BETRAYALS
Advertising can be a vicious business, and all of this goes with the turf.
Everything you’ve heard about back stabs, betrayals, power plays, and corporate brutality in advertising is true. But unlike other businesses the stories from Advertising are indeed more colorful.
I couldn’t have gotten to the top without choosing sides in power plays and remaining silent as shit came down. However, for what it’s worth, I never fucked anybody over. But I simply didn’t have it in me. I guess this is a weakness, unless you work for UNICEF, I’m too tenderhearted.
And when there was going to be collateral damage I spoke up. It pissed the big, big guys off, but never enough to hurt me.
I was ‘political’ but in a good sense, meaning But I had a sixth sense about who to align myself. And I always brought my top people into these ‘folds’ so to speak. I watched agency C.E.O.’s, Chairman’s, Executive Creative Officer’s, Head Account guys, all fuck people left and right. And not blink twice.
More people have been fucked in advertising than in the entire tourist season in Patiya, Thailand. (The sex industry capital of the world).
It seemed like a necessity of the business. I’ll tell you something. I always wondered why I wasn’t a Richard Branson, David Geffen, and Jeffery Katzenberg. Now this is assuming I had their vision, drive, business acumen etc. But those guys must have something besides all that. And you know what I think it is? It’s the ability to fuck somebody and not blink an eye. Not a pang of guilt. Nothing. No ‘Oh my God how is that person going to make a living?’ or ‘They’re too old to find another job’. Nothing. Nada
The first of the back stabs I ever witnessed was when I was starting out. During what I referred to as the Camelot days. What happened shook my young eyes. One of the two top Creative Directors, let’s call him ‘The Chin’ at, Levine, Huntley, Schmidt & Beaver, left the agency for a much higher paying job in the Chicago. Leaving my boss in charge. Now The Chin was a fast-talking art director from Brooklyn. The Chin had a reputation for being a consummate bull shitter. If I can side track a moment there was one time when I was forced to work for The Chin. When I was showing him work, he made a suggestion. I said ‘that’s brilliant!’ The Chin looked deep into my eyes and paused. Time began to slow down. Because as I held his gaze an entire conversation took place without words. It went something like this: ‘I’m bullshitting you. Just like you’re bullshitting me. And you know that. And I know that you know that. And you know, that I know that you know that. But we have a blessed ‘Holy Bond’. A ‘Holy Bond’ blessed by Carmine, the patron saint of bull shitters’. Bless you my son, just watch where you step’.
Anyway when The Chin hit Chicago and started running the agency there, the top management sensed he’d say anything he thought they wanted to hear. And so did their clients. Now Advertising is known for being a very slick way of selling things. But the people in that club don’t to like to feel like they are being sold something. And what would fly in New York certainly didn’t fly in Chicago. Midwesterners can smell cowshit a mile away. And The Chin could sling it faster than a diner cook at a highway truck stop. So let’s just say that within 9 months he got his walking papers, or it was mutually agreed things weren’t ‘clicking’. That being the case, he wanted to come back to Levine. Well in the meantime, my boss quickly realized he didn’t need The Chin to run the agency or even to create great work. He simply began to work with another art director, albeit less seasoned. And the owner’s of the agency said to The Chin come back home, you’re bed is still warm. Except it wasn’t.
My boss no longer wanted to work with him, much less share power. So The Chin started to panic. And he had meeting after meeting with the agency owners and soon was given a bunch of accounts to work on. But The Chin being who he was wasn’t satisfied with that. He began to panic. So the dark side came out and he began to do everything possible to steal accounts from my boss his original partner. Mind you these two guys had been friends since their early 20’s. And worked together for over 12 years. They had single handedly built up Levine, created some of the most famous advertising of the last decade and had become famous in the Ad industry winning every award there was.
My boss was shocked. Finally a showdown occurred. The two partners met as old friends. The Chin swore upon the eyes of his children that he would never try to steal any more accounts. But apparently I guess he was ready to buy his kids a Seeing Eye dog. Cause within a day or two his unbridled lust for power and glory took over and he began to try and steal more accounts. I remember my boss saying to me ‘what can you do when a guy breaks a promise like that?’ I was never able to answer that question, little knowing that I myself would face it some 12 years later.
A lot of times back stabs led to agency people going bananas.
One time the agency I was working for merged with another big agency in a very, very profitable buyout. Before the merger creative who had given their lives to the merging agency were fired. One in particular had been an army ranger. The entire creative department lived in fear for two weeks, expecting him to show up with a M-16 and start shooting. However like so many before he simply withered into obscurity. Sadly enough he had been one of my teachers at the school of visual arts.
Now in terms of advertising, I did have all the vision, talent, drive, client skills etc. And I even fired 5 people.
It was awful, but I did it. I could have fired more but I always came up with excuses as why not to. ‘Give them another chance, they’ll do better etc.
Christ when my partner, boss and I took over an agency and turned it around there was this one guy who was bad mouthing my partner and I cause we had taken a piece of business he worked on and turned it around meaning we got the client to good work. Then this putz wanted the client back. He went to our boss and said so. Our boss said no way. Then this guy began to badmouth us.
My boss said ‘do him’. Yet we couldn’t. I guess in the world of big business we were pussies. His wife had just had a baby girl. And I had a baby girl so I could do it. Besides I figured he’s quit soon, and he did. But I could have fucked him good. And I didn’t.
The second time I witnessed betrayal was at Lowe & Partners.
The agency had merged with another famous agency, Scali McCabe and Sloaves. I remember seeing pictures of them that Richard Avedon took. As well as pictures of him with Andy Warhol, Twiggy and the Rolling Stones. The agency was that old. They had truly been in the heyday of advertising. The third partner was Marvin Sloaves, the account was the ‘hitter’. He was a really charming guy. An absolute expert at meeting with boards of shareholders charming the C.E.O. of Interpublic, the holding company.
When someone had to be fired they’d call Marvin in and he’d practically get a boner doing it. But worse was that
He was a maestro at stabbing the people in the back. And he came off as a grandfatherly, sweet, kind man. Basically he had whacked the other two founders of the agency and then single handedly moved into their place. Rumor had it; he did it through convincing them it was the board of directors of the agency that eventually fired them. All the while lying through his teeth, saying things like it’s not me it’s the board. ‘I’ll try and fight for you as best I can after all, we built this agency together’.
The thing was they, the two partners he fucked were the ones everyone knew. The agency was called by everyone in the business, Scali. Scali was Sam Scali, the son of an Italian immigrant who started out doing drawings for cereal boxes and made his way to the top of the advertising industry. Setting a new standard for art direction and the look and feel of ads. He was setting these standards in the late sixties. So he was considered a genius. The first partner, Ed McCabe was perhaps the greatest copywriter to ever live. He started out in the mailroom, had never finished high school and made his way to the top. He was a copywriting writing genius. But had people skills, akin to Dr. Mengeles. But I’ll go into Ed in another chapter. When Lowe merged with Scali, we got Marvin. Which was great for a long, long time. He worked great with my boss. Landing account after account, forming a sort of sensei/sempi relationship. Meaning older teacher, younger student relationship. Marvin was in his early sixties; my boss was in his forties. So during pitchers there was this grandfatherly man and this young ad creative genius. It worked like a charm. But Marvin had this very, very dark side. Advertising was his life, he had no children.
When he finally he reached the age of 65 (mandatory retirement), he wigged out. This was an Interpublic (the holding company) policy. Even the C.E.O. of Interpublic retired at 65.
Yet this Marvin refused to leave. I don’t what he said, but he got my own boss to go to the board of Interpublic and arranged for him to retire at 67 setting a new precedent.
But Marvin wasn’t happy. And when the two years passed and it was time to say goodbye. The really dark side came out. He became reptilicus. His eyes became viperous. He still stayed on and even though he was a millionaire, many times over, with a house in upper Westchester worth millions and a famous house in Santa Fee, with a collection of Native American art reported to be worth many, many million, much less his retirement package, millions again. But Marvin wasn’t satisfied. It was the ‘game’ that he loved.
So Marvin made his move.
He had brought the Mercedes Benz account to the agency during the merger. A year or so before his mandatory goodbye he had begun to sway the client into leaving the agency. Placing hints like the Chief Creative Officer, wasn’t interested in the client but only in his own career. Unfortunately for my boss, he fucked up one day. But it was nothing he hadn’t done dozens of times before. In as much as he was a shameless self-promoter. Constantly taking credit for work people did for him. Telling the press certain campaigns and even commercials were his idea. And in this particular instance it bit him in the ass big time. Thanks to Marvin. My boss spoke to the press without talking to the client first. This was the opportunity Marvin had been waiting for. He saw it as the snowball to start rolling into an avalanche. But to successfully complete this coup, he needed the creative team that had catapulted Mercedes into new positioning, record sales much less awards. Again he began to secretly ‘work’ this team. Playing upon their egos and constantly pointing out how they never got the press they so deserved; he was able to turn them against my boss and subsequently against the agency. This was quite an accomplishment because they loved my boss and perhaps more importantly had been with the agency for over 15 years. They often said they would work nowhere else.
Then one day, out of the blue or so it seemed, they quit taking the account with them. The Marvin helped them park the account at a smaller agency of little record. The repercussions were overwhelming. Worse yet, my boss was implicated in not managing the account properly, which was simply not true.
It places a seed of discord within the Interpublic Board Of Directors.
Once every thing was in place, his work done, Marvin retired from the business altogether and moved to Italy where he still resides. A career of back stabber, completed with the Trifecta of Back Stabber.
After this passed another back stab of great record occurred. Once again, unfortunately, to my boss.
My boss hadn’t had a creative partner to work with for many, many years. Being a copywriter by trade he needed an art director. So after much looking he hired and art directory of great notoriety. The guy had started an agency famous for it’s beautiful, intelligent, elegant work and it’s courage to stand up to clients to the point where they fired the agency. The guy was incredibly thin and tall. We’ll call him ‘String Bean’. So my boss went and hired String Bean. But being an extremely politically savvy himself, my boss slipped for the first time in his career, he made the mistake of a lifetime. He didn’t do his due diligence on String Bean. Apparently String Bean was a bit of a back stabber himself. But again, my boss just listened to the executive recruiter and hired him. Something he never did. Perhaps he was still reeling from the Mercedes Benz betrayal. I don’t know.
So his String Bean now /co Executive Creator came on board.
As a manager String Bean was great. His style of gentle support to creatives who worked underneath him was just like my bosses.
But from as a creative team my boss and String Bean simply didn’t do well. The work they created was mediocre at best. And bad at the worst.
This lack of creative success began to take its toll on the agency. A few accounts were lost and the holding agency Interpublic became a bit nervous. The agency owner, Long Shanks, as we called him, was notorious for back stabber. He decided to ace my boss out and have String Bean take over the agency. He loved to play chess with people. It was truly psychotic. But again, I’ll go into that later. When things started to go south for the agency after the loss of some gigantic accounts, Long Shanks conspired with the String Bean to ace my boss out. Naturally no successful betrayal is complete without a close low-level mole. One was found in the boss’s personal assistant who he had promoted to creative manager, by my boss. But String Bean had slowly developed a relationship with the creative manager over many months. I’m talking about platonic and professional, nothing more. Finally I think String Bean saw his opportunity and turned her against my boss. Perhaps she saw the writing on the wall, she just had a kid and needed the job security. So it went down like this: Interpublic the holding company for our agency requested its yearly state of the union meeting. The mole (creative manager) told the String Bean about it first and arranged for him to go to the meeting about a week before my boss. String Bean not only showed year-end numbers (gains and losses) but also gave an inspiring speech concerning ‘New Directions For The Agency In An Ever Changing Industry’ or some horseshit like that. He paraphrased from everyone from Abe Lincoln to JFK. The board at Interpublic creamed in their jeans. Dreaming of billions, not millions of dollars in profits for the coming year.
The next day my boss was told about an immediate ‘up and coming’ meeting with Interpublic. He was given no lead-time because ‘they only want to see year end numbers’ or so the creative manager told him.
Two days later he went into the meeting and gave a dry presentation of year-end numbers. When he finished one of the board members said ‘is that it?’ My boss replied ‘Yes… were you expecting something else?’ “Not at all” replied the board member exchanging looks with those around him.
My boss left with the sense that he had just become the Lee Harvey Oswald at the Kennedy assignation. The rest is history. Not good history. But history indeed.
After everything he had done for the agency, all the years he put in, all the thousands of hours, all the damage that had occurred to his family, he was summilarily fired. With a 3 month non-compete clause in his contract. String Bean was promoted and that was that. The only saving grace perhaps that String Bean was way over his head in running an agency of that size. The agency soon began to decline and eventually like all things in advertising, String Bean himself was whacked and replaced.
