the meeting was a fiasco. After about an hour of hemming and hawing, mumbling, opinion reversals, and heavy breathing, we had chosen only one of the layouts to go forward. Now came the part of a creative presentation where everyone felt compelled to start picking the fly poop out of the pepper. They were now parsing punctuation! The visual of one of the ads appealed to me. It was a photograph of a driver smiling as he ran the Monza up a winding mountain road. The headline read: Chevy Monza…It Puts The Fun Back In Driving. Borrrrring! I foolishly thought that since I was in the meeting, I should open my mouth and give an opinion. The Chevy clients were getting upset at not being able to find a second ad to approve. That’s when I opened my mouth. “Hey guys,” I said, “driving a Monza is more than just having fun, it’s about the pure excitement of going fast on twisty roads. Instead of saying that it puts the fun back in driving, why don’t we say it puts the “driving” back in driving?” Chevy Monza…It Puts The Driving Back In Driving! The clients loved it! The meeting was a wonderful success. Lots of back slapping and gemülichkeit as they left the room. I was feeling pretty darn good about myself, when I felt a hand grab my shoulder and turn me around. It was one of the Associate Creative Directors. “Never, ever, open your mouth and shout out a creative idea at a meeting. You make us look bad. Tell us the idea later.” Mysteriously, the ad never ran. Note to self: Your job on a shoot is to sit next to the Craft Services table, and in a creative meeting your job is to keep your mouth shut.

Next: I Dodge A Big Bullet

I Am Driven Happy

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Posted on September 17, 2013

After surviving MPG-gate, life rolled on as I toiled in the Sales Promotion and Merchandising vineyards. The Chevrolet Merchandising and Sales Promotion Department was a Byzantine organization of small fiefdoms. My client for the Chevy Small Car Guide was a high-energy young fellow who would soon leave Chevrolet and become a successful car dealer. Others, like Mason Bell, handled projects for years because there was nobody at GM who could do it better. Chevrolet sponsored the Soap Box Derby from 1934 to 1972, Mason was in charge for most of those years. He was also my client for Chevy’s sponsorship of the AAU’s Junior Olympics. Then there were those who supervised a dog’s breakfast of projects. One of these clients decided to make the best of this situation. The Normandie was a great bar and restaurant across 2nd Ave. from the GM building. My client would call one of the Campbell-Ewald account men up around 11:30 and tell him that he was going to buy lunch “for the client” at the Normandie at noon. I learned not to answer my phone between 11:30 and noon. He usually held court in a corner booth with his girlfriend, who lived a few blocks away, near another GM watering hole called Bonaparte’s. One day, the Director of Merchandising and Sales Promotion had seen enough. It was now 2:00 and he knew that his employee was probably having a high time at the Normandie. “I’m going over there to fire him right now,” he said as he left for the Normandie. That’s when my client’s Early Warning System went into effect. As soon as the Director had left the area, a secretary speed-dialed the Normandie to a phone behind the bar. “Code Red, Code Red!” the bartender yelled across the room to my client. My client bolted up, kissed his mistress, and ran to the back of the restaurant, where a small door exited onto 2nd Ave. He could look up to the second floor of the GM Bldg. and see his office window and his secretary looking down on the street. As soon as she saw the Director charge through the front door, she gave him the signal to bolt across the street and into the 2nd Ave. entrance to the GM Bldg. The Director stopped in the middle of the restaurant and scanned the room. “Where is he?” he demanded. “Nobody’s seen him since last week,” the bartender said…not realizing that the Director had not mentioned a specific name. The Director ran back to his office, and found my client at his desk, talking on the phone with a Chevy dealer. This round went to my client.

Not all of the rounds went to him, however. I can deal with a great amount of crude behavior, but when it impacts my career, it’s time to act. This client lived with his wife and family in Farmington, MI. I don’t know if the wife knew about the “friend” he saw every day at work. On several occasions, when we were going out of town together, the client would ask me to drive him to the airport. I would drive from Royal Oak, out to Farmington, and back down to Detroit Metro. The trip would be repeated when we returned to Detroit. I thought this was client service. Due to my naiveté, I didn’t know that he was turning in his own expenses for mileage and airport parking to Chevy. We went to Florida to show some layouts to a sports marketing partner. The client had approved the layouts. The sports marketing partner went nuts when he saw them, saying, “This isn’t what we wanted! Where are the finished posters?” My client, climbing behind the wheel of the bus that was about to run me over, said, “Tom, I told you that this stuff wasn’t right.” I went back to Detroit alone to “fix” things. My client stayed behind to play a few more days of golf. That evening a call from one of the other Account Men. I was being taken off of the project, and he was being put on it. This client’s Waterloo came when he forced me to buy him lunch, then forced another Account Man to buy dinner for him. When both of our expense accounts hit management desks for approval, a flag went up. We were called into a meeting with my boss’s boss, and the Director of Merchandising and Sales Promotion. Apparently, Chevy had been building a case against this guy for a while. Still smarting from the bus tire tracks on my back, I turned state’s evidence. My client was transferred to Chevy’s Vladivostok Zone.

In spite of my turbulent times in Merchandising, management felt that my California time had deluded me enough to think that big cars weren’t coming back, and promoted me to National Small Car Advertising Account Executive. “Small Cars” included any vehicle with a 100″ wheelbase or less. This included the Vega, Chevette, Monza, and, surprisingly, the Corvette which had a wheelbase of 98″. Perhaps because they felt pity for me, I was also assigned the Camaro (108″) and the Nova (111″). The Big Car account executive handled Chevelle (Malibu and Laguna), Chevy Caprice, and Chevy Impala. Chevy trucks were handled by the strange guys down the hall.

Campbell-Ewald’s slogan at the time was “Advertising Well-Directed.” The logo featured a writing quill hitting the bull’s-eye of a target. Pretty succinct. Shortly after I assumed my new duties, I was given the chance to to do some well-directed advertising. I was being sent to New York City to supervise a Chevy Chevette commercial. I had no idea what an AE was supposed to do at a shoot, other than to look after the client’s interests. The Chevette’s new theme was “Chevy Chevette. It Will Drive You Happy.” Building on the popularity of David Naughton’s performance in the classic “I’m A Pepper Wouldn’t You Like To Be A Pepper Too?” Dr. Pepper spot, we developed a commercial for Naughton with him singing the Chevy Chevette theme (complete with singers and dancers) as he skipped around a Chevette while a giant matrix lightbox behind him flashed pictures of standard features. It was going to be done in one complete take. I arrived in NYC the day before the shoot and met with the agency creative people attending the shoot. The call was for 6 AM the next morning. The creative folk told me that I didn’t have to be there until 9 AM. The next morning, dressed in my best suit and carrying my new briefcase, I hailed a cab in front of the hotel. I read him the address of the sound stage. It was on 125th St. and 2nd Ave. “Nope,” the cabbie said. I ain’t going there.” This was my first trip to NYC,and unaccustomed to local folkways and mores, I got out and hailed another cab. This time the cabbie said, “Why do you want to go to Harlem?” I told him what I was doing. He said, “Whatevvuh, but I don’t think there’s any movie studios up there.” He dropped me at the corner and sped away. I found the address over a very heavy iron door. I knocked and was let in. Singers and dancers were practicing, David Naughton was going over the staging with our art director. A lot of people were just standing around, drinking coffee and and eating doughnuts. After an hour, the decision was made to start shooting. Surely they didn’t send me out here to do nothing. I wanted to make some type of contribution. The director shouted, “Action!” David and the chorus came out singing and dancing. The giant matrix was flashing. David approached the car. The camera began to back up. I realized that the camera was going to back up over a wayward cable on the floor. It would ruin the whole take!! I finally could be of some worth. I picked up the cable and moved it about three feet out of the way. The director got the take and said, “Cut!” I had been able to do something for the commercial and was feeling quite proud…until a very large hand grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. “Who are you and what the hell are you doing?” the hand asked. “Sir, I’m Tom Cavanagh, Campbell-Ewald’s National Account Executive and I’m here to represent Chevrolet’s interests.” The hand said, “Big whoop!” and walked over to our agency producer. After a brief conversation, he came back with a director’s chair. “Mr. Cavanagh, this chair is just for you. Why don’t you sit here, and if you see something that needs to be done, you tell me or Sal over there.” Then it hit me. Unions!!!!! I had broken a cardinal rule by doing something that someone else was getting paid to do…even though they hadn’t done it. I learned that on a shoot, the AE’s place was next to the Craft Services table.

Next: Adventures In Creativity

What Do You Mean We Printed The Wrong MPG Numbers?

Behind The Green Curtain

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Posted on September 12, 2013

Nothing takes the chill of a cold Memphis night out of your bones quicker than a glass or two of sour mash bourbon. I found a large booth in the hotel bar and started my de-icing process. Moose Krause and Steve Niehaus soon joined me. We discussed the game. I also informed them that as a staunch MSU Spartan, I shouldn’t be seen in public fraternizing with any Fighting Irish, let alone their Athletic Director and All-American Defenseman. But as a goodwill gesture, drinks would be on me. Well, on Chevrolet. Moose had driven from South Bend to Cincinnati to pick Steve up at the Niehaus home, and then drove the two of them to Memphis. This was a trip of over 700 miles, and it took almost twelve hours to drive! Moose explained that he drove down to Cincinnati on 12/21, spent the night in a motel, then picked Steve up for the long drive to Memphis. I asked him why drive when we would have flown both of them. His response was, “I wanted to stop in and say ‘Hi’ to the Niehaus family. They’re really wonderful people.”

A few minutes later, we were joined by Miss America. Except now, she was Tawny Godin from Portland, Maine. “Where is Frau Blücher this evening?” I asked. Tawny said, “She went to bed. I’m free and clear for a while, but can’t stay out too late as we have adjoining rooms and she can tell when I get in.” The three guys in the booth then began to pepper her with Miss America questions that she’d probably been asked thousands of times before. I decided to change the subject. “Tawny, what do you think of this new comedy show on NBC called Saturday Night Live? Do you think it has a chance?” Before she had a chance to answer,we were joined by Jim Lampley. Jim had been hired by ABC the previous year to become one of the first “sideline reporters.” ABC wanted to attract a younger demographic for the NCAA games. They felt that having a young, attractive person giving quick reports from the sideline would perk things up a bit. Jim’s youth and director Andy Sidaris’ “honey shots” of cheerleaders and women in the stands, had turned the football games into a ratings powerhouse. Little did I know at the time that 40% of the people sitting at the table with me that night would go on to become news anchors for TV stations in LA. Tawny, as Tawny Little, for KABC and others, and Jim, on KCBS. He is now doing boxing on HBO. Moose Krause, who played football at Notre Dame under Knute Rockne, would be elected to the College Basketball Hall of Fame. Steve Niehaus was a consensus first string All-American pick in 1975. He would be the first person ever drafted by the Seattle Seahawks a few weeks later. Ironically, they chose him over Chuck Muncie. He was the 1976 NFL Rookie Defenseman of the Year, and holds the Seahawks record for most sacks in a single season.

Me? I was still trying to figure out how to get my free car back.

As the evening wore on, our ranks began to thin. Moose Krause was the first to fold. As he got up, he asked if he could speak to me for a moment. The two of us moved to a nearby empty booth. “Tom,” he said, ‘this is rather embarrassing. As you know, Steve and I drove down here. On the night of 12/21, I stayed in a motel outside of Cincinnati before picking Steve up at his parent’s house the next day.” Where was he going with this, I thought? Moose reached inside his suit coat pocket, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, and handed it to me. “It’s the motel bill for the night I stayed in Cincinnati, he said. “Do you think I could get reimbursed for this? I paid for it out of my own pocket.” The bill was from a Motel 6 for $38.00. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that we’d spent $7800 flying the Cal Berkeley guys in. “Of course we’ll reimburse you,” I said. Just send me an invoice and I’ll be sure that it’s billed through on the job.” His eyes fell. “How long do you thing that will take?” he asked. I knew where this was going. “Here, Moose, let me pay you now for it, and I’ll turn it in with my expenses.” I handed him $40. He bade me goodnight and told me to look him up on my next trip to Notre Dame.

Shortly after I got back to our booth, Miss America said that she’d better get back to her room before the clock struck twelve. We all stood and waved her off. A few minutes later, Jim Lampley excused himself. Steve Niehaus and I ordered more distilled corn by-product. Steve kept looking around furtively. “Did Coach Krause really go back to his room?” I assured him that he had. “Whew!” Steve said, as he pulled a rumpled pack of Winstons out of his hip pocket. “I thought he’d never leave.” The mangled cigarette was quickly lit, half of it disappearing as Steve inhaled. “You smoke?” I asked. “Like a chimney,” Steve said. “I was worried that my hands shaking would give it away. Coach Krause would kill me if he knew I smoked.” Interesting comment from a man whose Notre Dame playing days were over, and who was about to become a millionaire in the NFL. We talked for a while about our backgrounds and hobbies. He mentioned that he’d attended Archbishop Moeller High School in Cincinnati. Moeller was a perennial football powerhouse, providing the NFL with a lot of players. One of their notable alums who didn’t go into the NFL is former football center John Boehner. Moeller was also a fertile recruiting field for…Notre Dame! A small light began to flicker on in my head. I asked Steve how he got the news about his Chevy scholarship award. He told me that Moose Krause called him with the news. “Did he tell you that we were willing to fly you to Memphis?” I asked. Steve said that he had, but Moose told him that he was “going to be in Cincinnati anyway” and that it would be easy for them to drive to Memphis together. That crafty old codger! He was going to Cincinnati anyway to recruit talent for Notre Dame, and I had helped him by subsidizing his trip!! It’s as though I had made a direct contribution to their football fund. It has taken me almost 38 years to deal with this guilt and publicly admit it for the first time today.

Next: “What Do You Mean We Printed The Wrong MPG Numbers?”

Miss America Shows Me Her Undies

I Am Shown To My New Office

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Posted on September 10, 2013

I knew that I had to first see John Bluth, VP-Account Supervisor. John would be my boss. The Campbell Ewald Chevy Merchandising group was located in a hallway just to the right of the elevators. On either side of the hallway were doors framing translucent glass that led to the secretarial areas. Off of this area were the doors leading to the individual offices. I tried my luck with the door that said John Bluth. John was a great guy. If something hit the fan, he would work with you to fix it. John outlined my duties. I was to be the Chevrolet Sports Marketing Account Executive. Chevy was neck deep with sponsorships of NCAA, Major League Baseball, the AAU, the Soap Box Derby, and the Chevrolet Super Sports (SS) Team which was comprised of sports celebrity endorsors. Not too shabby! John took me across the hall to meet his boss, Chuck McLaughlin, Sr. VP-Management Supervisor. If Ricardo Montalban and a leprechaun were to have a child, it would have been Chuck. Stylish, genteel, sophisticated, with a quick wit, devilish sense of humor, and a twinkle in his eye. After meeting with Chuck, I was shown to my office. Each office had at least one window, and a Frigidaire window-mounted air conditioner. From the air, the old GM building looked like conjoined Hs, the verticals connected by a long horizontal member. My windows looked across to the next wing, and down to the GM waste removal area. I’m quite sure that my window air conditioner was powered by a Pratt and Whitney 2500HP engine, the same engine that powered the WWII P-47 Thunderbolt. If I wanted to talk on the phone, or have a meeting in my office, the a/c had to be shut off.

On my desk I had a phone and a Dictaphone recording device. I was told that it was faster to just write my memos out in longhand and give them to my secretary. There was a wooden coat rack in the corner, and two chairs in front of my desk. The filing cabinets behind me were empty…except for an unused condom that was caught in one of the file rollers. Probably left over from the Christmas party of 1971. I asked for some Lysol and paper towels to clean my desktop. John came in and dropped about sixty pounds of files on my desk. “Familiarize yourself with these. It will give you a good idea of what you will be doing. And, call the travel office and have them book you a ticket for LA. You’re going there on Thursday.” Whahhhh?? As the sports merchandising guy, i would be attending each week’s NCAA Football game on ABC. UCLA was playing Ohio State in LA on Saturday. This was the drill: Thursday fly to location city, ABC booked my room; Friday attend pre-production meeting with ABC technical people, handle any ticket requests local Zone people had; Saturday go to the game (with my all-access ABC credential) and make sure Chevy display near end zone was visible, make sure Chevy guy presenting Scholarship Award check knew how to pronounce the players’ names, then attend post game party; Saturday go home.

I was fortunate that my first game was a night game. Most games were played on Saturday afternoon. This triggered the Chevrolet Sun-visor Program. In concept, it was very clever. Produce cardboard sun-visors in the home team’s school colors, with a very large Chevy bowtie logo on the top of the visor, and the team’s football schedule on the underside of the visor. They would be distributed free at the gate, with the expectation that the ABC cameras would broadcast a sea of Chevy logos as they panned the packed stadium. On Monday of the week of the game, ABC would call and tell me who the teams for Saturday would be…this was before the era of “regional” games. I would whip out my College Sports Information Director’s Handbook and find out the school’s colors, the capacity of the stadium, their current season’s football schedule, and the name of their Sports Information Director. I would call the SID and tell him that Chevy was donating $500 to their booster club if they would distribute the visors at the game. By noon, I had contacted the printer with the quantity (basically, the capacity divided by two because half of the stadium was in the shade), the school colors, the schedule, and a shipping address and a local contact to confirm delivery. The completed visors were to arrive by Thursday afternoon. My first “visor game” was Texas – Oklahoma. The visors had arrived, Jim Bob Gullickson of the Hook-Em Horns Boosters called to confirm. We were ready to rock and roll. I dutifully sent out a memo telling everyone to watch the game. Gameday arrived. The cameras panned the vast stadium crowd. Nobody was wearing a visor!!!!!

What had gone wrong? They got there in time. Jim Bob seemed to be a man of his word. Then the the glaring flaw in the program hit me. Most college teams make the visiting fans sit in the sun, the home team season ticket holders get to sit in the shade and don’t need a sun-visor. No Oklahoma fan would be caught dead wearing Texas colors. Students don’t wear visors, they wear horns, or beaver hats, or gator heads, or Spartan helmets. I offered a solution that I knew would keep the multi-billion dollar General Motors Corporation solvent. Reversible sun visors! We lost the schedule, and printed the school colors of both schools, one per side. The next week at the Alabama – LSU game, the Chevy bowtie ruled the day.

For a while we had convinced ABC to mount their sideline cameras in the beds of Chevy Luv trucks. As the play on the field moved back and forth, you could see cameramen clutching their cameras as the trucks lumbered up and down the field. The clarity and stability of the shot relied on the acceleration and braking skills of the driver.

I was settling into the routine of an ad guy…well, at least a sports promotions guy. A quick breakfast, the long commute down Woodward, lunch with the other account men in the GM cafeteria, the long commute up Woodward, dinner and bed. To break up the day, I decided to try a new beverage that had just been invented: coffee. There was no coffee room or break room. Someone in our group brought in a nifty thing called a Mr. Coffee. The secretaries were in charge of the “Coffee Club.” For $5 a week, you had unlimited access to the coffee. Not being an addict yet, I opted for the 25 cents per cup plan. The NCAA football season was winding down. Visors were printed, car displays were arranged, cue cards were made, pre-production meetings were attended. We were preparing ourselves for the ultimate football game, the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. Chevy’s Offensive and Defensive Players of the year would each receive $10,000 scholarship checks for their schools during the halftime ceremonies. The teams were set: USC vs Texas A&M. I was told that I would go to the game and manage the Chevy halftime festivities. I told all my friends and family to tune in. It would be monumental.

Next: Miss America Shows Me Her Undies

They Take My Free Car!!!

4 Comments

Posted on September 9, 2013

The bomb had been dropped. I was being pulled back to Detroit. It was certainly the right thing to do as a career move. I was now “mainstream.” Close to the beating heart of GM. But, as a twenty-eight year old advertising naif, it was still hard to give up:

Pretty much being your own boss
Having a very generous expense account
Being the “go to” person for all of the local media reps
Travelling to exotic locations in your region
Working with a large number of Chevy clients
Not having to pay to go to Dodgers, Angels, or Rams games
Having a free car

When I returned from the Field Meeting, Bob Albright and I started “Tom’s Farewell Tour.” We visited the San Diego and LA Zone offices as well as the key dealers throughout the region. Most of the people we met asked, “Are you crazy? Why are you leaving Southern California to go back to Detroit and work in the GM Building?” They all laughed when I said, “I had no choice.” They thought I was kidding. I wasn’t. I felt like the condemned KGB prisoner. Not only is he going to take one in the back of the head, his family is forced to buy the bullets. The packers packed, the movers moved, we were on our way back to Detroit. As our neighbors tearfully waved goodbye, I announced, “I shall return.” We’d decided that we’d drive back, figuring that we didn’t want to sit waiting for our furniture to arrive at our new house in Detroit. The new 55 MPH speed limit had been enacted for travel on U.S. Interstates. Being a law-abiding citizen, I told my new boss that I couldn’t drive over 55 MPH. So driving for eight hours would bring us 400+ miles a day closer to the GM Building. It’s 2,281.4 miles from LA to Detroit. The math dictated that I take 5.5 days to make the drive. The irony was not lost on me, I was going to be able to see the U.S.A. in my Chevrolet! I had made reservations for lodging along our way. We would drive to Las Vegas, then a short jump to St. George, Utah, then to Grand Junction, Colorado, then Kansas City, MO., on to Indianapolis, then into Detroit. Some stops were more than a day’s drive, but we were also sightseeing. I had everything planned down to the nth degree. Except for one, teeny, tiny problem. I would be driving across the country in La Bestia, my Chevy Monza with the 5.7 liter V-8 monster engine that was cooled by a tiny Vega-sized radiator. We left LA on a Monday morning, headed for Las Vegas. By the time we got Victorville, in the Mojave Desert, I noticed that the temperature gauge was going up. Determined to press on regardless through the blistering nothingness of the Mojave, I was only marginally concerned when the needle was firmly planted in the red zone of the temperature gauge. I was moved to somewhat concerned status when I saw steam coming out from under the hood. I arrived at critically concerned when the car stalled and we coasted on to the shoulder of I-15. When it was safe, I opened the radiator cap and saw a bone-dry radiator. It was 109 in the desert that day, and the temperature in the passenger seat was rising even past that. After thirty minutes or so, a California Highway Patrol car pulled up behind us. After explaining my problem, he looked under the hood and laughed. “Buddy, when you dropped this monster engine into this car, you forgot to put in a radiator that can cool it. I’m surprised you got this far. Where are you headed?” When I told him, he slowly shook his head. He informed me that my car wouldn’t make it through the heat. I said that I had to be in Detroit in five and a half days to become part of the Chevy Account Team. Surprisingly, he was unimpressed. We worked out a plan. He would fill my radiator with water. I was to top the radiator off every sixty miles. I was only to drive at night to avoid the blistering heat of the day. I was to drive with the a/c off! Already, my passenger was making plans to take a bus back to LA. We limped into Las Vegas at 10:45 PM. The heat wave in the Western U.S. was expected to last for another four days.

We decided to leave Las Vegas for St. George at 4:00 AM. The temperature had plummeted to 80 degrees. Cool enough to drive without the a/c. There’s not much to see in the Nevada desert, there’s even less at night. We arrived in St. George in time for breakfast. Not quite ready to go to bed at 9 in the morning, we visited the Brigham Young Winter Home and the Daughters of Utah Pioneer Museum. Neither place appreciated my request for a cold beer.

We continued our nocturnal journey through Utah and Colorado. Sleeping by day, enjoying the beautiful countryside by night. The only hitch came at the Loveland Pass. This is where I-70 crosses the Continental Divide. Gerald Ford had decided that he liked to vacation in Vail, about 38 miles west of the pass. In anticipation of the added traffic, I-70 was being widened on a stretch near the Eisenhower Tunnel, which cut through the pass. The elevation is about 12,000 feet. You can fool a tiny radiator into thinking it’s cool outside, but you can’t convince it that there’s air when there is none. Traffic on I-70 was squeezed into one lane, and backed up for miles. Excavation equipment roared by our open windows. Steam began to wisp out from under the hood. A time and space warp enveloped the interior of my stalwart Chevy Monza. Hallucinations, screaming, flashes of lightning, curses shrieked in anger, talons ripping at flesh, and cries of banshees. We did, however, finally make it to Denver.

It was all downhill from Denver. In a good way, as we were on the downside of the Rockies. Kansas City and Indianapolis flew by. We were now driving in daylight as we had the good fortune of being able to follow severe thunderstorms all the way to Michigan. We rolled into a Ramada Inn in Southfield, MI. This was just a few miles from the house we’d purchased in the Beverly Hills area of Royal Oak. I needed some remembrance of California.Our furniture arrived two days later. We were fortunate. Only about 20% of our stuff was destroyed. Our schnauzer particularly loved the house as he could easily squeeze under the under the redwood fence in the back yard and run away, I was able to quickly meet a lot of my neighbors by picking up schnauzer dootie in their yards. Monday morning arrived. I showered, shaved, and put on my best grey flannel suit. I grabbed my empty briefcase and drove down my street to Woodward Avenue…the femoral artery of Detroit. Turn right on Woodward. Turn right on Grand Blvd. Turn right into parking lot behind Fisher Bldg. Go into Fisher Bldg. Take the underground concourse to the GM Bldg. Go to the 4th Floor. I was now in the belly of the beast.

Next: I Am Shown To My New Office

You’re Here To Do What?????

2 Comments

Posted on September 4, 2013

Ahhhhh, the magic of Hollywood! Where dreams become reality, and things aren’t quite what they seem. Chevy was still sponsoring the NBC Sunday Night Mystery Movie. McMillan & Wife, McCloud, and Columbo had become breakout hits. My brother was coming out from Detroit to visit me in Los Angeles. He asked if we might be able to go see a television show being shot.”Of course,” I said, being “connected” with NBC/Universal. “We’ll go watch them film an episode of Columbo. Fortunately for me, Columbo was shooting during my brother’s visit. I had our Head of Network call NBC to set it up. On the appointed day, my brother and I drove to the main gate at Universal. Reading from his clipboard, the guard said, “Yes, Mr. Cavanagh, that will be sound stage 19. Here is your parking pass.” My brother was impressed. Enough, I hoped, to forgive me for mercilessly picking on him when we were little kids. We got to the sound stage and I introduced myself to the unit production manager who was expecting us. Two director’s chairs had been set up for us just to the right of the set.

The episode being shot was called “Swan Song.” The guest star for this episode was Johnny Cash. He was playing a philandering country music televangelist (sorry for being redundant) named Tommy Brown. Tommy’s wife (Ida Lupino) had caught him in flagrante with a choir member and was blackmailing him. Tommy, a pilot, comes up with a solution. While flying with both ladies, he drugs them and then dons a parachute he’d stashed under his seat. He bails out and watches as the plane crashes and his problems disappear. Well, almost. Detective Columbo gets suspicious.

The shot that day was to be a recording studio where Tommy was recording the spiritual “I Saw The Light.” The director was the late Nick Colasanto, who went on to play “Coach” on Cheers. In the script, Lt. Columbo walks in, interrupts the session, and asks a few questions. My brother was ready to see the magic being made. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, watching a movie or episodic TV show being filmed is as exciting as anxiously watching fingernails grow. After forty minutes of playing with the lights, the camera was ready to roll. “Cue the music!” A pre-recorded tape of “I Saw The Light” began playing. “Action!” The musicians pretended to be playing. Johnny Cash started lip synching along. Columbo was supposed to enter through an EXIT door on the right side of the set. Where was Columbo? Peter Falk was patiently waiting on the other side of the door. A small red light next to him was his cue to enter the room. The light was burnt out. “Cut!!” Twenty minutes later the light was replaced. “Action!” Everything cranked up again. This time Columbo made his entrance too soon. There was a short in the red light’s wiring that caused it to go off. “Cut!!” That was fixed. “Action!” Johnny Cash accidentally knocked over a music stand. “Cut!!” This time everything worked. “Cut!” “OK,” Nick said, “Johnny, I want you to look a little more nervous when Peter comes in.” “Action!!” We were up to Take 37 when my brother turned to me, “Uhh, is this all there is? How much of this will be in the show?” I told him maybe a minute. His face fell. The crew was breaking for lunch. “Is it OK if we go now?” he asked.

My brother, a husky fellow, walked out of the sound stage with me into the very bright, smog-diffused, Southern California sun. He was wearing a black suit, white shirt, and a thin black tie. He also was sporting a black moustache. He had just put his sunglasses on when a Universal Studios Tour Tram started to roll by. Everyone on the tram started screaming and waving at my brother. Had he left his fly open? I turned to look back at him. In the bright sun, and with the sunglasses, he was an exact replica of William Conrad who, at the time, had a hit detective drama on CBS called Cannon. “Quick,” I said, “start waving at them and give them a “thumbs-up” sign. When he did, the solar flare of white light from over 80 Kodak Instamatic Flashcubes igniting simultaneously almost blinded us. As the tram pulled away, we heard shouts of “We love you Cannon!” Right now, my brother’s picture graces dozens of mantles throughout Iowa.

They say that the only true joy is a child’s joy. The child has no idea that the happiness might end. So it was with my tenure as the Southern California Regional Account Executive. I hadn’t told anyone other than my wife, but, I had no intention of trying to get back to work for Campbell-Ewald in Detroit. During the summer of 1975, I met a fellow named Bob Albright. Bob had worked for the LA office of Campbell-Ewald a number of years earlier. He was now working for the agency handling Toyota. We became good friends. As much as we could, we would trade intel about the SoCal car biz. He would stop by our office to see old friends, and pick me up for lunch. Our Summer Field Meeting was coming up in about a week when Bob showed up at my office. Hmmm. I didn’t have a lunch scheduled. My secretary, Ilene, showed Bob into my office with the commanding view of Hollywood, and the LA Basin. Bob had a big smile on his face. We started with general chit-chat. Had I forgotten a meeting that we’d set? He asked, “When are you heading back to Detroit?” I said, “Probably Sunday night. The Field Meetings start bright and early Monday morning.” Bob laughed nervously. “No,” he said, “when are you moving back there?” “Bob, I have no intention of moving back to Detroit.” The smile had left his face. “But Tom, I’m here to take your place!” “You’re here to do what????” I croaked. Perhaps it was my inability to get on my feet to strangle him, or the grotesque visage my face had become, or the frantic clutching at the stabbing pain in my chest, or maybe the fact that I was about to pass out. Bob quickly figured it out…I knew nothing of this. “Well, this is awkward,” he said. “Maybe I’d better leave,” as he headed for the door. Ilene charged into my office, sobbing. “You S.O.B.!!! You said that you’d tell me if you were ever going to leave. Mr. Byrne was here for 17 years. I’m not used to change like this.” Neither was I.

I pulled myself back into my chair and called Bill Fay. Bill was the Director of Field Operations and one of those great guys who also had a keen prevarication radar. “Bill, what the HELL is going on? Bob Albright was just here to tell me he’s the new LA Field Guy.” The earpiece on my phone exploded. “Damn,” he said. “I’ll call you right back.” A ray of hope? A glint of light? A call from the governor at 11:59 PM? About ninety seconds later my phone rang. A still-teary Ilene informed me that it was Dick O’Connor, Vice Chairman of Campbell-Ewald on the phone. “Hey Tommy,” he said. This was not a good beginning. “Boy, did we screw up on this one. A great example of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing. Tom, we want you back here in Detroit. You’ll be working in the Chevrolet Merchandising Department here, handling, among other things, Sports Marketing for Chevy. You’re going to be a key member of our Chevy Account Team.” “But, Dick, what if I don’t want to come back to Detroit?” I asked naively. “That’s OK,” Dick said. “You can stay in LA if you want. You just won’t have a job there. You do have one here.” “Oh, since you put it that way, I guess I’ll choose employment,” I said. I was still to come in for the Field Meeting to give my California Marketing Plan reports, which everyone always thought were inflammatory and “pro-import.” A few days later, when I stepped off of the elevator into the 4th floor Campbell-Ewald lobby, I saw the giant “Our Men In The Field” poster. My picture had already been replaced with Bob’s.

Next: They Take My Free Car!

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Monthly Archives: September 2013

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I Dodge A Big Bullet

Adventures In Creativity

I Am Driven Happy

What Do You Mean We Printed The Wrong MPG Numbers?

Behind The Green Curtain

Miss America Shows Me Her Undies

I Am Shown To My New Office

They Take My Free Car!!!

You’re Here To Do What?????