The Will to Die

by Joe Pulizzi

  We pulled in the entry gate to what looked like a Coca-Cola Freestyle machine, except it was branded PopC. Instead of drink choices, there were two other options:

  Are you here to take the PopC experience tour?

  Are you here to visit a PopC employee?

  Robby selected the second option.

  Someone who sounded just a bit too happy welcomed us and asked us who we were there to see. “Hi, ... we’re with PT Marketing. We have a meeting with the PopC marketing team,” Robby said.

  After a five-second silence, a different woman, this one a bit more adult-sounding responded. “Yes, hello, Mr. Pollitt and Mr. Thompson. Just park in one of the visitor’s spots on the left and go to the front desk in the lobby.”

  Robby drove away from the gate. I asked, “Do you think there are two women working the phones or was the first one a recording?”

  “I don’t know,” Robby said as he turned left into the visitor parking area, “but I wouldn’t mind meeting the first one.”

  “Maybe it was the same person with a personality disorder.”

  “That’s perfect,” Robby said gliding into the parking spot. “Sounds like your next potential date. I’ll make it happen.”

  The PopC reception area was a collision of colors. Orange and pink walls, a grape floor and a lime-green ceiling. Plasma screens lined the entryway into the main reception area and repeatedly showed a young kid morphing into a PopC popsicle, then into a different kid, and back again. As we approached the front desk, each panel of the floor appeared to glow with a footprint aftereffect when we lifted our feet from one tile to the next. The whole experience was Willy Wonka meets Elon Musk. The music playing in the background sounded like gumdrops or maybe the theme music to the Candy Land board game.

  “Will Pollitt and Robby Thompson here to meet AJ Davis and Sarah Arnold,” I said, approaching the reception desk.

  The receptionist behind the desk looked thirty-five but was trying hard for twenty-five. The skirt was a little too short and the makeup a little too visible. She gazed up with a fake smile, “Yes. Take a seat, gentlemen. We’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and Robby and I turned around and headed for the seating area. I took the long way around on the right and Robby went around the couches to the left of the waiting area. We spent a few minutes trying to see how much of the floor we could light up at one time.

  I sat down in the chair farthest away from the receptionist’s desk, while Robby found the couch two feet away from one of the plasma panels. While the reception area was busy when we arrived, Robby and I were the last to remain after everyone else scampered to their nine-thirty meetings.

  Robby asked, “Fresh odds this morning?”

  “I think four-to-one. Maybe three-to-one. You?”

  “Three-to-one sounds right to me. Either way, we go to the mattresses on this.” In the wake of such an important meeting, Robby’s levity was not only refreshing but necessary.

  My phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and hesitated. “My sister. She never calls me.”

  “You need to take it?” Robby asked.

  “I’ll text her that I’m running into a meeting and will call her after. I can’t remember the last time she called me instead of texting.”

  “Maybe she butt-dialed you.”

  I sent the text to my sister, flipped the setting to vibrate, and slid the iPhone into my backpack.

  “Mr. Pollitt, Mr. Thompson, they’re ready to see you now.” The sound seemed to come from the receptionist’s area.

  We headed for the receptionist, where two visitor badges, one pink and one butterscotch in color, waited in her outstretched hands. She led us down a long hall, with cubes lining the left, to a conference room.

  The receptionist stepped aside and motioned for us to enter. As we did, two people stood up from their seats behind a large orange conference table. Formal handshakes and greetings ensued, and we sat down.

  “Thanks for coming in today. We apologize for running a bit late,” said AJ Davis. AJ looked to be in his early fifties. His bald head made him look like Mr. Clean. He was a day or two late with the whole-head shave, so you could clearly see his male-pattern baldness on display. The suit he wore was fitted, and his pocket square matched his shirt, which seemed odd since most executives matched the pocket square not with the shirt, but with the tie.

  Sarah Arnold sat next to Davis, nodding her head. She wore some sort of Hillary Clinton navy pantsuit and was clearly trying to look plainer than she was. I immediately thought she looked like an older Tina Fey, but not much older, and in dire need of a makeover. After a few seconds, I decided she was doing it on purpose.

  “Both Sarah and I were very impressed with your portfolio of clients, which is why you’re here. We’ve checked out a few of your client references, and you passed with flying colors. As you know, I’m the chief marketing officer and Sarah is vice-president of marketing. We will jointly be making the final decision on who the agency of record will be for PopC this year, and hopefully for many years to come. We have our calendars open until eleven for your presentation.”

  Sarah looked back and forth at Robby and me. “Do you need to plug in to the projector?”

  “Absolutely. Thanks,” I said, pulling out the laptop from my bag. As I turned on the computer and plugged in the cord that ran to the PopC projector, I froze and looked at Robby. I could tell immediately that Robby knew the look I was giving him, most recently right before I told him I was getting a divorce and another time before I got sick at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert.

  Robby immediately turned to the PopC executives. “AJ, Sarah, do you mind if we take a minute to confer about something before we begin the presentation?”

  AJ leaned back and nodded while Sarah blandly stated, “Sure, no problem.” Both immediately picked up their phones and started typing.

  Robby stood up, took me by the arm, and led me to the corner of the conference room, far enough away from the PopC team as not to be heard while whispering.

  “What’s up?” Robby said.

  “It’s the presentation. I can’t believe I’m just realizing that we’re going to present something so incredibly different than our competition, but in exactly the same way as them. What was I thinking doing a PowerPoint?”

  “Well, if we aren’t doing a PowerPoint, then what are we doing?”

  “I have an idea. Do you trust me?”

  Robby paused. “Well, of course I trust you, but ...” Robby paused again. “You realize how important this is for us.”

  Fact was, we needed this account. We’d lost a few accounts recently to New York firms, and getting PopC would start the healing process. But in the front of my mind was Jess’s tuition. Just getting my half of the up-front retainer from PopC would keep Jess at Penn State for at least another semester.

  Still huddled in the corner, I looked at Robby. “I say we ditch the PowerPoint. Let me go Knute Rockne.” Knute Rockne was our code for a solo motivational pitch.

  “Okay, man. I don’t know, but if you’re feeling the force that much. You be Jordan, and I’ll be Pippen.”

  At that, we headed back to the center of the conference table. Robby moved his chair off to the right, giving me some much-needed additional room, while I rolled my chair to my left, just beyond the table.

  I closed the laptop and placed it into my backpack. As I walked back over to the center of the conference table, Robby sat down. He was smiling, but I thought it was a nervous smile.

  Don’t screw this up. I remembered my eighth-grade basketball coach always saying that the best players in the world constantly keep the mental image that they are going to make the shot, not the negative. “Never say ‘don’t miss it,’ Will. You should visualize yourself making the shot before you take it. Saying ‘don’t miss it’ focuses your energy on missing the shot.” I quickly looked back at Robby. Don’t screw this up. You can’t afford to screw this up.

  There was
a small wrinkle between the third and fourth button of my shirt. I pressed down with my index finger over and over again, but the wrinkle stayed. I looked up at the PopC marketing team, now standing directly in front of them, and moved my hands down, my fingertips just grazing the table.

  “AJ, Sarah ...” I paused. “May I call you that?” Both nodded. “First of all, thank you for including us in this presentation round.” I looked at my watch. It read 9:55. I felt nauseous. I told myself this was normal, but it’s been happening more and more lately.

  “You’ve given us over an hour for this presentation, but we are going to give some of that valuable time back to you. We’ve decided to go a different direction with this meeting. Our presentation will take half that.” I could feel Robby staring through me, but I didn’t dare look over at him. The presentation would actually take fewer than twenty minutes, but I like to set specific expectations and do just a bit better. It generally creates a positive impression for the audience.

  “If our intelligence is correct, we are the last of the four agencies to present ... not including your incumbent agency, of course. If I had to guess, they each gave a dazzling presentation combining television advertising, point-of-purchase displays, social integration, influencer partnerships, and most likely some event sponsorship concepts, including the annual gamer convention in Vegas.” I shot a look at Robby. We’d been doing pitches together for years and when the odds were less than fifty percent for us getting the gig, we always started with our guess of what the client had already been pitched. If we were even half right, it generally left the impression that the other agency’s pitch was stale and obvious. And knowing the other agency owners in this case, we were probably dead-on. They lost their creative souls years ago.

  AJ was leaning back in his chair, smiling, with his hands joined together. Sarah was expressionless. I could only imagine how difficult a first date with her would be.

  “Now, if you were a big, consumer-facing company like a Proctor & Gamble or Coca-Cola, that would be a perfectly adequate strategy. It might even work to give you the three percent to five percent growth rate you’d be looking for. But the challenge is, you’re PopC. You are one of the fastest-growing and most innovative companies in the consumer space, let alone the beverage space. Single-digit growth next year would send your stock reeling, and you both would be fired.” A chief marketing officer lasts fewer than two years in the average company. Davis just celebrated his twentieth month with PopC. I knew he was thinking about his tenure and how long it would last. I wanted him to associate hiring the other agencies with getting fired.

  “Well, our job at PT Marketing is to make you look like rock stars. That your specific names will be mentioned in the next investor conference call because the executive suite will recognize the PopC marketing team, and the underlying strategy, as a key reason for PopC’s growth.”

  AJ was leaning forward. Sarah, on the other hand, hadn’t shifted in her seat once. But if I could read women—and I definitely could not—I was sensing that she was enjoying what she was hearing. Perhaps dreaming of the recognition she most likely never received at the male-dominated marketing department at P&G.

  That’s where most agency professionals got it wrong. Most believed that pitching the best idea would win the client over. While that obviously helped, the ideas, and the pitch itself, are secondary. What you want is to get beyond any rational thinking possible and hit them emotionally. Make it personal. In my many years as a marketing professional, clients rarely made rational decisions when picking an agency or a campaign ... it was something small, yet personal, that tugged at the heartstrings.

  I continued and turned toward Robby. “Could you pass me two of the reports we put together, please?”

  At that, he stood, handed me two stacks of paper, then proceeded to sit back down in his chair. I placed the reports just beyond AJ and Sarah’s grasp. I didn’t want them to look at the documents until we were finished.

  I took in a deep breath. Robby and I had put our hearts and souls into this. Regardless of my current mental state, I truly did believe this plan could and would transform PopC. I breathed out and tried not to focus on my churning stomach.

  “The report before you includes a three-year strategy and tactical plan that will make PopC the dominant, go-to resource for your Generation Z target audience. PopC today offers a wide range of beverages and popsicles. In order to grow at a clip like the Facebooks and Amazons of the world, PopC can’t just offer beverages. I’m sure you’ve been told as much by your CFO. Since this is the case, in anticipation of a growing and diversified product line, PopC cannot just interrupt its audience through advertising and influencer relationships. In other words, PopC needs to become the resource that delivers amazing and ongoing experiences to Gen Zers.”

  I cleared my throat, and then looked down at the documents. “In this brief, you’ll find a detailed analysis of how PopC will grow the largest audience base in the Gen Z space. And there’s more. We are confident that by the end of this three-year period, your marketing investment into this concept will not only break even in terms of expense-to-revenue but will also garner a direct profit from activities.” I paused. “You heard that correctly. Your marketing spend will actually make direct profit. Red Bull has done it. LEGO has done it. And PopC will do it as well.

  “Now, the how is the tricky part, but we’ve got that covered. Our analysts at PT Marketing have uncovered over twenty specific opportunities that no PopC competitor is currently considering. Note that I say ‘currently.’ Simply put, these opportunities are too good, and your competition is smart enough to figure them out at some point.” The analysts at PT Marketing consisted of just Robby and myself, but I failed to mention that.

  I looked over to Sarah. What was that look? Intrigue. She was anticipating more. I took one step back and gestured toward Robby. “Can you give the highlights of the plan?”

  Robby stood, went over to a dry-erase board on his right, and picked up the marker. He began to outline the plan. He wrote on the board: Movie, Daily News, PopC Event, Talent Agency, Music Label, Magazine, Blogs, and Social. I caught Sarah looking at Robby’s backside more than once. Maybe AJ was as well, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Robby said, “We’ve identified opportunities to purchase small media companies and celebrity influencer sites. We aren’t looking to partner with these organizations. Our goal is to actually purchase them and ultimately own the content brand and the audience database. PT Marketing has already done the research, of course, keeping PopC anonymous in this process, and we have the purchase price range for half of these opportunities and how the terms would work.”

  Robby and I went on disclosing the rest of the plan. I wrapped up, looking at both AJ and Sarah. “If you want to be like every other consumer beverage company, then do not go with PT Marketing. But if you want to completely revolutionize the beverage industry, like you’ve transformed your waiting area out there, the plan you have in front of you is the answer.”

  I paused, feeling light-headed. Everything in my being told me to stop the presentation and get out as fast as possible. I took a deep breath.

  Sarah asked a question about the process of purchasing an influencer site. While Robby was answering, I heard an incessant buzzing inside my backpack. I discreetly pulled out my phone and saw over twenty notifications, all of them from my sister. The first five were CALL ME ASAP. The sixth one made my heart skip a beat ... DAD DIED.

  Robby must have noticed something, probably wondering why I was looking at my phone during such an important meeting. I didn’t know what to say. I felt the blood draining from my extremities. My forehead was sweating. All I could do was lean over and show him the last text.

  Robby cleared his throat and turned toward AJ and Sarah. “Now, I’m sure you have many questions. The report will answer most of them. Unfortunately, Mr. Pollitt and I have to attend to an urgent matter and need to leave.” At that, both AJ and Sarah looked a bit perplexed bu
t didn’t question us.

  Robby and I shook hands with the PopC team, dropped our pink and butterscotch badges at the reception area, and headed out the door toward Robby’s car. I began opening the door and almost threw up whatever was left from yesterday’s drinks next to Robby’s tire.

  I stumbled into the passenger’s seat and Robby backed out of the PopC visitor’s spot. He was on I-90 heading west toward the office two minutes later. As per custom after a marketing pitch, Robby had turned on “I Want It All” from Queen. I could hear it, but it seemed far away as I gazed at the billboards out the window. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open.

  “You know, you rocked it in there,” Robby said. “I had my doubts, but I actually think the shortened presentation and then leaving the report with them added a sense of mystery. They probably have no idea what hit them.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Raspberry Beret” by Prince started to play. It seemed like a split second, and we were out in front of my apartment. Robby killed the motor.

  “Run inside and get your toiletries and a change of clothes. You’ll probably need a suit. I’ll wait here,” Robby said.

  “For what?” I said.

  “I’m taking you to Sandusky. Do you think I’m going to let you drive like this?”

  I paused, looking for the words to argue with him. Nothing came. Then I headed into the apartment and did exactly as he had told me. I came back to the car a few minutes later.

  “Where to?” Robby said.

  “Just head west on I-90. I’ll call Denise and get the exact location.”

  Chapter 3 – The Funeral Home