Becoming A Non-Person

Another “Close But No Cigar”

1 Comment

Posted on October 2, 2013

America and Chevrolet had survived the Bicentennial. I had learned that playing cards at The Recess Club was a very bad idea. We settled into the task of churning out ads. Denizens of the GM Building soon discovered that the fastest way of getting from the 4th Floor (Campbell-Ewald) to the 2nd Floor (Chevrolet) was to take the interior stairs. The elevators took too long, and you always ran the risk of a Ford or Chrysler spy seeing the layout for the newest Vega ad you were carrying down for approval. There were over a dozen Account Men calling on as many clients. The stairway climbs began about 8:30 AM and continued well past 6:00 PM. Up and down. Up and down. If someone were able to cut away the outside of the GM Building, we would appear to be worker ants carrying around bits of food and waste. The only times we took the elevator were for lunch, or to go up to the 10th Floor (GM Legal) to be scolded.

On the role of women in the workplace front, not much had changed since the infamous Christmas party of 1971. Apparently, Account Men, especially the married ones, had to be protected from the sharp talons of home-wrecking husband-hunters. And the Personnel Department took this responsibility seriously. One of our married Account Men had taken a liking to a secretary in the Media Department. The “casual” desk walk-by soon evolved into the “Hey, you must have lots of boyfriends,” fishing expedition, then to the “Hey, if you’re free, I’d be honored to buy you lunch,” gambit, then onto the deal-sealer, “Hey, you know what? I hear that the food at Lelli’s (when there was still one on Woodward) is great. How about we have dinner there tomorrow?” There then followed a succession of lunches and dinners. The Account Man was certain that after his next dinner, at Topinka’s, he would be able to whisk the lady across the street to the Howard Johnson’s Inn. There was one small problem. Putting the moves on a secretary at Campbell-Ewald was a lot like walking around in church without any pants on. It sure felt good, but everyone immediately knew about it. The morning of the expected HoJo Hoedown arrived, with a note from the VP- Personnel on the Account Man’s desk. “Please see me right away,” it said. He went over to Personnel and was told to come in, close the door, and sit down. The Director got right into it. “You’ve been seen squiring (yes, he said squiring) a woman from Media around for lunches and dinners. I don’t know how to tell you this, but she’s desperately looking for an Account Man she can sink her hooks into to help her raise her kids. My advice to you is to stop seeing her. To continue to do so could ruin your career. In fact, take a look at this.” The Director opened his desk, took out a piece of paper, and handed it to the Account Man. On it were the names of ten secretaries…the Media lady was #4 on the list. “These women,” the Director said, “are known to be of easy virtue and have loose morals. I would advise you to not be seen in the company of any of them.” After the meeting, the Account Man told me about the meeting. I asked him if this was going to make him change his ways. His answer parroted the punch line about the hell-raising young man in Ireland who went to confession to tell the priest that he’d had sex with one of the village girls. “Was it Bridget?” the priest asked. “Mary? Cathleen? Megan? Ann? Margaret? Not Siobhan?” When he emerged from the confessional, the boy’s friends asked him if he’d confessed. “No,” he said, “but I’ve got some great new leads!”

The news of Datsun firing Parker signaled that yet another Import felt that it had outgrown its agency. Toyota had already kicked Clinton E. Frank to the curb in favor of Dancer, Fitzgerald, Sample in 1975. Honda, also in 1974, fired a little known LA agency called Chiat/Day and moved the business to Needham, Harper & Steers. Now it was Datsun’s turn. The ad agency feeding frenzy began. I was sitting at my desk, writing off my gambling losses, when the phone rang. It was George Beech. He was a part of the William Esty team pitching Datsun. He said that he was in town, and that a “friend” suggested that he might like to meet with me. Hmmm, if they get the account and hire me, I’m on my way back to LA and a free car! Since it had worked so well before, I suggested we meet for breakfast at the Elias Brothers Big Boy near my house. Our breakfast the next day went very well. They were going to fly me to NYC to meet “the team.” I took a couple of vacation days and went. The William Esty main lobby closely resembled the wood paneled grandeur of the New York Yacht Club. I’m convinced that 90% of all mahogany in the U.S at the time was used in the Esty lobby. Seated at a grand desk was a receptionist. I introduced myself. She smiled and pointed to a large display case behind her. It was filled with cartons of cigarettes. “Mr. Cavanagh,” she said, “please help yourself to several cartons of your favorite brand.” Esty was one of the lead agencies for R.J. Reynolds, makers of Camel, Winston, Doral, Pall Mall, and Salem, to name several. When I told her that I didn’t smoke, she looked at me as if I had just desecrated the U.S. flag. I waited, uncomfortably, for my summoning. Someone came out to bring me back to an office. The mahogany stopped when you left the lobby. The decor was now old New York City skyscraper shabby. I met with a few people and found out that the “LA team is all set.” If they hired me, I would be working in New York. I also sensed a great deal of confusion on Esty’s part as to how to organize the account. There would be a “client contact” team in LA, and the oompah-loompahs in NY who actually did the work. I figured that Esty didn’t stand a chance of getting the business, so I politely ended discussions with them after I got back to Detroit. Imagine my surprise when I heard the news that they had won the Datsun account. Oh well, if at first you don’t succeed…

With a new sense of purpose, and the knowledge that I wasn’t going to ever become Chairman of Campbell-Ewald because nobody had told me that I was the “crown prince” in-waiting, I trudged on and hoped that I never really screwed anything up. The Chevrolet National Car Account had a SVP-Management Supervisor, a VP-Account Director, and four Account Executives. I was handling the National Small Car Account. The fellow handling the National Big Car Account had left the agency, leaving an opening. At this time, Campbell-Ewald also handled Ramada Inn. Their headquarters were in Phoenix , AZ. As part of our client service, we stationed a young Account Man in Phoenix. We had become friends when he worked in Detroit in what the agency called the Multi-Products Group…which meant everything except Chevy. During the Summer of 1977, the temperature in Phoenix was averaging about 283 degrees during the day, while it plummeted to 195 degrees at night. I mentioned to him that there was a spot on the Chevy account that had just opened up that he might be interested in. And, it was only going to be 95 in Detroit. Shortly after that, Tony Hopp left Phoenix to return to Detroit as the National Big Car guy on Chevy at Campbell-Ewald. I wonder whatever happened to him?

Next: The Clouds Part

Onion Soup

2 Comments

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

I Am Shown To My New Office

1 Comment

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

"Cars for Sale. Cheap!!"

tcavanagh411

Tag Archives: GM Building