Mr. Hepburn, our high school counsellor, gave us all career advice at our mostly blue-collar high school, Edmonds. He had us all do an aptitude test to help him give us that guidance. My test showed I liked to make up things and was good with communications. It suggested Journalism. On the other hand, academically,… Read More »
Working on Madison Avenue can be challenging. There are as many setbacks as there are achievements when you are playing the Ad Game. My idea was to create something like a game of snakes and ladders. A work buddy of mine, Bob Sayles, and I decided to actually make a board game of it. I… Read More »
Long ago people used to dry their clothes outdoors on a rope or wire called a clothes line. The clothes dried fine outside in the sunshine, maybe a little stiff, but fine and smelling like outdoors. But sometimes it rained. Or the wind blew the clothes off the line. Washing the clothes was also a… Read More »
I spent more than a year working on Jell-O Pudding’s advertising in the early 1970s when I lived in New York. My job was to come up with new advertising directions, back ups to those already running, and also to help with new product development. We got a new TV campaign running featuring Bill Cosby,… Read More »
One of my first major assignments in advertising was as the Account Executive on Jell-O Pudding at Young & Rubicam, a huge advertising agency in New York. I went to meet the client in White Plains for the first time a couple weeks later that summer and was surprised at all the varieties of pudding… Read More »
While in Venezuela, we received an introduction to make an advertising pitch to a lard company called Mavesa (Manteca Venezolana S.A. – which translates to the Venezuelan Lard company). Their principal products were lard, margarine, and edible oils. They also sold mayonnaise, but sales were not doing well. Mayonesa Mavesa was 5th in share behind… Read More »
General Foods maintained a large testing kennel in Kankakee, Illinois. It was close to their dog food manufacturing plant. During the 70s when I worked on their dog food advertising, they had a very successful dog food business. GF sold dry food: Gaines Meal and Gravy Train both dry; semi-moist foods: Gaines-Burgers (in several flavours),… Read More »
You can be successful, and still fail. All it takes is a change in market conditions. We were rewarded for excellent work with P&G on Ariel and Camay in Venezuela by receiving the assignment for the launch of Pampers. There was virtually no competition except old fashioned cloth diapers. How could we miss? Pampers had… Read More »
We lived for three to four years in Caracas. We spent most of our time in the city, at work or driving to the nearby Caribbean beaches. This blog has many stories about our work life in the country. But what about the countryside? For work we did shoot commercials outside the city; but we… Read More »
Many times clients have asked us to change fonts, change colour shades, change layouts, even highlight lines. Small adjustments get deemed important. After discussion they become more and more important as people entrench themselves in a position. It allows people to think they have made some impact on a project. We had some devious techniques… Read More »