A Winter Dream - By Richard Paul Evans Page 0,46
would like to meet you. He asked me to call you to make an appointment.”
I couldn’t think of any reason why the president and CEO of Leo Burnett New York would want to talk to me. “Why?”
“Remember those ads of yours I took?”
“Yes.”
“I gave them to Mr. Ferrell to look at. He was seriously impressed. I told you they were good. So catch a cab and get right over here.”
“I’ll be right there,” I said.
“I can’t wait to see you again,” Charlene said. “You dream boy.”
Ten minutes later I stepped out of the elevator on the eighteenth floor into the executive suite. Charlene smiled when she saw me. She pushed a button on her phone. “He’s here, sir.”
A deep male voice boomed, “Send him in.”
She stood up from her desk and we embraced. “Are you ready?”
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be ready for.”
“To dream.” She opened the door to Mr. Ferrell’s office, putting her hand on the small of my back as I walked in.
Mr. George Ferrell was a tall, well-groomed man, dressed in an ash gray Valentino suit, with French cuffs and gold cufflinks peeking out beneath the coat sleeves. He had a full head of hair, which was impeccably coiffed and lightly peppered with gray. He was fit, tan and confident-looking. Everything about him, including his office, seemed to exude energy.
“Joseph,” he said, eyeing me as I entered. “Come in, come in.”
I walked up to his desk.
“Sit down,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” I sat.
He looked me over until I began to feel self-conscious. “I’ve had the chance to look over more than twenty campaigns you’ve written. Are they all yours?”
“Yes, sir.”
He nodded. “You’re very talented,” he said. “Charlene tells me that we’ve had you rotting over in the satellite office. How did that come about?”
“You want the whole story?”
“Condense it,” he said. “Isn’t that what we admen do best—package long stories into bite-sized nuggets.”
“Fair enough. I was hired at Leo Burnett Chicago from a small Colorado agency. My first week there I came up with a campaign for BankOne which landed me a promotion as creative head of the BankOne team.”
“That wouldn’t be the Bank On It, campaign?”
“Yes, sir.”
He nodded. “I used it as an example of excellence in one of our board meetings. Continue.”
“Things were going well until I ran afoul of our creative director, Peter Potts.”
“What happened?”
“His fiancée wanted to get to know me better.”
“Not good.”
“No, sir. Because it was a personal matter, Potts couldn’t fire me, so he demoted me and sent me as far away as he could—the New York satellite office. That’s pretty much it.”
He thought over my story for a moment, then said, “Okay, now let’s leave that all behind. You’re very good at what you do, Joseph. Your ideas are fresh and memorable. On our rating scale these are seven plus. Some of them border on genius.”
He stood, walking to the side of his desk. “Leo Burnett said, ‘I have learned that any fool can write a bad ad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.’
“Unfortunately, we have a shortage of geniuses. In today’s advertising environment, no one can keep their hands to themselves.
“The quality of today’s advertising is in decline. There was a time when admen were as revered as poets and statesmen. In the fifties, more people watched the television commercials than the programs. Can you imagine that? In the sixties, the David Ogilvy days, Alka-Seltzer ads became America’s catchphrases.
“I believe that we’ve lost our way, not because admen are getting less creative, but because they’re becoming more cautious—and that’s because our clients are becoming more cautious. On the surface this might sound like a good thing, but it’s not. Caution never breeds greatness. Caution is the birthplace of mediocrity.
“Look at the movie industry. Indies aside, all Hollywood produces these days are prequels, sequels and comic books. Will we ever have another Casablanca or Citizen Kane? I doubt it.
“The reality is that the more people there are who have to sign off on a campaign, the more diluted and weaker the campaign becomes. All great ideas, every revolution, started as a spark, not in a boardroom, but in one man or woman’s mind.
“This worldwide agency was built by one man with big ideas. Leo Burnett created icons the world embraced for generations. And as a reward for their trust, his clients made billions. Could you imagine trying to pass the Jolly Green Giant through one of today’s marketing committees? It