betaphilings

“Memory is a storehouse of junk on a floor where a few gems are scattered too. Find them, for that is what life is worth.” —Surinder Singh

My first real job after college was as a typesetter for a printing company. One of our customers was an advertising agency that created magazine and newspaper ads for its clients. In those days type had to be ordered from commercial print shops.

Apart from setting type, much of my time was spent interacting with a guy from the ad agency who showed up three or four times a day to pick up type or drop off copy. The designs he brought in amazed me. Somebody at that ad agency really knew what they were doing.

The guy and I became friends and one day he invited me to drop by the agency after work. He said cocktails were served on Fridays after five and lots of people showed up.

I met the owners of Carter & Daniel Advertising that day. Carter was the big, jovial front man whose specialty was hype. Daniel was the quiet former art professor and acclaimed local sculptor who made the magic happen. All the people I met there fit my idea of cool people.

I quickly determined that my life would be greatly improved if I moved from my one-woman composition department to this dynamic advertising agency, so every Friday after work I would head to Carter & Daniel and hang out like I belonged there. I would introduce myself as the typesetter, I would sip gin and tonic, I would hound Mr. Carter to hire me.

“No!” he would bellow. “I need you there not here.”

One afternoon I overheard the two of them discussing the bank surveys. Questionnaires designed by the agency to assess customer satisfaction had been completed by bank customers and were stacked in piles needing attention. That’s when it hit me: offer to do it for them.

I told them I would be glad to take the surveys home and draft a report. In fact, I would do it for free just to help them out since they sent me so much typesetting. Nothing to lose. Potential gain if I do a good job.

They liked my idea.

So I loaded my car with stacks of questionnaires and spent the weekend poring over them. English majors are good at some things, and writing reports is generally one of them.

On Monday after work I returned the questionnaires to Carter & Daniel, along with my ten-page report, nicely packaged as a term paper might be.  They were dumbstruck.

They hired me on the spot.

As production manager there, I worked with many talented people to produce TV, radio, magazine, newspaper, and billboard ads. Concepts came from the owners and execution came through me.

Concepts were often little more than a few words. My report, for example, had shown that bank customers put high value on small things like courtesy and friendliness, so the concept for the bank’s new ad campaign was called “Little Things.” At the time those words sounded fresher than they would today.

The owners gave me a lot of freedom to do what I wanted with Little Things, including writing the copy.

I gave the copy a really sentimental slant, which was popular in those days. I tore through magazines and found sappy photographs that tug at the heartstrings. I arranged and directed a photo shoot that emulated those shots. I worked with the voice talent on the right background music. Finally, I took the photos and audio recording to the TV station and produced my first television commercial.

It was a huge success. The Little Things spot was a bright and shiny gem of a thing.

Wanderlust kicked in at some point, and I moved on from that job, to another state, taking with me a new measure of confidence.

The kicker to this story for me is what happened three years later when I was visiting friends in my former state. I heard something very familiar that drew me into the next room where a television was playing. There it was, of all things — my Little Things commercial, still airing after all those years.

Ah, it felt so good!

This entry was posted on Friday, December 25th, 2009 at 7:17 am and is filed under My stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.