How I Got In Like Flynn.

Flynn.

The first time I was at Ogilvy, I rose probably further and faster than about 94.7-percent of everyone else in the creative department, or any other department. 

Many people disliked me because of that. Every time I'd round a corner or would enter a room where no one expected me to be, I'd hear someone say something about me kissing ass or being political. Usually accompanied by being called a hack.

It drained me of my energy. I made me angry. It upset me. 

Many purported-friends and colleagues would disparage me behind my back. Very few people take the time to say, 'he works really hard,' or 'he listens well' or 'he thinks about the problem' or 'he's just good.'

Chris Wall and Steve Hayden both had dealt with a lot of crap like this in their careers. I saved a single note below from Chris. It came to me after I shot a package of eleven IBM spots--five brand spots and six drtv spots--that were almost universally-acclaimed. And then I was moved into a smaller office adjacent to a spewing roof-top exhaust fan by a petty and jealous manager who had rip-the-wings-off-of-flies-authority to hurt people who were upsetting her status quo.

I called her the Nurse Ratched of the creative department. Every creative department has one.

I suppose in the wake of Steve Hayden's death and memorial, and various reminiscences of Chris along the way, I remembered a piece of creative I did--extemporaneously--in real time in front of the people I was presenting to. It was probably the best piece of creative I ever did.

My partner and I were presenting those eleven spots to very important muckety-mucks from IBM. Since the eleven spots were in-effect the work of two different disciplines--direct response advertising and brand advertising, which at the time were represented by two different agencies and two different bottom lines, the question came up from people bigger than I, 'how do you want to present these?' That is, in what order. Which agency so-to-speak will have the upper-hand?

I remembered the "brief" Matt Ross the head of the IBM account at Ogilvy had given me months before. He said (and I remember this verbatim) 'we already have one-hundred-percent mind-share. How do we drive our market-share?'

That's a damn good brief. 

It presented the problem. And left it to me to find answers.

With that in mind, I stood up to present to IBM, with Chris and Steve in the room.

I said something like, "Most people would start with the brand work. It's cooler. I'm starting with the direct work. We have to sell stuff." 

After that, I could have sold practically anything.

It was one of those too-rare moments when I could almost physically see all client-resistance evaporate. I could almost hear them saying, 'this guy gets us.'

I also got up before I presented and drew this. I hadn't rehearsed it, or even thought about it beforehand. Like I said, it was 'creative' that just came to me.

I said something like, 'we're showing you eleven spots. Five brand and six direct. But in totality the work works like this. 

The work builds your brand. The brand builds your sales.

No one said anything after I drew that. 

They looked at our spots. They laughed in appropriate places. And laughed some more. 

They signed the estimate.

Chris ended his note to me this way.

Even though this note was to me alone, there's an industry that could learn from it.

You can learn a lot from thirty-year-old memos.