Sorry, Mickey I’m just not into you.

Join us in world domination…

Next week my family is going to Disney World for an end-of-summer fling. Pretty normal behavior, save for one detail: I ain’t going. I would rather pay a sitter to accompany my wife and 3 girls than set foot there myself.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve not been interested in the Magic Kingdom or its byproduct. I never saw Pirates of the Caribbean and I’ve never been on the ride. I have almost no interest in digital animation and all the movies, rides and toys it has spawned, much of them Disney. When I hear my parent-friends discussing the “wry” dialogue and double entendre in Toy Story I cringe. Dumbed down references to heavily filtered hip-hop is hardly wry. Like 99% of the overpriced food served at Disney resorts, it’s crap.

Ironically, given my profession, it is Disney’s profound commercialization that irks me the most. Everything they do is tied to a revenue stream. Everything. The movies are connected to the characters, which are connected to the rides, which are connected to the toys, which are connected to… my children.

Insert scream here.

And herein lies the rub. I have three little girls all in Disney’s sweet spot. For the pre-teen there’s Hannah Montana, Josh and Drake, iCarly and others. For my little ones, it’s all about the “Princesses.” Venerable icons like Snow White and Cinderella are now packaged together, joining forces in a pink and purple domination of our rumpus room. Thank God all three of my children currently prefer Sponge Bob and the Simpsons (shows that actually do possess wry writing), but this does not keep Disney from trying to get them back. We all know it is not if Disney captures my children’s imagination again (emphasis on captures), but when.

I could go on ranting on all things Disney and, if you read my new novel, The Happy Soul Industry, you’ll find that I do. An entire chapter takes place at Disneyland, giving me ample opportunity to observe and skewer. In my novel (and worldview), Disney is much the same as Scientology. They are both moneymaking operations wielding huge influence (cult like?) on our culture. By design, Scientology is more covert. For all the negative publicity about Tom Cruise’s “religion” little is actually known about it. Disney, on the other hand, is so out there that it basically passes for American culture. In this regard it’s the more offensive of the two. At least Scientology is not polluting the mainstream.

Of course, Disney is a huge client to several ad agencies. And I worked at one. Yet, I seldom, if ever, touched their business. If required, I would treat them with utmost care and respect. Two faced? You bet. But that’s my job. I’ve written copy for cigarettes and hooch. I’ve said it before: “With the right art director I could sell venereal disease.”

Favorite Disney joke: Why did Mickey Mouse break up with Minnie Mouse? Because she was fucking goofy.

There once was an adguy in Nantucket…

Nantucket. An old whaling town reborn for old money. By law, the homes are salty gray. The most colorful bits are the patterns of plaid lighting up men’s dinner jackets. Historical and hysterical. The people watching? Ralph Lauren and Christie Brinkley at every table. Hamburgers cost 22 bucks. But the preferred cuisine is lobster and striper. And those prices aren’t even listed. Nantucket is beautiful, no question. And I’m not complaining. Having a swell time, which may explain this convoluted blog entry.

Alas, the Gods of Advertising are not happy here. For one thing, there are no billboards in Nantucket. Not a one. Where we’re staying there isn’t even really TV. Every room at our place has sets yes, but they are used primarily for movies. And not DVD or Blu-ray. VCR only. The cassette library is housed in a closet next to the fuse box. Tonight I am considering Caddyshack or the seldom seen and underrated Night of the Comet.

I find it ironic to be in a 300 year-old village and the only form of advertising I’m seeing are for sex enhancers via email. Word to the wise: Never order Ambien from fake oversea pharmacies. They will never leave you alone.

Do I miss advertising? Of course not. But I do miss my place in it. Even as we are four wheeling over picturesque dunes, I wonder what’s going on back at the office. We have numerous productions going on. Other clients are briefing this week. Some fantastic new work for Effen Vodka got sold. And a new commercial for Powershares, shot by none other than Dante Ariola, started running yesterday. I steal away to talk to my lieutenants when my family isn’t looking. What’s going on? I want to know.

I suppose this makes me like the transposed New Yorkers and Bostonians, tapping away on Blackberries, barking missives into I-Phones. Or does it? Do those guys love their work as much as I do? I wonder. I sense a lot of them check in out of fear. Will I be undermined or usurped? Will someone else do my work? Will I even be missed at all? Best not to take that chance. Best to check in…constantly.

Who am I kidding? Fear is manifest. I think it may even be more pronounced the more successful one becomes. Beneath my love of work is, I fear, the fear of losing it. That’s what bonds me to all these madras-wearing financiers. We have it all, yes. But someone is trying to take it from us!

Ah, wiser not to think these thoughts. Have another cocktail. Oh, that’s right, I don’t drink anymore.

Losing a pitch, gaining perspective.

Last week I wrote about participating in a thrilling marathon of a pitch against my old employer, Leo Burnett. I had rhapsodized about the event, the thrill of it, and my very real gratitude for being able to do this sort of thing for a living. I likened the process to an Olympics of sorts, with late night rehearsals, and passing the baton from teammate to teammate. I had wanted to win and felt we had done enough to win.

The Gods of Advertising had other ideas. We did not prevail. Without going into it, we were told it was the closest of calls and that it took a weekend of rigorous debate for the client to agree on an agency –not mine. With all respect, the “eulogy” doesn’t really make any difference. In agency pitches, second place is merely first loser. There are no silver medals.

But there might be a silver lining. I’m not devastated from losing. I feel I’d done the best job I could possibly and that my team did so as well. In hindsight there are always things, and I’m sure we’ll do a postmortem, but I’m “good” with this loss. My Bono-like sermon on gratitude and effort was not vainglorious window dressing (well, maybe a little). I really am better off for having participated. And, as in most pitches, I do feel blessed for having had the opportunity. I live for these opportunities.

The other “good” part of losing is the proverbial growth opportunity it presents. That’s not self-help crapola. Pain is the ultimate teacher. We learn humility and respect when we are beaten fairly and squarely. Which we were.

Once upon a time (at Leo Burnett, as a matter of fact), our unit, called LBWorks, had a monster run on new business. I think we won four clients in a row, each one bigger than the last. Our heads swelled, none bigger than mine. When talk came of folding LBWorks back into Burnett, I righteously shat upon the suggestion. Much drama ensued. Months later I resigned in protest, leaving a company I had been at, and adored, for roughly 17 years. I had become arrogant from winning. No regrets, but looking back I paid a large price for insisting I was “right.” Had we lost those 4 pitches, being asked to return to Momma would have seemed like charity. Perspective and humility are gifts of losing. I see that now

Advertising with a moral compass. Exploitation or doing the right thing?

“When it’s people doing the right thing, they call it responsibility. When it’s an insurance company, they call it Liberty Mutual. Responsibility. What’s your policy?”

And so goes the copy in this feel-good campaign for Liberty Mutual done by Hill Holiday in Boston. The films show real people stopping what they’re doing in order to help others, one after another. Contributing to the good karma in our universe. Paying it forward, as it were. While this is hardly a new idea in our culture (the Judea-Christian belief system is based on it), it is striking sentiment for communications from a large multi-national. Let me rephrase that: Lot’s of companies talk about what nice companies they are but few endorse human kindness as an operating principle. Either way, the key to this thing working is whether consumers buy into it. If Joe America believes insurance companies are a soul-crushing matrix of liars and paperwork, he is not apt to appreciate the “do unto others” approach. Or, and this is what the marketing team at Liberty Mutual undoubtedly hopes, upon receiving these heartwarming messages, Joe America will soften to the company like cold butter on a hot muffin.

Either way, I admire this creative. By going back to biblical pretext (do unto others, etc), LM has actually modernized the rhetoric. “Like a good neighbor,” is an overt claim about State Farm’s personnel, as is the “Good Hands People” for Allstate. The LM films depict a succession of civilians doing good deeds without selfish motives. Which leads to more good karma and, well, the world gets better. By calling this behavior “responsibility” Liberty Mutual suffuses their strategy with a moral imperative. I’m curious what others think about this move. Are you impressed by it…or depressed?

Interestingly enough, in my new novel, The Happy Soul Industry God solicits an advertising agency to come up with concepts for marketing Heaven or, as the angelic brand manager in the story puts it: “goodness in all of its forms.” Kind of like the LM brief, isn’t it? In my book, “How are you?” becomes the organizing principle in a new campaign for Heaven. If people are honest in their answers, they realize something is missing in their lives and that something is God.

Examine the “How Are You?” blog at Happy Soul’s website. People are willing to unburden themselves online. To be rigorously honest. Maybe people are just as open to helping others as well, and not just friends and family. But “Everyone!” as Bono often exhorts in his famously uplifting concerts. Taken further, maybe we are all looking for a higher power (of our understanding) to help us on a daily basis. Could we, as a society, be dusting off our moral compasses? The Liberty Mutual campaign suggests as much. The Hill Holiday planner clearly saw something happening in the culture, to the consumer, which could alter the category. Paying it forward became a creative strategy.

There’s a great saying in recovery houses: If you want to improve your self-esteem, do estimable things. That’s what Liberty Mutual is telling to “do” in their commercials. Is that an appropriate strategy? A bigger question: If the quest for spirituality is becoming a strategic platform for advertisers is that exploitation or an example of doing the next right thing?

OMG! The babysitter loved The Happy Soul Industry.

Like, I’m totally pumped! Last week I gave our sitter, Janey an advanced reader copy (or ARC) of my new novel, The Happy Soul Industry. Last night she came over to sit and, over pizza with the girls, told me she loved it. Then she paid it the ultimate compliment, saying the story would make an excellent movie. Yes it would, Janey! Yes it would. If only you were an agent cruising the Internet for source material. What’s your major, Janey? Film studies?

Begging your pardon (and Janey’s), I’m just riffing here. Call it wishful thinking, which is something I’ve been doing a lot lately. Doubtful the New York Times will be reviewing my tome anytime soon. I’m just not that important. Which makes my gratitude for the attention given HSI from Adpulp, American Copywriter, Adhole and Glossyinc so genuine. The half page story Chicago Sun Times columnist, Lewis Lazare wrote August 11th is one for the scrapbook. He’s a tough customer, not one for easy praise, and I thank him. I look forward to his review, albeit nervously.

Back to Janey. Bear in mind, at this writing less than a dozen people have read the novel. And Janey is one of them. Hearing a first hand compliment from her is, honestly, why I write in the first place. There are countless other forms of entertainment geared for young women like her. That she read the book at all is a small miracle. Liking it is a big one. Thank you Janey, for making my day!

If her ringing endorsement isn’t enough to will Happy Soul into your online shopping cart, I’d like to offer some prose, free of charge. Click “new video” on this blog’s tool bar (watch it if you haven’t) and you’ll find a short chapter from the novel excerpted below it. It’s hidden because it’s naughty! The scene is one of agency CEO, Vernon Night engaging in illicit behavior, indicative of his character’s free fall from grace. Poor Vernon. He’s a good man but depravity has taken him over. Given my limited reputation as an author, I hope this racy peek inside the novel turns the trick. Whatever it takes, right?

News Alert: After an unfortunate delay from the printer, my publisher, Inkwater Press informs me the book is now being shipped. If you’ve ordered the book from them, Amazon, or wherever, expect it shortly. If you haven’t, hopefully this latest post prompts you. I look forward to your readership and thank you in advance.

A pitch for new business is an opportunity for gratitude.

Thank God for the good kind of tired.

I’ve been asking people to answer the ultimate question at happysoulindustry.com: How Are You? Well, today I am a happy soul. I have gratitude. And so I want to talk about gratitude in the cynical world of advertising…

Today we participated in the third and final round of a new business pitch. I won’t name the client but it had come down to us against my old employer, Leo Burnett. Coming into this session we were in a dead heat. They’d been more impressive in round one whereas we took the second. And now we were at match point. All the marbles, as they say. Our “A” team against their “A” team.

Folks, I live for meetings like this. I love putting our brains against good competition. It’s an honor just to be asked in. Having distinguished ladies and gentleman at the top of their games asking us to help them with communications, with getting to the next level. What do you want to do when you grow up?

However you look at the pitching process, we are on a stage. Weeks of preparation, maybe months: the day of reckoning beckons us to our marks. It is a relay. Today ours was also a marathon. 6 hours! Each member of our team had a segment and in turn was relied upon to set up the next. If our arguments were made deftly, in time, and with passion we have a new client. If not, we don’t.

Don’t you love it? I do. Long ago the euphoria of coming up with killer ideas and arguing for them became my Valhalla. While I adore the craftsmanship required in making stellar ads, nothing compares to pitching them. The best idea needs the best team in order to win. If we have both I am in advertising heaven.

The Gods of Advertising shined on us today. We had our best stuff. If we do not prevail it will be because a venerable powerhouse kicked our ass. I know today we did not lose. We may have been beaten. But failure was not self-made. Only waiting is agony.

If all this sounds like a psychotic ramble (Dan Draper on acid), it is! I’m no longer an awards show whore. I don’t do drugs and alcohol. I am an idea junkie and nothing delivers the goods like a monster pitch. This is why I have gratitude. I get paid to do something I feel so good doing that it actually gets me high. And it’s a natural high, an earned one. Last night I stayed up writing the words I would later deliver. My teammates did their version of same. And man, we hit it. We hit it good.

Afterwards, the clients presumably satiated and tucked into their limos home, I collapsed on the couch in my office. (I have a couch; there’s something to be grateful for!) I was completely drained. I had peaked. Win or lose, I felt good. I had the utmost gratitude for being invited, for the effort of my colleagues, and for my part in it.

The look in everyone’s eyes when we closed… It doesn’t get any better than that.

Interviewing for the first time? You’re more than a bunch of ads.

An editor requested I write a brief story about how I got my first job in Advertising. They will be publishing it, and others like it, over the next few months. Here’s a advanced copy of mine:

I put my book together the old-fashioned way: with markers and tape. An art director from my dad’s office scribbled me some quick drawings and I markered in the headlines. I got 3 offers in one week. Took the one at Leo Burnett. I still remember the number: $19,500 a year. And that was $1,500 dollars more than the offer I got at JWT (then called J. Walter Thompson).

Beyond the better salary, LBCO promised me a chance at working with a rising star they’d just hired from Doyle Dane Bernbach. They still called it that. My new boss did anyway. His name was Ted Bell. He had a partner, John Eding. The two of them, I was told, were cut from a different cloth than the TV-centric majority at Leo Burnett. They cherished print and were good at it. The duo had actually created some of the more famous print campaigns of their time. Chivas Regal being one of them. (Look it up.)

Anyway, I took my book into Ted’s new office and came out with a job. How’d I do it? To this day, I know it wasn’t just on account of my book. I had that right mix of awe, enthusiasm and confidence. I was able to sell him on myself. I remember showing stories I’d written for my university newspaper. I kid you not. I had my own music column in Madison, Wisconsin. Highlights from that foray into journalism include a review of a sparsely attended saloon gig by the Replacements (“These guys are going places.”) as well as coverage of the Violent Femmes. I don’t think Ted knew who either act was but he liked that I was a writer. I may have even shown him some song lyrics I wrote. You laugh, but I got the job.

Of course my book had ads in it. Three campaigns consisting of three or more print ads. I had a couple TV scripts but Ted didn’t read them. He did, however, read the body copy. Like I said, Ted loved words. FYI, he’s a best-selling author now.

Three campaigns of three or more ads. The Rule of 3. I still tell creative candidates that this is your price of entry.

One line of mine from that fateful interview I’ll never forget (partly because Ted always liked to remind me) was when I told him “with the right art director I could sell venereal disease.” I knew he would laugh, get it, and get me. I had a sense of him. I read the room. A gift I have since embraced as something from God. We all have such gifts. Nice to know what they are before interviewing!

How are you? A key question from The Happy Soul Industry. But can you answer it online?

Enough about my new book. Let’s talk about my new book’s website:

happysoulindustry.com

Thank you Rob from IT. (Everyone should have a Rob from IT). Anyway, I want to draw attention to one of the site’s features. The publisher’s idea, it’s based on a fictional ad campaign from the novel -a web log entitled “How are you?” Here’s how it works and why hopefully you’ll try it…

How are you? We ask the question every day. Countless times. But do we really want the answer? When asked, we invariably say “fine” but what does “fine” mean and are we really?

Maybe your ecstatic, recently promoted, in love. Is that “fine?” Are you angry, resentful; do you feel betrayed or disappointed? How can that be “fine?”

Unburden yourself here and now.

Answer the question…really.

If there is God is in Heaven he is online. Tell Him or Her how you are. If you don’t believe in God act as if. The magic of anonymity means you can be rigorously honest, humble and real. Let the record serve as barometer for the human condition. A conduit for our souls in cyberspace, laid clean, finally.

Answer the question: How Are You?

Will this help sell books? No idea, but come on folks, this is what we talk about when we talk about interactive. Even if you don’t order the book –God forbid, since it’s less than 12 bucks on Amazon- you still need to give this a spin. Or just come look. A few brave souls have already posted some pretty raw stuff.

God or no God, is there a reality beyond our collective façade of fineness? Go to the site. Answer the question. I double dare you: How are you?

http://happysoulindustry.com/HowAreYou/

The Happy Soul Industry. A modern fable about God and advertising.

Gentle Reader, I need to ask you a favor. Sort of a big one, actually. My second novel, The Happy Soul Industry is coming out. Finally. And I would be very honored if you went online and ordered a copy. The paperback is less than 15 bucks on Amazon. I’ll say it again: Very, very honored.

Happy Soul Industry is a modern fable about God and advertising. God looks for an advertising agency in order to market Heaven! As you might imagine, all Hell breaks loose.

At happysoulindustry.com you’ll find the synopsis, early reviews, excerpts and some other surprises. It’s on the blogroll below as is a video, which talks about the book.

Look, I know pimping my own stuff borders on shameless. But if I don’t promote it here, who will and where? I spent several years writing, editing and getting ready for this moment. I’d be crazy not to mention it. Besides, I happen to think the folks who appreciate this blog will appreciate the book. Some of you even helped create it!

Justin Bryan Cox, a former employee, designed the book’s cover and, yes, it’s the same art as on Gods of Advertising. I had creative teams at Euro think about marketing ideas. The OAAA is procuring space in Chicago and L.A. for a billboard campaign –seriously.

Obviously, I’m very excited. And I’d be lying if I said I don’t care if anyone reads this book. I care a lot. And the best chance for an audience is…you. This book means the world to me, as would you reading it. Thanks in advance.

Respectfully, Steffan