April 13, 2018

Half Of Fame Remarks                                                              

Thank you so much, Shelly… you have always been my best angel… and I mean that in a very real and legally-binding way.  And thank you AAF nominating committee and all those wonderful people who sent you letters saying I was worthy of this signal honor – Shelly, of course, my old friend, John Sculley; my ad god, Lee Clow; the most honorable man in advertising, Rick Boyko; the slightly less honorable but brilliant David Lubars; Hal Riney’s favorite account guy, Jack Rooney; world’s best ever client and consigliere, Abby Kohnstamm; Ron Young of ShoCaseand, finally, the friend I miss most tonight and always, Chris Wall.

I first heard about advertising as a career path from Jack Paar back in about 1960.  Just the second host of the Tonight Show after Steve Allen, Jack liked to tell a story about archaeologists finding footprints Pompeii preserved forever in time by the volcanic ash that blanketed the city. Most were unremarkable – just sandals, ranging from Sketchers to Birkenstocks.  

But they found some female sandal prints that were different – they left a unique mark in the dust of a Greek symbol that meant, “Follow me”.  

This, according to Jack, was definitive proof that advertising, was, in fact, the second oldest profession.  

That story has to be true. Nothing happens until somebody sells something.  What good is it to be the first Neanderthal to figure out the best way to treat blunt force trauma if nobody knows about your medical practice?  

Yes, it’s an ego-driven business.  But it’s also a team-driven business.  Every golden period in my life involved working with other people who filled in for my weaknesses – Lee Clow, Brent Thomas, Penny Kapousouz, MT Rainey, Richard O’Neill at Chiat/Day.  Phil Dusenberry, Allen Rosenshine, Chris Wall and Susan Westre at BBDO, and, with Chris and Susan, two more decades at Ogilvy.  The best times were all about “insurmountable opportunities”, making ridiculous ideas work and somehow making a difference.

So thank you Ogilvy & Mather, thank you BBDO, thank you Chiat/Day, thank you Speer, Young & Hollander where I learned about chemical toilets and Space Shuttle adhesives, and thank you, Shelly, for continuing to think of me whenever an assignment comes along that’s just too weird for an agency to handle.    

I’d like to give a shout out to my family, who traveled all the way from LA to be here tonight – my big brother, David, who, thanks to years in China helped with the 1984 dictator speech, and his lovely wife, Phuong T Pham – married on the air strip on Ton Son Nut Airbase as the last choppers were leaving Saigon – my lovely and wildly talented stepdaughter, Vanessa Taylor, who just won the Best Picture Osacar for her writing on Shape of Water. She got her brains and talent from her mother, Anne, but, I like to think, some “key moment” coaching from me.  And thank you to Kristy, who not only handles all the business of our lives but does her best to make sure that suppressed ego everyone seems to like in me stays suppressed.  

I owe a shout out to my long time assistant at Ogilvy, Emily Elyshevitz, who’s had more job descriptions than Jared Kushner.  And a special thank you to Ron Young, founder of ShoCase.com – the digital answer for “how do I put my book together and get it to people who can hire me?”

And thank you to a hundred others I can’t name because they’re going to turn the music up.  I will thank you in person down there – but don’t expect me to chase you around the room.  This cane is not a prop.  

I’ve heard several idiotic things in my career.  The first one was from an account guy at Tracy-Locke who said, “When it’s great there’s no debate.”  So let me tell you about the first time the 1984 commercial was presented to Apple’s board of directors.  I wasn’t there, but I got the playback from Mike Murray, head of marcom for Macintosh, who was in the room. 

Now keep in mind that back in 1983 Apple was still very much a startup.  So they had a startup board – which means a group of very rich, very white, very conservative gentlemen the banks would trust.  So Mike turns off the lights so everyone can focus on the 27” Sony in front of the board table, cranks up the volume and plays the 1984 spot. As it ends, with Ed Grover’s stentorian voice over, Mike hears various sighs and someone clearing their throat. He turns the lights back up, and the entire board has their heads in their hands or down on the table.

The chairman, Mike Markula, finally looks up and says, “Can I get a motion to fire the agency?”

“If it’s great, there’s no debate?”  Actually, doing something with that watershed year, 1984, did seem like a no-brainer. Here we had a generation that grew up with that book and read it in high school.  Surely somebody would beat our January 24 airdate on New Year’s Eve – AT&T or Ford or even IBM. 

Now I want to tell you the second most idiotic thing I ever heard in my career.  This one comes from Ed Zander, newly-anointed CEO of Motorola, fresh from an unsuccessful engagement at Sun Microsystems.  His CMO had a brilliant idea in 2003 to do a co-branding effort with his hero, Steve Jobs – create a Motorola phone that would play iTunes.  I strongly recommended they not contact Apple, not share any technical data with Apple, because it was clear Apple would eventually make a phone.  I love Apple.  But I told the client, “You will go into the room with ten fingers, and by the time you shake hands, you’ll be lucky to have one.”

Ed Zander scoffed and my concerns and sneered, “What does Steve Jobs know about making cel phones?” 

Hello Moto???

Goodbye Moto.  

Since I started with a hooker joke, I might as well end with one… I remember a sign that used to hang in my current writing partner and forever friend CJ Maupin’s office at Apple. It was a quote about writing from the great French playwright, Moliere – “Writing is like prostitution.  First you do it for love.  Then you do it for a few friends.  And, finally, you do it for money.” 

Thanks for all the love, the good friends… and the money.  

Thanks to you all, and God bless…. And, Kristy, you get the last mention… Happy Birthday!  And thank you! ”