Dave Trott’s Blog

Gordon Smith used to work in the studio at CDP.

One day the studio head gave him a piece of artwork for a finished ad.

The artwork was ripped in half, and the studio head asked him to repair it.

Gordon said, “What happened to it.”

The studio head said, “Frank just sold it.”

Apparently, what had happened was that Frank Lowe , then a young account man, had presented the finished ad to a junior client.

The junior client made the most of the opportunity.

He stroked his chin, narrowed his eyes and said, “I don’t think it’s quite there yet.”

Frank said, “This is the ad I agreed with your board to do, and we already have the space booked.”

The client said, “Yes, but I’d like to see a couple of changes.”

Frank turned the ad over, ripped it in half and threw it in the corner.

The client screamed, “What are you doing?”

Frank said, “Well you said you didn’t want to run that ad. Perhaps you can tell me what you do want to do.”

The client said, “I didn’t mean that.”

Frank said, “Of course, starting all over again means we’ll miss the copy date that’s already paid for.”

The client said, “Hang on, you’ve misunderstood what I meant.”

Frank said, “And the board will want to know why you’re not running the ad they asked me to do.”

The client began picking up the two halves of the ad.

“Look, isn’t there some way we can salvage this ad and still make the copy date?” he said.

“I thought you didn’t like it.” Said Frank said.

“No, no, I want to run it exactly as it is. Can you help me, please?” said the client.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Said Frank.

Which is why Gordon had to put the ad back together because Frank had just sold it.

Now that’s an account man.

My first encounter with a planner was at BMP in the seventies.
I’d just come back from New York, and they didn’t have planners there.
Over there the creatives had to do the thinking for themselves.
So I’d never met a planner before.
The first one I met (like every single planner I’ve ever met since) had a university degree.
He also had a beard.
And glasses, roll neck jumper, corduroy trousers, and Earth Shoes (the seventies version of Birkenstocks).
In fact the whole university, intellectual look at that time.
Anyway, we were working on Pepsi.
The target market was 13 year old kids, and they were trying to find out more about them.
So I sat behind a two-way mirror and watched this guy run the group.
They were a scruffy little bunch of 13 year olds from Poplar.
The planner pointed to a large board with the names of lots of TV shows on it.
He said to the kids, “Now, do you watch any of these shows on television?”
One little kid said, “Yeah, we watch all them. Except Star Trek, UFO, and Thunderbirds. We don’t watch them.”
All the other little kids agreed.
The planner stopped and said, “Would you repeat that?”
The little kid said, “Yeah, we watch all them, except Star Trek, UFO, and Thunderbirds. We don’t watch them.”
The planner looked towards the mirror, which he knew we were behind, and raised an eyebrow.
He turned back to the group of kids.
He said, “So, does this mean that speculation about some vague technological future has no place in your everyday lives?”

The little kid said, “No, they ain’t on no more.