Ad Nomad

by Eric Jay Sonnenschein

  Dane promised to deliver. Wittman’s eyes responded without belief, anticipation, or enthusiasm, yet his need for a brochure was sufficiently great to suspend disbelief and give this human question mark a chance. He briefed Dane on the building, the audience and the tone he wished to convey.

  “Can you have this done by 11 A.M, tomorrow morning?

  “Yes,” Dane said without hesitation.

  “I’ll expect you then.”

  For Dane, the assignment was more than an opportunity to succeed; it was a feast of creative possibilities and he could not get home fast enough to gorge himself. He was invited not simply to write headlines and body copy but to create a world. He imagined the young financial analyst he was writing for, a presumptuous man, sure of his talents but insecure in his status. His reader was new in the city and had an enormous appetite for life coupled with a soft spot for comfort and convenience. This young professional wanted a place close to work, with quiet nights and abundant amenities—a large space, a new kitchen, an exhilarating harbor view, state-of-the-art electric wiring for his computer and appliances, and a health club for fitness and women. This was the young man Dane might have been had he come to the city with a job, marketable skills or money. As Dane wrote late into the night, he assumed the character of the suave building and of the savvy realtor who revealed its secrets to the apartment hunter like a worldly Virgil guiding Dante through hell. Oh, the client would love this!

  Stoked by high levels of inspired desperation, Dane needed all night and most of the morning to complete his task. He took three trains and dashed three long blocks from Grand Central to make his 11 o’clock deadline. When he arrived two minutes early with perspiration streaming down his face, Paul Wittman was waiting in the lobby with his hand out. Even so, the agency co-owner looked shocked to see Dane. His expectations were so low that Dane exceeded them by showing up. Dane gained confidence from this small victory.

  “So you have my brochure?” Wittman demanded with the imperious tone of an employer.

  Dane reached into his briefcase and extracted the manuscript. The grimacing agency partner accepted the stapled sheets and led Dane back to his office. While Dane watched, Wittman read the brochure. Within a few paragraphs Wittman laughed. Then he smiled and laughed again. When he finished the manuscript, he looked up and smiled at Dane.

  “This is great. I love this. It’s fresh; it has a point of view. It has the right point of view,” he said. “I’ll show it to the client. So, now, I told you I’d give you what you want if you wrote the brochure. What do you want?”

  “A job,” Dane said.

  “What kind of job?”

  Dane knew he had to ask for something so modest that Wittman would not refuse.

  “Junior copywriter. That’s all I want.”

  Wittman nodded as if weighing the proposal on scales in his brain.

  “That sounds feasible. What kind of salary are you looking for?”

  “How much will you pay?”

  “No, no. Tell me what you want.”

  Again Dane felt the need to be circumspect. Wittman was prosperous but he ran a small agency and had to control payroll.

  “How about thirty thousand?”

  Wittman stroked his chin and squinted. “Let me think about that. Heck. It sounds reasonable. Okay, it’s a deal. You earned it.”

  It was momentous for Dane, but he did not want to simply enjoy it; he needed to build on it. Wittman had mentioned that the same client had two buildings and needed two brochures. To secure his place and show off his talents, Dane asked Wittman if he could write the second brochure. The agency partner told Dane it was unnecessary—he already had the job. But Dane insisted that he wanted to do it, so Wittman briefed him on the second project. Dane completed it overnight and returned the following morning. By that time Wittman had client feedback on the first brochure.

  “The client loved your copy! They want us to put the manuscript into layout as is.”

  Wittman read Dane’s second manuscript and he liked it more than the first. He brought Dane together with a diminutive, young art director named Saroja, who drew a flower on her forehead with a makeup pencil. Together they brainstormed the covers for two brochures. Paul approved them and sent them to the client.

  The next week, Dane started his first job in advertising.

  Case 1-F

  ADTHROPOLOGY

  19. THE NEW WORLD

  “This is your new home,” Deirdre Ryan said as she showed him into a conference room next door to Paul Wittman’s office. At the end of a long table cluttered with newspapers and old equipment a desktop computer and printer awaited him. The room was a dark storage dump, cluttered by boxes and computer parts. Dane gazed out the window at a skyscraper with art deco brick patterns across Second Avenue and at the slender trees abutting the curb. He listened to the sluice of traffic and repeated, “I’m an advertising creative. I’m a copywriter.”

  For the first hours of his first day nothing happened. Dane wondered if he really had a job. The world he conquered was a dusty, cluttered room. His audition and success were not a week old, yet after a few hours Dane felt anxious and vulnerable, alone on an island perilously close to an alien mainland.

  New colleagues walked by his makeshift office sporadically. They peered in, grinned and pointed at Dane as if he were a new zoo animal. This was because Wittman circulated a memo announcing Dane’s hire, in which he exhorted employees to introduce themselves and use his services. They went halfway, stopping by Dane’s dark cave without saying hello.

  Dane’s insecurity was acute. The ebb and flow of advertising and office life were unfamiliar. He never factored idleness into a job. He was the first full-time copywriter at WIF. He had earned his position in the classic manner—by selling his work to a client. He deserved to be where he was: so where was he?

  Maury Wittman, the agency president and Paul’s brother, handed Dane an assignment: to write a headline for a photograph of a seductive woman in a short skirt, leaning against a brick wall. The ad was for an apartment complex but Dane was unclear about the message. Hookers live here? Dane wrote a page of headlines and heard no more about it.

  Later in the week Mildred Walters, an executive with the look and manner of a wealthy society woman, handed Dane a small assignment. Mildred had an affluent East Side clientele, which included elite real estate brokers and developers. She asked Dane for taglines. Dane wrote two pages of slogans and put them on her desk. The next day, Mildred recorded a message on Dane’s voice mail, “Dane, I’ve reviewed your taglines. Unfortunately, none are adequate.” She sighed. “What a shame that you could not do this one thing for me.” Within 30 seconds, the triumphs that brought Dane to WIF were rubble.

  Dane retreated to his dark office and observed the life of the agency through passing figures and cacophonous bursts of language, like a shopkeeper watching street traffic with craving eyes. Was he wise to leave teaching for this misadventure in which you could be smart enough to get a job and too stupid to keep it? Under this fear lay a deeper one. He had no teaching career to go back to. He must succeed at advertising.

  As he wallowed in despair, Paul Wittman appeared in the doorway. “Congratulations!” he proclaimed. “The client loved everything, especially your copy.”

  Later Wittman summoned Dane to his office. He was on the phone with the real estate mogul, who wanted Dane to write a mission statement for his company and a speech for his son’s Bar Mitzvah. Dane hurried from the office to write the first draft of the mission statement. Then he turned to the Bar Mitzvah speech. He made it so poignant that his eyes misted near the end. It was his best work but he felt cheated because he could not put it in his portfolio. When he returned to Paul’s office to read both pieces to his boss, Wittman threw up his hands and laughed, “Relax, Dane! You have the job.”

  On the train platform that Friday evening, Dane ended his first week in an aura of security and bliss. His commercial triumph after years of literary failure
redeemed his long struggle and confirmed his faith. Finally someone appreciated his writing. Yet fresh success opened a festering wound. Why had editors and agents spurned his work to which he devoted so much time, love and effort for many years while Wittman and a real estate mogul loved two brochures dashed off in two evenings? Were his new patrons unsophisticated boobs or were publishing professionals stultifying dolts?

  Or was advertising his true medium? Dane sensed that he had finally made the crucial transition from teaching and underemployment to a full-time job. He could support his family. For a moment he felt truly free.

  20. DIM SUM AND DIMMER

  In his dark, makeshift office cluttered with cast-off computer parts, Dane agonized over his tenuous position but resolved to make the most of it. He internalized the mantra-like lexicon of real estate advertising and learned to use buzzwords and catchphrases like “breath-taking views” and “granite countertops” so fluently that he transformed clichés to figures of poetry.

  It was not a dream job at a top shop but he could do great work and replace the homemade concepts in his portfolio with produced pieces. Griffin’s derisive advice echoed in his head—he must have printed materials to show he was professional. First Dane edited the brochures in layout, poring over every word, map and caption to eliminate mistakes. Finally he and the art director, Saroja, reviewed the matchprint, the last version before the brochure went to press. Dane was signing off on it when a studio artist asked about the spelling of dim sum. In a sentence about Chinatown it was spelled dim sun. Dane thought it was correct but Webster’s International disagreed.

  “Dim sun, din sum! How could I be so ignorant!” Dane berated himself. Why didn’t he write Peking duck? At least he could spell it! Dane measured his dilemma: if he called out the mistake, they would need a new matchprint for $400 and he would be fired. If he let it slide, a captious reader might catch dim sun and complain. The brochures would be recalled. The agency would eat the cost of another printing, and Dane would lose his job and reputation. This was when Dane’s judgment saved him. He calculated the odds that a Moroccan realtor would know how to spell a Chinese dumpling. They were small. Anyway, Dane could argue that “Dim sun” was technically not incorrect because American spelling only approximated Chinese phonetics. He signed off on the matchprint and held his breath…for weeks.

  The dreaded complaint about the misspelled culinary delight, a brochure recall, and his subsequent firing never took place. The gaffe went unnoticed. Dane saw this as a propitious sign that he was on his way up, invulnerable and unstoppable.

  21. FIRST EXPLORATION

  At WIF, Dane’s work and its value were determined by Paul Wittman, a moody and mercurial autocrat. Wittman never defined Dane’s role because a staff copywriter was unprecedented at WIF. Dane came along when Wittman was most vulnerable. A real estate speculator had promised lucrative, new business, but Wittman was tired and made only a cursory effort to service the mogul’s account, when Dane trudged in with incongruous enthusiasm. Handing a major project to a middle-aged rookie was Wittman’s impulsive way of tossing the business to fate.

  The cost of Dane’s good fortune was that he depended completely on Wittman, who had considered firing Dane from the moment he hired him. All that saved the oldest junior copywriter from dismissal was the agency partner’s superstition. He viewed Dane like a winning lottery ticket; his copy made him money once, so it could happen again.

  Dane sensed his boss’s ambivalence and worried about being fired, but remained grateful for the job. The dark room he occupied abutted Wittman’s office. Dane frequently walked in to share with the Executive Vice President a headline or concept. He wished to demonstrate his productivity and to justify his hire. Dane also thought it was a good idea to hang with his benefactor to show his loyalty. However, Wittman felt uncomfortable with Dane’s intrusions. One morning when Dane entered Wittman’s office, the agency owner glanced up from his reading and brayed, “Would you please not barge 55 into my office?”

  Dane apologized but was humiliated to be upbraided for bad manners. He had made a mistake. Reporting to his boss was no sign of respect but a rude imposition. In his isolation he relied on Paul for work and conversation more than he should. He was only the junior copywriter and the Co-principal/Chief Creative Officer did not wish to hang with him. His benefactor was not his pal.

  In the tough environment of WIF, Dane needed more allies. Paul and his brother owned the agency but Dane sensed that much of the agency’s revenue was generated by the account executives. During a lull, he walked from office to office, like a peddler, soliciting assignments from other account people. Si Grossberg, a short, stout executive with a long pony-tail and a Hawaiian shirt, peered at Dane over his glasses.

  “You want to help?” Si asked. “Find me a hot, young babe for tonight!”

  His assistant, an austere woman, who looked like she stepped out of Greek tragedy, added with rolling eyes, “But don’t tell his wife.”

  Next Dane approached Christine, an attractive woman with a growing clientele. “No. We’re good, thanks,” she said briskly, her arms crossed like a “Do not…” sign.

  Finally, Dane walked up to Al Vortman, the most successful recruitment ad executive. Vortman stood over the desk of his assistant with a pile of invoices in one hand and the stem of his eyeglasses between his teeth. Dane asked Vortman if he needed copy support.

  “Support!” Vortman repeated as if hearing the word for the first time. “You want to give me support?”

  The tall, pear-shaped man, whose small, bald head, curly fringe hair and proboscis made him look like Big Bird’s brother, stared at Dane as if to pity his ignorance. He turned to his assistant.

  “He wants to know if I need support. Support! You came to the right guy,” Vortman said. “I got a hernia the size of a baseball!”

  Dane grinned uneasily at Vortman’s medical disclosure. He was unsure whether to laugh or commiserate with the bird-man’s ailment. Vortman’s small dark eyes taunted Dane’s social confusion.

  “You think my hernia’s funny?” Vortman grimaced.

  “No, not at all. I didn’t think you were serious,” Dane replied.

  “I’m not,” Vortman replied with the same baleful countenance.

  “Then congratulations, I guess,” Dane said. “Do you need a copywriter?”

  “Sorry, Mack. My stuff writes itself.”

  Ten minutes later Dane was back in his makeshift office, feeling superfluous again.

  22. A CLANDESTINE BRIEFING

  Dane liked to think of the small conference room as his office but people were always barging in to use the laminator, to forage in boxes or to jerk around computer monitors. One afternoon, Dane returned from lunch and walked in on the Wittman brothers eating sushi. While the smell of raw fish and mustard afflicted his nostrils, Deirdre Ryan stepped inside. “Do you mind if I do some filing?” she asked breathlessly.

  Before Dane could respond, the statuesque woman with the lowcut dress dropped a stack of folders on the table.

  “So, how are you getting along?” Deirdre asked.

  “I’m still learning,” Dane said.

  “If you have questions, just ask,” she replied as she picked up the files she came with and left.

  One afternoon Deirdre entered the conference room and closed the door. She asked Dane if he could keep a secret. “You’re a writer—tell me what you think.”

  She opened a Network for Learning booklet, like the one where he had found his first advertising class years before. One page was bookmarked. The header read: “Travel writing.”

  “I’ve always dreamed of being a travel writer, of going around the world and writing about it all—the sites I saw and the food I ate. What do you think?” Deirdre asked.

  “It’s an interesting goal. Have you done any writing?”

  “Only the schlock they ask me to do here. I was thinking of taking this course. What do you think?”

  “It looks good. If you
ever need anyone to look at your writing, I’d be glad to,” Dane said.

  “Aren’t you nice? I might take you up on that.”

  Deirdre strutted to the door and turned to him.

  “I have an idea. I want to write a travel book about bed and breakfasts across the United States. It would be like Blue Highways but I’d call it Blue Sheets.”

  “Great title!” Dane said.

  Her eyes glowed from his praise. “Aren’t you nice?”

  After that initial encounter, Deirdre found other occasions to visit Dane’s provisional office. She did not need to devise creative pretexts. It was the storage bin for the entire agency.

  “So, how are you getting along?” she asked.

  “Not as busy as I’d like to be,” he said.

  “I can explain that to you…but not here. One day, I’ll tell you the story.”

  Becky warned Dane against big lunches, so he bought a yogurt at a supermarket down the street and ate it in the Tudor City courtyard.

  One afternoon, while he sat on a bench with his yogurt, a woman in a raincoat and sunglasses walked by suspiciously unaccompanied by a dog, and sat next to him.

  “It’s good to see you’re getting your calcium,” the woman said to him.

  He turned aghast and saw that it was Deirdre Ryan.

  “Don’t acknowledge me,” she said. “We’re two random strangers on a bench. What I’m about to tell you must remain confidential. You may have wondered why the account executives are not giving you work. It’s simple. The account people hate the Wittmans and Paul Wittman hired you. Ergo, they hate you. It’s simple math.”

  “Thanks for the heads up,” Dane said gloomily.

  “My pleasure,” she said. “You have a right to know why you are experiencing difficulties. Now do you want to know why they hate the Wittmans?”

  Before Dane could decline, Deirdre explained that the account people at WIF had worked for themselves until Maury and Paul went on a shopping spree and bought them out. Now they worked for the Wittmans. The account people brought in their own business and managed their accounts while the Wittmans provided services—an office, telephones, computers, a studio and a billing department. The account people in turn paid the Wittmans a cut of their profits. The executives saw Dane’s copywriting as another “service” for which the Wittmans wanted them to pay a steep fee.