The Clouds Part

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Posted on October 7, 2013

As a small boy growing up on the Detroit’s Westside, meaning West of Woodward, I knew nothing of the world of leveraged buy-outs, stock swaps, and conglomerates. My father had worked as the credit manager for Detroit Steel Products, makers of the Fenestra line of industrial windows and casements. Their office was at 2250 East Grand Boulevard. One day I went to work with my father. We passed a behemoth of a building on West Grand Boulevard. I was awe-struck by its size. “Tom,” he said, “that’s the General Motors Building. They’re the biggest company in the world.” While studying advertising at Michigan State, I knew that ad agencies were founded by people with a creative and business vision. The big ones were privately held, and had the founders’ names on the door. If you worked hard, someday you might become a partner and share in the profits. Imagine my surprise when we all got the memo that Campbell-Ewald had been purchased by something called the Interpublic Group. The memo told us all that “nothing would change except our ability to access the resources of our sister companies.” Also, we were all now urged to buy stock in Interpublic.

There was, however, one very visible change. We could all tell who had just become millionaires by the Cheshire cat grins on their faces. One EVP told me, “My stock split 4 to 1!” He felt compelled to tell me how many shares of Campbell-Ewald stock he was converting, knowing full well that I’d do the math in my head. Oh well, maybe now he could afford to buy better suits and get his teeth fixed. Our Chevrolet client was unfazed. Interpublic already owned McCann-Erickson, the Buick and GMC agency. The germ of a question was planted in my head. Privately held agencies lived to work for their clients, publicly held agencies lived to work for their stockholders. Would the creative product suffer? Yes, make the client successful, just do it with fewer people and less overhead. I’m all for fiscal responsibility, but there are times when responsibility takes a back seat to common sense. We all knew what our T&E budgets were. Near the end of the year we were told how much under or over budget we were. Being good financial stewards, most of us were under budget. The word got out to the Account Men that the “use it or lose it” rule was being applied by the new bean counters. If an Account Man didn’t use all of his T&E, then, obviously, his allocation was too high and needed to be cut for the next year. Our Chevy clients loved this rule. It meant that lunches and dinners would rain down on them during the last eight weeks of the year.

Every so often, a creative team hits a dry spell. It happens. The only problem comes when the dry spell comes during a spell of slow sales and client angst. Thus it was in the late Summer of 1977. The Evil Imports were gaining market share on the West Coast. Sadly, our direction was “We’ll know it when we see it.” In desperation, I prepared another Creative Planning Request (CPR) outlining the need for a “hard-hitting” Chevette magazine ad that had a ‘sense of urgency” to it. We were driving people happy…just not enough of them. The creative team and I had a heart to heart. We knew that the best plan was to improve the products. We, however, weren’t in control of that. So we pressed on. A week later, I was summoned to their office for the grand unveiling of the ad.

The art director and the writer both enjoyed seeing me gasp for breath as I clutched my chest. “I can’t present this!” I said. ” The client will go nuts.” After they knew that my paroxysm wasn’t going to be fatal, they pulled out another ad for me to present. We all hoped that this one would drive more people happy…and quickly.

Summer had evolved into Fall of 1997. It was October 20. On the previous day, the New York Giants had beaten the Lions 26-20 in overtime, with a 68 yard pass from Danny Kannel to Chris Calloway. Oh well, what else was new. I was staring out of my office window which now had a view of West Grand Boulevard…similar to the “ocean view” touted in Southern California real estate ads. “See that smudge of blue haze around that building and through those trees? That’s the ocean!” My phone rang. My secretary said that a Joan Baeder was on the phone. Realizing that it wasn’t an angry client, I took the call. “Hello, Tom, she began, “my name is Joan Baeder and I work for Judy Wald-West. Have you heard of us?” I lied and said yes. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?” she asked. This sounded like it could be one of those conversations where you needed the door closed. I got up and closed it. “Tom, we’ve been hired by an advertising agency in LA that handles a Japanese car account, I got your name from a friend (it’s always a “friend”) and was wondering if I could talk to you about the position?” The clouds were beginning to open. “Uh, sure,” I said. Foote, Cone & Belding/Honig was looking for an account supervisor to work on the Mazda account. We both decided it would be best to continue this conversation later after I got home. I would also be able to rewrite my resume to more closely match what they were seeking. Editorial note: Hey, you’ve all done it. FCB and Mazda had become famous for the rotary engines that went “hummmmmm” while piston engines went “boing, boing, boing.” Here’s an RX-3 spot that was definitely not politically or NHTSA correct.

Our conversation that evening went very well. It ended with the always scary, “We’ll get back to you.”

Well, they did. Joan told me that they wanted to meet me. Fortunately, I had some vacation left and took two days off to head to LA. FCB was then located on 6th Street, behind Lafayette Park in an area euphemistically “Lower Mid-Wilshire.” For those of you who know a little about LA geography, the office was a few blocks away from MacArthur Park. They put me up at the stately Sheraton Town House Hotel, next to Lafayette Park. I introduced myself in the FCB lobby and was called back to meet with Denny Remsing. Denny was the Management Supervisor on the account. The job I sought reported to him. He was an ex- Detroiter, and one of the nicest people in the ad business. We talked about college, he went to Western Michigan, and some of the mutual friends we had in Detroit. We went to meet with Paul Repetto, the EVP and General Manager of the agency. I met with Jack Foster, the Creative Director. He had taken the day off to paint his house, but came in to see me. Then I was taken to see Lou Scott, the President of FCB/H. The day passed very quickly, and seemed to go well. Everyone was very friendly, and the offices were bright and cheery. But, with my luck,, I knew that Mazda would fire FCB any second, and crush my dream.

The call came after dinner about three long weeks later. I got the job!! They wanted me out there right away. Interpublic had this rule on cashing out your profit-sharing account. When you resigned, the date was rolled back to either July1, if you resigned in the last half of the year, or January 1, if you resigned before July 1. If I was going to afford a house in LA, I couldn’t afford to pass up almost six months of profit-sharing. In any case, we were going into the Thanksgiving and Christmas vacation periods. There were only three weeks of actual work left. FCB agreed to have me start on 1/5/78. I would resign on the morning of 1/3/78, and race for my life for the door. I was going back to LA!!!!!!!!

Next: Becoming A Non-Person

I Dodge A Big Bullet

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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

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?

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Posted on September 16, 2013

Beginning with the oil crisis of 1972-1973, America woke up to the fact that their cars needed better gas mileage. Unfortunately, imported cars (mainly Japanese) offered better gas mileage than domestic cars. One of the quickest ways to get better gas mileage was to make the cars smaller. This made them lighter. The engine had to carry less weight, and, viola’, the mileage was better. Domestic car companies began churning out small cars and trumpeting their gas mileage. There was one small problem. The manufacturers were putting out their own mileage figures. Ford offered California buyers a specially equipped vehicle they called the Pinto MPG, inferring high gas mileage. They also did a commercial featuring a Ford LTD driving from Phoenix to LA and getting great gas mileage numbers. The problem? The drive from Phoenix (1100 ft elevation) to Los Angeles (233 ft elevation) was done by a professional driver who was basically driving downhill. The EPA stepped in and ordered that all MPG figures be submitted to them for certification. Testing was done on a dynamometer. There was a strict protocol to be followed as far as the testing went. It provided mileage numbers that were created in a laboratory. It was a flawed system, but at least all the manufacturers had to adhere to “testing” results for their MPG figures. “Your actual mileage may vary.” Two numbers were figured; a “City” number which took stop and go driving into account, and a “Highway” number which almost always was higher. Manufacturers with higher numbers now had a new, powerful unique selling proposition. MPG as a USP!! Some companies even used gasoline efficiency as their theme line.

Chevrolet entered the MPG Madness with the Vega and the Chevette. Built on GM’s T-platform, the Chevette was already a “world car.” GM had been selling it under several different names around the world since 1973. My next assignment at Campbell-Ewald was as Small Car Merchandising Account Executive. We created, for Chevrolet, most of the dealer showroom display and sales materials. I figured I was put on small cars because i had been “tainted” with California counter-culture thinking, and was better able to understand this silly rush to small cars…a phenomenon that most people in Detroit fervently hoped was a passing fancy.

Now that Chevy was selling small cars, they uncovered something that could derail their efforts to make the imports go away. Chevy sales personnel had no idea what Vega and Chevette competitors offered, or even how they were priced. They didn’t know the competing models’ trim levels or standard features. There was a lot of confusion out there. It made converting an “import intender” somewhat problematic. We convinced Chevrolet to let us produce the “Chevy Small Car Guide.” This was to become my own personal Summa Contra Vehicula Importa.

The Small Car Guide, as it came to be called, was a monumental undertaking. It had to be comprehensive, meaning that we had to touch on ALL now-competitive imports, not just the Cerberus of Toyota, Datsun, and Honda. It also meant that we had to give details on EACH model from the ALL the competitors. It had to be durable. We wrapped the binder cover in thick vinyl to protect against coffee spills, spittle, and blood. The binder rings had to open and close easily, as we would be updating it every year. The dividers had to be sturdy to withstand constant section flipping. There was a rumor that these dividers were made of Kevlar, allowing the Small Car Guide to be used as a bullet-proof shield. The poor salesman would now be able to tell the difference between a Triumph Vitesse Sports 6, and a Simca 1204, and how the Chevy Chevette was the right car for the customer. When finished, the Small Car Guide was over two inches thick and weighed in at almost six pounds. The world had not seen such a concentration of knowledge since the Julius Caesar set fire to the Great Library of Alexandria. I still have my copy of the Small Car Guide. It makes a great door stop.

We received some great news late in 1975. The Chevette with the 1.4L engine and 4-speed manual transmission, was certified with a very impressive City figure of 28 MPG, and phenomenal 40 Hwy MPG!!!!! Shove those numbers up your Blubird all you imports. Finally, good news on the MPG front. We realized that we had to flood the nearly 6,000 Chevrolet dealerships with displays, posters, and banners heralding these game-changing MPG numbers. Meeting with our Chevy client, we settled on a “package.” Each of the 6,000 packages would contain:

Six car toppers…three sides, 24 ” tall, with the MPG numbers 18″ tall
Four 36″ x 48″ window posters featuring the MPG numbers
Fifty 6″ x 12″ vinyl press-on window stickers with the MPG numbers
Four 12″ x 18″ stand-up counter cards with the MPG numbers
Twenty 3″ in diameter lapel buttons with the MPG numbers
Five suggested local newspaper ads with the MPG numbers

That should do it. Festive and straight to the point. We were on a tight production schedule to get the packages to dealers ASAP. They went out on time. We knew that this kit would “drive showroom traffic.” Soon, thousands of import intenders would be driven into a Chevette buying frenzy by this beautifully designed showroom trim kit. The materials had been up for about a week when I got the call from our legal folks. Those weren’t the right MPG numbers!! “What do you mean we printed the wrong MPG numbers?”

My first thought was to flee to Canada. I still had relatives there. The trim kit had cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce and ship. Would GM also want to execute my family as well as me? I had visions of being strapped in, next to a crash test dummy, as our test vehicle hurtled toward the impact wall at the GM Proving Grounds. Then I remembered the prime directive of all good account men: “Don’t take the blame if you can deflect it elsewhere.” But where? I started with the original numbers. They had been published in an EPA Guide. Our legal department had a copy of the latest guide which showed the MPG numbers to be lower. The latest guide had come out while the kit was on press. Ahhh, wiggle room! But where did we stand legally? More importantly, where did I now stand in the food chain? This had to be resolved with a “plausible deniability” answer before Chevy got wind of it. I decided to go to the source. I called the EPA. After being bounced around from functionary to functionary like a steel ball bearing in a pachinko game, I finally found the person responsible for “Automotive Advertising Certification Compliance.” I pled my case. Help me Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope. There was a chuckle on the other end of the line. “You ad guys sure get worked up over these numbers,” he said. “The numbers you used were what we call ‘interim’ numbers. We use those until the final ones come out.” “But what’s a young account man to do when we have deadlines to meet?” I asked. “Oh, you’re OK,” he said. “We can’t expect commerce to halt while we finish our testing. The interim numbers are legit because that’s all you had to go on at the time. You’re OK.” After a few moments my breath came back to me. “Can you send me a letter on EPA stationary explaining that, just to be on the safe side?” He did. I showed it to our legal department. We all agreed that nobody else needed to be notified about our kit with the higher numbers…especially not Chevrolet.

Next: I Am Driven Happy

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Category Archives: Chevette

The Clouds Part

I Dodge A Big Bullet

I Am Driven Happy

What Do You Mean We Printed The Wrong MPG Numbers?