Sid Gorfine’s presentation detonated in the middle of Dane’s new career path. Dane observed with horror how research could be abused. Worse, his new success route was road-blocked by another buffoon.
Babette Mamenger came to Dane’s office that evening just as he prepared to leave. He had two thoughts when he saw her: that he had stayed too long and would surely be fired.
“I liked the way you stood up to Sid and defended Angelina,” Babette said. “It took guts and compassion.”
“Thanks,” Dane replied blandly as he waited for the bad news.
Babette was the executive vice president and account services director of Integrimedicom. Because of her special relationship with the DONARAL franchise manager, Babette controlled the account that provided 80% of agency revenues and brought in new projects on a regular basis.
“I like what you’ve been doing for the mail campaign and brochure,” Babette told Dane in her cigarette-leathered voice. “I saw your “HRT, WHY ME?” brochure and swore a woman wrote it. How do you write a woman’s point of view with such sensitivity? Are you gay?”
“No.”
“Cross-dresser?”
“No.”
“Live with your mom?”
“No.”
“Oh,” she replied skeptically. Some people liked to solve crosswords each day; Babette enjoyed solving people in the same way, but Dane stumped her. “Well, you’re talented, regardless.”
Babette asked Dane to come to her office. She fired up a clove cigarette, which she considered healthier than tobacco, and tossed some papers across the desk.
“The letters you wrote. I had some ideas. Can we discuss them?”
“Sure,” Dane sighed. Babette had a reputation for working until all hours.
“This letter needs something. How does this sound? You’re an active woman so stay that way.”
“That works,” Dane said.
“It’s crap,” Babette replied, relishing the harsh critique even at her own expense. “I’m no writer. How would you improve it?”
Dane felt himself sinking in the quicksand of another late night creative argument. If Dane defended his words, Babette would retaliate with endless alternatives. If he agreed to her changes, she would revert to an earlier version. It was mutual verbal masturbation. They put the three words “vital, active and strong” in divers combinations until they couldn’t pronounce the words.
“How about, ‘You’re v-v-v-vital. You’re a-a-a-ctive. You’re s-s-sstrong. And you have the best hours—years—ahead,” Dane said. His lips trembled as he fought to squelch a yawn.
“They’re not superwomen,” Babette whined before taking a long pull from her diet Pepsi. “What about: ‘You’re an active woman and now you can stay that way’.”
“Great!” he said. “I love it!”
She peeled off her gloves to expose her hands. Blood seeped from her cuticles like red oil, a side effect of her seizure medication.
“You’re just yessing me! I’m trying to help you. Do you have any passion left…any balls?”
“It’s 11 PM. I’ve been here since nine this morning!” Dane replied. “You have every right to taunt my manhood. I’ll even join in!”
“I’m asking for your creativity. Which is more than anyone in your department is doing. You’re at a dead end!”
“I am?” Dane asked with surprise. He thought he was the only one who knew.
“You’re a phony,” Babette said, scratching flakes of dried blood from her cuticles like old nail polish.
“Why? Because I’ll never go through menopause?”
“No. Because you pretend a paycheck is all you want. You’ve been writing this stuff for months but do you have the slightest idea what menopause is like? I want you at research. See how this beautiful writing of yours plays with real women.”
Dane felt a jolt. He wanted ardently to go home but Babette was offering the salvation of his advertising dream. He braced himself for another grueling ride through the eye of a brainstorm.
“Go home!” Babette said.
16. RESEARCH & BARBEQUE
Dane was relieved to be let off so easily. He did not realize that this evening marked his turning point at Integrimedicom. He had won Babette’s sympathy and respect—a major coup. As the highest ranking woman at Integrimedicom and Nadine’s worst enemy, Babette was Dane’s ideal ally.
Nadine despised Babette with her bleeding fingers, nasal voice, clunky jewelry, tumblers of diet soda, and deep-seated insecurity. She viewed Babette as an inferior being who worked hard because she had no children and no life. Yet, regardless how often Nadine insulted her, Babette never acknowledged the blows or lashed out at Nadine.
When Babette saw Dane staring at the bas reliefs on the façade that morning, she recognized that he was depressed and understood why; Nadine’s talent for making people miserable was no secret to her. Babette also believed Dane was “old school”—he craved initiative and competition and thirsted for recognition. Dane was ideal for her purposes. She decided to recruit him as an undercover creative operative to take down Nadine.
The research facility was near the Charlotte, North Carolina airport. Dane hated flying so Babette sat next to him to calm his nerves. She told him about her ailments and how she wanted a child but thought she could never have one. Her two-hour monologue made Dane forget his fear of flight and consider skydiving.
The client, a hyperactive woman who typically conducted business with Babette on her cell during rush hour, paced the observation room, playing with post-its. “Look,” she announced, showing a post-it on a letter. “No more same old boring direct mail. We’ll slap colorful post-its on it with messages like: Hot flashes be gone! Women will love them!” Babette’s job was to tell the client how brilliant that was and she did it brilliantly.
Two of the first three interviewees never showed. The third, a dignified, middle-aged woman, said she had a hysterectomy when she was 35.
“Damn,” Babette muttered. “They’re not supposed to have hysterectomies. This is for women going through natural menopause.”
“Pooh! Use it anyway,” the client said.
The next woman was in her 40s and experiencing perimenopause. She was soft-spoken and sedate with a refined accent. The interviewer asked about her health and attitude toward menopause. “You know, my mama went through change of life and she never took pills,” the woman said, “Not a one. It’s natural, it’s part of life,” she said. “I’m not afraid of aging and I’m not about to put anything in my body to make me feel something that isn’t real.”
“Oh, shut up!” the client yelled at the two-way mirror. “She’s poison! Get her out of here!”
Only two of first nine women who reviewed Dane’s menopause materials were in the right category and both were hostile to hormone replacement therapy. The others had hysterectomies or were too old. The tenth and last interviewee was tall and elegant, had broad shoulders, a jutting jaw—and a lump in her neck.
“She’s a man!” Dane whispered to Babette.
“Really?” Babette squinted through the glass. “No one will notice. I love her hair.”
The transvestite answered questions about hot flashes and vaginal dryness with expertise and gave insightful responses to the promotional materials. He was their best subject.
The psychologist/moderator was unconcerned about the authenticity of his subjects. He would write a report and bind it in leatherette; his clients would call it research and base marketing decisions on it. Meanwhile, the psychologist knew what was important. He insisted that the team have North Carolina barbecue for lunch. Platters were rolled in and two days of tedious research were forgiven in a binge of chicken and ribs.
During the flight home, Babette slipped into the seat next to Dane.
“So, how do you like research?
“It’s creative,” Dane replied.
“We got paid, right? Listen, you were helpful and I appreciated it. The client liked you. So your time has
come. Creative, research…they’re sideshows. Now you can do something really big. Advertising, PR…I can’t tell you more, but just be ready.”
Case 3-E
GRANDMAS GONE WILD
17. OUR EXPERT ON VAGINAL DRYNESS
A few months later, Babette escorted a new client through the offices of Integrimedicom, introducing creatives at their desks like animals in their habitat. She stopped in Dane’s doorway and pointed at his wide stare and hunched shoulders.
“Dane Bacchus is our expert on vaginal dryness,” Babette announced with a stage whisper and a flourish of her gloved hand as if protecting his sacred concentration from her tawdry showmanship.
Raising his eyes from the monitor, Dane grimaced to improvise the character of Expert in Vaginal Dryness—a crabby man for whom a woman’s biological clock was no abstraction, but a cluster of disagreeable symptoms to which he was often exposed. He capped off his performance by smiling and waving at Babette and her guest, suggesting the hope of imminent relief.
Babette was too seasoned at handling clients to let such nuances be perceived. Dane’s hand flourish swept the empty space vacated by two grinning women.
Expert on Vaginal Dryness.
Dane muttered the epithet like it was a plaid sports jacket he was trying on from the clearance rack of an off-price department store. Expert on Vaginal Dryness had a ring to it if you forgot the meaning of the words. “Is this how you want your obit to read?” He asked himself. It struck him how often his obituary had become his point of reference.
Yet these were the best of times for Dane at Integrimedicom. After the trip to North Carolina, he was promoted to chief writer of DONARAL and Babette singled him out for creative projects. He had input in every initiative. But once the exhilaration of good treatment wore off, Dane was restless and uneasy again. He had been through the worst of Integrimedicom and now the best—and did not feel much different.
Expert on Vaginal Dryness.
Dane always wanted to be an expert—but not on menopause. He was squeamish about the condition, though exempt from it. In truth, Babette overrated him. He was no more an expert on atrophic vaginitis, mood swings, or hot flashes than a butcher was a biologist. His only skill was to arrange the words in novel combinations.
Besides, there was so much more to Dane than menopause. He could not be tethered to one ailment when a universe of sickness was his to explore. He had produced a staggering amount of original copy in recent weeks, on products treating an array of debilitating conditions.
The letter on his monitor, for instance, was about painful leg cramps due to intermittent claudication—poor circulation in the legs—mainly affecting aged people:
“Are you able to walk only a short distance before you feel painful cramping in your legs? Does this discomfort interfere with your active lifestyle? Now there is something you can do. Talk to your doctor about STRIDALL. To help you get started on STRIDALL we have attached a $10 coupon to help pay for your first prescription. And to thank you for taking this important first step, we have enclosed a pedometer and a walking diary so you can tell your doctor how far you walk each day. We congratulate you for taking this first BIG step toward getting back your active life.”
Dane’s bleary eyes dilated with demented pride. This letter to octogenarians about a drug that reduced leg cramps incorporated every direct-to-consumer element: insincere enthusiasm to contrast with the decrepitude of his audience; a reference to active life—ancient history for many of these patients; an exhortation to talk to their doctors; and a vapid expression of vacuous hope that they would walk again pain-free. To top it off, the walking diary and pedometer were tokens of appreciation his readers would never appreciate. Perfect. When he was done, Dane wondered if the piece would be opened and read or jettisoned. Would his readers use the pedometer and write their walking distances in their diaries? After all the art and irony, this was the most impact he could hope to make. Dane emailed the leg pain letter and dropped his head in his hands, to collect what thoughts were left inside.
Yes, this was success, yet fulfillment still eluded him. Under Nadine’s censure, the challenge had been to keep and endure his job. Now that the job was easy and pleasant, Dane wanted more.
The inarticulate public address interrupted his respite, announcing a meeting that would be equally inarticulate. Dane wondered why agencies had so many meetings since they rarely conveyed information effectively and distracted people from their work. Perhaps the key purpose of meetings was to keep individuals from being alone with their despair.
18. RAY BOB LIVE!
Babette Mamenger rang a cowbell and stood in the hallway shrieking, “Brain donors in the main conference room! Pizza!”
That morning Dane had discovered a gray blob on his desk with a cardboard certificate requesting a donation. The gray blob was a plastic brain. The certificate was an organ donor card asking Dane and all employees to donate their brains to Integrimedicom.
It was the agency’s introduction to Integrimedicom’s new president, Ray Bob Blassingame. Sid Gorfine had abruptly retired after his baby needs presentation caused permanent regression. There was another plausible reason for Sid’s departure. Integrimedicom recently lost 15% of its income when SPECTREX, an ADHD drug, fired the agency for unfocused advertising. Ray Bob Blassingame was installed in Sid’s place. Ray Bob had worked on the agency side, the client side and the regulatory side. He had all sides covered. At noon he had something special planned.
The new president of Integrimedicom stood at the head of the conference table. Ray Bob was a short, wiry man with a red nose and several strands of red hair in an extreme pull over. Steaming boxes were stacked in front of him like a leaning lectern of Pizza.
“Look you guys. I swear on this stack of pizzas that this agency will make our numbers. Our guys in London saw our numbers last year and frankly they got ill all over them. Not only were we off our growth projection of 15%; hell, we were down 15% from last year. In their view, that wasn’t tea and crumpets, dudes, it was more like reeking old stout. I said they weren’t seeing the big picture, how the industry was down 16% so we were ahead of the pack. That dog didn’t hunt; it didn’t even go bow-wow. “So you’re alpha dog in a pack of losers!” the London guys said. They made it clear the same lame excuse would never fly again.
“This year, top management expects 23% growth. That’s pie in the sky or pie in the face, depending on your perspective. But the bottom line reads as follows: I stuck my scrawny neck out there for you guys because in my gut, I know you can deliver the pizza. There, I said it. It’s out there. Pressure builds. You’re wondering, ‘How do we do this?’ First, I want you to look at the face in the mirror and instead of getting violently ill, ask yourself, ‘Am I doing what it takes to meet my commitments?’ Because at the end of the day, that’s all she wrote. Amateur hour is over. It’s prime time to be a professional or don’t let the door hit you on the way out. It’s time to take off the gloves and the training wheels and step up to the plate. Accountability is the new deal. Innovation and initiative are the coin of the realm. It’s time to put fun back into functional. Not a day goes by that I don’t ask the Lord why he didn’t make me a foot taller, so I’d be the biggest damn point guard in the NBA. And the best looking. Ha-Ha! It’s a tough world out there. I drove my Beamer in today and a dignified woman in a Mercedes gave me the finger!”
“That was me, Ray,” Nadine quipped. Everybody laughed.
“Oh, yeah? You’re fired…Nah, I love ya, Dina, just kidding. So this woman in a Mercedes gives me the finger and I roll down my window and say, ‘Honey, you shoulda bought a Beamer!’”
More laughter. The pizza was losing its heat; its sweet, greasy aroma was a faint memory. The creative department would join the ranks of blue collar, bust-ass wage slaves, eating cold pizza while they worked.
“You professionals don’t need to hear me blow smoke out of my—mouth. So listen up. Our client, American Pharmacon, has a product that keeps thi
s good ship lollypop rolling down the river…you know it well, DONARAL. Pure grade female donkey piss…but it works and it’s been working for fifty years…which is longer than I’ve been on God’s green earth. So they want something special from us. An anniversary. A birthday party. A 50th birthday for the best little menopause symptom relief medication that ever was. We’re part of history. Is that great or what? A fifty-year-old drug for fifty year old women…But I’m not writing copy. That’s your job. So my last words to you guys are,” Ray Bob paused, his chin upturned, his mouth half open, his fingers extended like two knives,” What the hell were those last words? Oh yeah! Wake up and smell the pizza!”
19. A CAMPAIGN OF HIS OWN
Ray Bob took two slices from the top box, slapped them on a paper plate and retreated through the closest door, leaving the agency “lunch and think” session to Babette.
This was a milieu in which Dane excelled. When it was an official brainstorm with an easel, a pad and a magic marker he was transformed into the eager fifth grader who raised his hand for every question.
More was needed here than a clever headline or tactic. The DONARAL client was seeking a massive promotional campaign which would incorporate public relations, medical and consumer advertising, targeting doctors and patients.
“What about a huge writing contest?” Dane asked rhetorically. “Women love to write. Language and visual processing happens throughout the female brain. Words and images work together in perfect metaphors.”
Dane paused to catch his breath. He noted that his female colleagues were intrigued by this characterization of their mental faculties.
“Women love expressing emotion,” he continued, “—and we know this product has made a strong emotional connection with women. So we promote a national essay contest. We ask women to describe how DONARAL has improved their lives and offer a luxurious grand prize. A week in Hawaii. A photo shoot with celebrities.”
“And a coffee table book,” Babette said, “With all the menopausal super stars!”
Ad Nomad Page 25