His name alone should've been a red flag. A blinking, neon, flashing red flag.
But no, we were all too polite, too professional, to point out the gaping chasm of thinking where his brain should be.
This one account director I worked with could pen a five-thousand-word treatise on the optimal font size for a cement truck, yet when it came to selling the damn thing, his intellect devolved into a toddler’s scribble.
His golden goose of a creative proposition was this one excruciating cliché and a half: ‘I want to be the wind beneath your wings. Just do it.’
Yes, the Nike line. As if he’d secretly stumbled upon a fortune cookie prophecy and decided it was the blueprint for world domination.
From tricycles to velvet-laced denim, from whistling potato boilers to wasabi-infused soft drinks, his catchphrase was as versatile and plump as a one-legged hippo.
It just didn’t matter.
Every brief was a fresh canvas for this masterpiece of mediocrity.
And the worst part? He was convinced he was David Ogilvy - in a much better suit.
He sauntered around like a greased otter, smelling like an olfactory disaster, chewing the cud of his nonexistent competence.
Every time I gently suggested that maybe, just maybe, a slightly different approach might be worthwhile, he’d puff up like a peacock and declare, “But the CEO loves it!”
An open threat waved in our faces like an invisible sword, with much glee.
His access to the CEO, who suffered him like a well-dressed doorman, granted and entitled him to a lifetime supply of creative immunity.
Regardless of whether he was trying to sell a pressure cooker that could mew like a cat, or retail a new mosquito repellent that could liquify their proboscis, it was a daily circus.
A comedy of errors where the punchline was always the same: the wind-beneath-your-wings flatulence.
Over the years, there was only one valuable lesson to be gleaned from his unprofitable mind: sometimes, even the most meticulous planner can be as creatively bankrupt as a broke poet.
I often ponder about that chunk of walking cement. Not with longing, but with curiosity.
Where is he now? Is he pitching frozen food with the same tired line?
I really wouldn’t be surprised if he tried it on a funeral home.
For all you know, just at this moment, he could be briefing his agency team inside one of those glass buildings outside your window.
They would have sat through his industrial strength strategy presentation about a new line of organic baby food.
Our account director, with much more grey hair, and a straight face, would have finally telescoped his strategy into that one brilliant creative proposition - “We’ll be the wind beneath your baby’s wings...."
The CCO would smile with traces of a familiar smirk, and the CEO would immediately schedule a termination meeting with HR.
He decides it's time to just do it.
#advertising #marketing #creative #copy #planning #friday #brief #bitm #banginthemiddle
Publicist | Assistant Director, Communications
4moGreat concept!