Sh-Boom

by Don Potter

  Her sudden switch of subject caught me off-balance. “No, I don’t.”

  “It wasn’t because he was padding his expense account, although he was, but everyone does. Neither was it because he attempted to beat the world record by laying every chick in New York. And failed.”

  ‘Chick’ sounded strange coming from her. “Then why?”

  “Because, in the short period of time I was exposed to how he worked, I saw the cavalier way he treated the creative product. He didn’t insist or push clients to buy the agency’s work and had the habit of coming back from meetings with client changes. That’s not the way to run an agency like mine, known for producing breakthrough advertising. One of us had to go and it certainly wasn’t going to be me. So, before the merger officially took place, it was bye-bye birdie to Mister Eddie Gardner. What do you have to say about that?”

  “I understand.”

  “Good,” Mary said and gave me a sweet smile. Like a barracuda might smile just before it takes a bite out of you.

  15

  War clouds gather on the agency horizon - male versus female battle-lines are drawn. The first human to die from something known as the HIV Virus is reported by Congo health authorities. Rob, now Robert, meets the next girl of his dreams.

  * * *

  Charlie O, transplanted from Pittsburgh. From the beginning, Charlie demonstrated that he did not like Mary Parsons one bit and the feeling was mutual. At account meetings, held for Charlie’s benefit, a review ranged from discussions about marketing strategies to media planning to creative concepts and execution. They usually went well until we got to the creative part. Instantly walls went up as the creative group defended its work. Charlie tried and failed to get everyone in harmony using approved creative strategies as the way to judge creative executions. He wanted to get everyone involved in brainstorming sessions, but Mary balked and the meetings always slid into personal confrontations.

  “If we can’t have an honest discussion internally, how can we offer a united front to our clients?” Charlie asked.

  Mary responded. “We’re here to be independent thinkers and find the most creative way to sell the clients’ products.”

  “To do that we have to work together. All of us, including clients, need to be involved.”

  Mary sighed. “Creative does its job and after we’re finished the others do theirs. No one interferes with the process, especially the clients.”

  “But it’s the clients’ money,” Charlie said as he unfolded his six-foot-four frame from his chair and starred down at Mary with his piercing blue eyes. “They have the final say.”

  “Maybe in Pittsburgh, but this is New York. We don’t let clients play in our sandbox,” Mary said as she picked up her note pad, spun on her heels and marched out. The meeting broke up, rather the meeting broke down.

  Mary re-appeared at my office at noon. “I’m hungry, let’s go.”

  I followed her out of the building and neither of us said a word. Not quite true, Mary said one word. “Hamburgers.”

  We squeezed into a tiny table at Prexy’s, the home of “The Hamburger With A College Education.” At one point I was about to speak but she put up a hand to stop me. Silence reigned until Mary was finished eating her rare burger.

  “Now we talk business,” she said as she wiped invisible ketchup or something from her fingertips. “Charlie started a fight he’s not going to win. I built this agency, and we do things my way.”

  “He was trying to help.”

  “When I want his help I’ll ask for it, and that’ll be when Hell freezes over.”

  “In Pittsburgh account services and the clients have input in the creative process.”

  “What happened? Where am I?” Mary looked around the restaurant as though seeing it for the first time. “I thought this was New York City, but to my surprise, it’s really Pittsburgh. Really?”

  “Sorry. I’m only sharing what I learned.”

  “Then unlearn, and fast.”

  “So what is the big difference between the cities?”

  “In my agency, creative rules. That’s why the walls are covered in awards. Creative people create, the rest are worker bees.”

  “Back in Pittsburgh there’s a lot of wining and dining of clients going on to build better relations and develop new business.”

  “Little fishes chasing little clients in a little pond. By the way, change your name. Rob sounds like a zit-speckled teenager.”

  “I like my name.”

  “Use your grown up name. Robert Fleming sounds like a man who accomplishes things.”

  “I’ll have to think about that.”

  “Do that. But change it starting tomorrow. Robert Fleming, a man of substance. A leader. An award winner.”

  “I hear ya.”

  “Do you know the big thing being ignored by everyone?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Women.”

  “I notice women.”

  “Not that kind of notice, Mister Horny. Women are the primary consumers of packaged goods. Besides groceries they buy their husbands’ razor blades and deodorant, and everything kids use and consume. Women buy men’s clothes and influence the purchase of big ticket items like appliances as well as the family car or cars. And, would any husband dare plan a vacation without consulting his wife? Understanding women is your ticket to fame and fortune. Most agencies view women as chattel, chained to the kitchen stove. And their ads reflect that thinking. I treat them in my ads the way I want to be treated. Agencies know it but the men running the creative departments just don’t want to admit it.”

  “You make it sound so simple.”

  “Who said life has to be hard to be understood?”

  I shrugged.

  “How’s your love life?” Mary asked, yet again knocking me off-balance. “Don’t answer, I can tell by your expression. Friday night you’re taking me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lots of single women there, artsy ones too. How does that sound, Robert?”

  “I look forward to it.”

  “Wear a dark suit. Make sure it’s pressed.”

  Mary looked Manhattan-elegant when we met at the museum. “Hello, my little Pittsburgh fish. Be a darling and get me a glass of wine. Chardonnay.”

  I pushed through the equally elegant crowd to the bar and returned with two glasses of wine. She slipped a pill into her mouth, washed it down with the wine and explained, “Migraine deterrent.”

  Mary scanned the packed reception and I helped myself to the canapés being passed around on silver trays by white gloved waiters.

  “Contact,” she said. “I have the very girl for you. Follow me.”

  She weaved through the crowd with me right behind her and swept a young woman away from the attention of an older man who looked as if he was putting a major move on her. “Saved you again, Linda,” my boss said.

  “Mary Parsons. You are such a character. Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in ages.”

  “This merger thing has taken up so much time. Anyway, I want you to meet Robert Fleming, one of the best young copywriters to grace Madison Avenue in years. And he’s single. Nail him down before word gets out. I’ll be right back.”

  She slipped away and as she disappeared into the crowd I was reminded of a barracuda again.

  “Nice to meet you, Robert,” Linda said to get my attention back on her.

  “Same here, Linda. You in the agency business?”

  “Heavens no. Not for me. I’m in publishing. Random House. Our offices are on Madison right behind Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.”

  “Bennett Cerf, of What’s My Line fame, founded it. Random House, not Saint Patrick’s.” My response was sort of clumsy and I felt stupid.

  “Are you a fan of Mister Cerf’s writing or the TV show?”

  “Both. I used to watch the show with my parents when it first came on in the early fifties.”

  “Your first time in New Yor
k?“

  “I moved here from Pittsburgh in early November and Mary thought I might enjoy tonight’s lecture.”

  “Bullshit. Mary brought you here to look for single women.” Not only was Linda’s smile beautiful, she was just beautiful from head to toe. She was a slender five-six or so with a scrubbed wholesome if not gorgeous face, hazel eyes, black hair pulled back in a French twist and a black evening dress rounded out the picture. She seemed to be a different kind of woman than the ones Ed talked about that might be found frequenting the single bars on Manhattan’s Upper Eastside or in downtown Pittsburgh.

  “What do you do at Random House?”

  “Publisher’s assistant.”

  “My sister did that for a magazine when she came here a few years back. Peggy lives in New Jersey with her husband now.”

  “Then you know the job is a glorified secretary.”

  “That’s what Peggy said. But it got her in the door, and she’s a feature editor now. At least until she leaves to have her baby.”

  “The lecture is going to be a colossal bore and I’m hungry. Wanna feed me?”

  “You’re very straightforward, Linda.”

  “That a problem, Robert?”

  “Not at all. Let’s go.”

  We took a cab across Central Park and ended up at a little Italian restaurant where Columbus Avenue and Broadway meet, across from the construction site of the new Lincoln Center. Over dinner Linda told me a little about her life. She grew up in Scarsdale, graduated from Columbia and wanted to write novels. Unfortunately, she shared an apartment with two other girls so any hopes of stopping by for a nightcap were dashed. But Linda was bold enough to say she wanted to see me again. Progress, progress.

  16

  IBM introduces the Selectric typerwriter. Coke launches Sprite to compete with 7-Up. Ray Peterson’s tragic song, Tell Laura I Love Her, becomes a huge success. Robert is asked to choose sides in the agency war.

  * * *

  Charlie O asked me to join him for a drink at the Monkey Bar in the Elysee Hotel, around the corner from the Park Avenue headquarters of the soap giant Lever Brothers. The Elysee was off the agency beaten path so odds were we would not be seen by our competitors, and in this town all agencies are competitors. But it was unlikely anyone outside our office would recognize us anyway.

  Charlie sat at a table in far corner and waved me over. “Thanks for coming. What are you drinking?”

  “A martini’s fine,” I said after glancing at his drink. “What’s up, and why are we meeting here?”

  “Straight to the point.”

  “It’s Friday night and I have a date waiting for me.” I lied because I did not want to spend the evening getting drunk while listening to how Mary Parsons was destroying Carlson/Andrews chances for success in the New York ad game.

  “OK, I need to know whose side you’re on,” Charlie said.

  “Neither.”

  “You need to pick one.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s a clash of style and ideas in the agency, you know that. Mary has turned into an out of control, screaming, paranoiac maniac. She thinks the Pittsburgh guys are out to get her and threw Ed under the bus because she thought he might be there to spy on her.”

  “She has a brilliant creative mind and a true sense of the consumer, especially women.”

  “Douches and pantyhose ain’t exactly Coca Cola,” Charlie said and waved for another round.

  “The women’s market is virtually up for grabs because men are selling to them rather than talking with them.”

  Charlie frowned. “So you’re on her side?”

  “I’m on my side.”

  “You might end up all alone.”

  “I came in that way,” I said with confidence. But I wasn’t confident at all. Not one bit.

  “Here’s some research I want you to absorb it over the weekend. Need I say it’s strictly between you and me? If things turn out the way I want, Mary Parsons will be made to realize it’s a two-way street rather than one-way, which is always her way. We’ll talk Monday.”

  Charlie paid the bill and left me sitting there with a half-finished drink and a stack of research studies from Lever Brothers, all stamped “Confidential”.

  17

  Negroes cause a disturbance at the lunch counter in a South Carolina Woolworth store. France drops its own atomic bomb. The minimum hourly wage is $1.25; medium family income is $6,000 per year. And Robert gets lucky.

  * * *

  I was reading the research studies on Saturday afternoon and wondering how to avoid another Mary Parsons-Charlie O running battle when Linda called. “Mister Fleming, why haven’t I heard from you?”

  “I’m so sorry; it’s been crazy around the office.”

  “Want to grab a bite tonight?”

  “I have an assignment that has to be completed by Monday morning.”

  “You don’t like me?”

  “Of course I like you, but-“

  “Then we’ll eat in. I’ll be at your place with a feast for Madison Avenue’s rising new star. What time?”

  “Uh, six?”

  “See you then. Bye.”

  I was still working at the table in the dining area when Linda arrived at my apartment with a bag of groceries from Gristedes. She was wearing a sweater and jeans that accented her shapely figure. The high heels made her downright sexy looking. As she unpacked the food I wondered if she had more on her mind than preparing dinner. I hoped so.

  I made a hasty pile of my work material and placed it on a chair. “I should have cleaned up this mess before you got here. Let me take a quick shower.”

  “No hurry, we won’t be eating for a while,” she replied and placed two bottles of Chianti on the table.

  This, I thought, just might be a memorable evening. I quickly showered, splashed on some colonge and dressed in Levi’s and a sweater. The Italian dinner was delicious. We drank both bottles of Chianti and ended up in bed. If only it was always this simple. I woke next morning to the smell of coffee. Linda brought me a steaming mug wearing one of my oxford button-down shirts and nothing else. The coffee got cold because she slipped into bed and we did a reprise performance of the previous night.

  After she left I noticed my research materials were stacked in a different order. I might have been mistaken, but it bothered me to think Linda could have been snooping around while I was sleeping. Why would she do a thing like that? Maybe she was just curious as to what had me working all weekend. Nonetheless, I didn’t like it.

  I ran into a firefight when I arrived at the office. At the regular Monday morning staff meeting Charlie announced a new business prospect, Lever Brothers, and that made Mary mad because she said she should have been told about this before letting the staff know. This never-ending war was tiring. They were fighting so often they should have been married. And I noticed Mary was popping pills, a lot of pills.

  18

  Russia launches Sputnik 4. The Kiwis down under finally get television. A new house costs $15,000. And everyone is reading the naughty parts of Lady Chatterley’s Lover; even Robert, especially Robert.

  * * *

  The Lever Brothers account was big and very visible on Madison Avenue. Everyone in the agency was involved in putting the presentation together. We worked long and hard to pull it together. The pitch paid off since an ex-Heinz client and a golfing buddy of Charlie back in Pittsburgh was now heading up Lever’s marketing department, and we ended up with two of their brands as our initial assignment. But no amount of soap was going to wash away the dirty feelings between Charlie O and Mary Parsons.

  Work interfered with my love life and I was seeing less of Linda. The separation gave me time to think and there was something odd about our relationship. She had a habit of asking too many questions about what was going on at the agency. One night, when she had a little too much to drink, I confronted her. Tearfully, she admitted Mary asked Linda
to keep her informed about what I was up to. That quickly ended the relationship and it was back to the singles bars and a series of nameless, faceless, unfulfilling encounters.

  The first televised presidential debates took place. Those listening on radio called Richard Nixon the winner, but the much larger TV audience favored John Kennedy because they found him attractive, vibrant and more personable than his opponent. Nixon perspired profusely under the hot lights and came across as being uncomfortable. Some say it was a matter of style over substance. What the politicians learned the advertising business discovered a decade earlier - television is a powerful medium.

  After our success with Lever Brothers, bigger clients showed interest in us. One of them was General Foods. Mary was busy overseeing the development of the Lever campaign, so Charlie made the first call on General Foods. He returned with a million-watt grin.

  “General Foods wants us to pitch a piece of business with billings of more than four million bucks,” he announced.

  “Wow,” I said. There was no other appropriate response.

  “The brand is Yuban coffee.”

  “Oops,” Mary said. “An agency can’t handle two coffee accounts so we’ll have to resign Chock full o’Nuts, if we get Yuban.”

  “That’s not how Carlson/Andrews does it. We think the ethical thing to do is resign Chock full o’Nuts, even though it’s a competitive pitch with no guarantees we’ll win the account.”

  I was stunned. “Give up a million dollars worth of ongoing business in hopes of maybe getting a bigger account in the same category?”

  “Four times bigger,” Charlie said.

  “There’s no upside to this. It’s a dumb thing to do,” Mary replied.

  “Carlson/Andrews has a sterling reputation. And doing the honest and forthright thing lets the Yuban folks know we really want their business,” Charlie explained.