If you want your target to remember something, threaten to punch them.

 I remember the time my parents said that I was now old enough to visit a public restroom all by myself. I was about 4, maybe 5, and we were in a family-style restaurant. I wended my way around a few tables, found the right door without getting lost, did my business like an ace, but when I went to wash my hands, I couldn't reach the handles, even on my tippy toes. Determined to exit the men's room a bigger boy than when I went in, I asked a stranger for some help. The man obliged. He turned the "H" then he turned the "C" but the result was much too hot. So I scolded him for ignoring the obvious: "Hey Mister, don't you know I only have little fingers!"

 To a little kid, the world is big and adults are big and big can be scary. If you want to meet a little kid's approval, this is something to keep in mind.

 On my sixth birthday, my grandparents happened to be taking a cruise and they arranged it for my parents, my sister and me to board with them, all so I could see the big ship on my special day. It was a big deal. And once on deck, we heard that the greatest heavyweight boxer of

all time, Rocky Marciano, was also on board.

"Hey Pop," Pop was my grandfather, "Who's Rocky Marcy Anno?"

My grandfather called me Butch. (I have no idea why my grandfather called me Butch, unless perhaps I reminded him of a masculine lesbian that he knew.) "Well, Butch, let me see if I can track him down so you can find out for yourself." Pop must have been thinking that this would make my birthday extra special.

My grandfather disappeared among the tall crowd and returned a few minutes later. He had found Rocky on the other side of the deck and Rocky said he'd come over to shake the little fella's hand just as soon as he tended to a few fans. This gave my grandfather a moment to set the stage.

 Pop bent down, placed a hand on my shoulder and softly gave me the highlights. Rocky was the greatest. Rocky may not have been very tall, but he was tough and he was all muscle. And in his day, Rocky could have beaten up any one in the world. Anyone.

Then, probably because my grandfather wanted to make certain I would never ever forget this moment, he leaned in a bit further and urged, "And whatever you do, look at his hands. His hands are amazing. Don't ever forget those hands." 

 Now my grandfather may have thought that his words created

a desire to meet the man, but in actuality they scared the crap out of me. I imagined those hands to be like cannonballs, weapons, deadly weapons. As it turned out, I saw the hands, alright–I couldn't take my eyes off of them. Rocky Marciano shook my tiny paw and I didn't know if I'd ever get it back. His hands were like those old baseball gloves, round and stubby, but they were round mitt-like pulverizers of stone. I never once looked at his face. 

It wasn't until years later, after shuffling through a messy drawer in my parent's house–you know the drawer, the one that every family seemed to have, the one in which all the yellow Kodak envelopes accumulated–well, in there, I found a photograph of me and Rocky Marciano. I didn't know such a photo existed. I didn't even remember posing for it. To such a moment, I could attach no face. But there he was. My mom jarred loose enough of the details for me to remember what my grandfather had said, so I figured that I had taken my eyes off Rocky Marciano's hands long enough to pose for this photograph, though I was obviously distracted. If you saw my face, you'd see a little boy who was more than a wee bit worried. I was not in the moment. I was not on that boat. I was somewhere else, in some scary place inside my head. And I looked as if I was about to cry.

My grandfather had given me a pitch, but he didn't really know his target. He didn't know what kind of drama I would spark to. So, despite Pop's good intentions, recall was low.

Oh the ads my relatives talk about around the barbecue.

 At every family gathering I will inevitably hear someone tell me, "You know what commercial I like?" or, "You know what commercial I hate?" If you're in advertising and you have relatives, you know what I'm talking about.

 

 Of course slight variations exist like, "You're in advertising? You know what commercial I absolutely love!" or, "You know what commercial I soooo hate? I hate that Empire carpet commercial–I hate that! That guy's voice is soooo weird!" You get the idea.

 One time–and I swear I'm not making this up–a few of them got into a conversation rating all the commercials of the past 10 years that have had talking or singing animals. I couldn't believe how many were recited and in what detail they were described. Predictably, a few adorable puppies were alluded to. Someone pointed out that the spot in which the dog tears through the house for, "Bacon, bacon, BACON!!! starts out funny but becomes annoying as the dog appears rabid. And, everyone gave a thumbs up to the Jeep commercial, the one where all the animals of the forest sing along to Andy Kim's 70's hit, "Rock Me Gently, Rock Me Slowly."  

 

 The best came from my aunt. She told me that she saw an Eclipse gum commercial which she dislikes so vehemently that, from now on, she will go back to chewing

only her Chowards, a violet scented gum that she's been digging out of her purse for as long as I can remember. I have a feeling she's 

not being entirely objective. It probably has less to do with the quality of the commercial, than the fact that her favorite nephew no longer works at the agency that has Eclipse gum. I love my aunt.

 

 My nephew loves the Apple commercials because the music is cool. He believes that it is the music that makes a commercial and doesn't understand why companies don't "get it" because it seems so simple to him.

 

 And my own father said, "You know what commercial I love? I love that Viagra commercial–you know, the one with the country band?"

 

 "Yes," I say, "I know it. You like the jingle?"

 

 He is unashamed. "What, you don't like that commercial? I love the way that guy sings, "I can't wait, I can't WAIT to get home."

 

 My dad does not understand why this commercial isn't my all-time favorite. So he would certainly not understand why I now suspect that I was adopted.

 

 But recently my niece widened the specs of the conversation. She asked me if I had ever seen the You Tube video for Ray Ban–it's almost a year old now–in which this rather cool guy, from points of varying difficulty, flips a pair of Wayfarers into the air to land perfectly on his friend's nose (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-prfAENSh2k). For my niece, this little product demo sticks to the conversation. As she saw it, we weren't talking about 30-second commercials on TV so much as were just talking about commercials, and about film. Film is magical and film can really make people feel something–regardless of the screen you view it on–and that is something you chit chat about around a barbecue.

 

 Anyway, sometimes I do wish that, after a long week, I didn't have to talk about work-related stuff, but I suppose it doesn't bother me enough to forgo a party or simply tune out. I guess way deep down, when they bring up the subject, it feels partly like a compliment–a backhanded compliment sometimes as in the case of the Viagra commercial, but nevertheless a compliment. Such is, I suppose, the glamour of film. Film is pretty cool.

"Mwa, mwa, mwa," we go.

Last week I went to the emergency room, visibly shivering, not quite with chattering teeth, but had I not been sick it would have been spastic. In the previous 9 hours I had visited the bathroom something like 587 times. 

"How are you feeling?" asked the nurse at reception.

"Freezing."

"You have a fever?"

I gave a small grunt to indicate, 'Yes.'

"Okay, let's see, " she says, as she pokes an instrument in my ear. Now I don't know why she is poking something in my ear–it's not my ear that hurts–but I don't have the energy to question her. Actually, the way that I feel, I would let her poke me with whatever she wants–she could poke my naval with a lead pipe and I would not squirm. But then she says, "102. Yes, you have a fever." So I guess it was an ear thermometer.

I shiver up and down to indicate that I heard her.

"Have you thrown up?"

I shiver from side to side to indicate, 'No.'

"Do you have diarrhea?"

I shiver from up to down.

"When did you first start having diarrhea?"

"11:00."

"And since then, about how many times have you gone to the bathroom?"

"22."

"22 times?"

I shiver from up to down.

"You counted?"

Because each visit was a memorable experience, I shiver from up to down.

"Thank you," she says.

I shiver from up to down.

"Very good," she says.

I shiver from side to side, because this is NOT good.

"Okay, let's get you to a room with its own bathroom."

I nod to indicate, 'Yes, that is a good idea because even though we are in a hospital, the idea of not making it to a bathroom in time to avoid soiling my adult self frightens me.'

I am escorted to my room, I take off my clothes and put on one of those gowns that tie in the back and I lie down. To keep me warm, I get myself under a thin faded cotton sheet instead of the 8 blankets that I am looking for. After 5 minutes the doctor walks in reading my chart.

"How are you feeling?"

I think, 'What, is he testing me? He has my chart.' But to be civil, I respond, "Freezing." 

"And I see you have diarrhea."

It was reassuring to know that my doctor could read. I shiver from up to down.

He asked a few more questions, but the point is, the dialogue, once again, showed off my eloquence. Then the doctor told me what the prognosis was–that, basically, it was a virus for which I could do very little except let run its course. He expounded on viruses, but I didn't hear much of what he was saying. I was disappointed. To be honest, once he told me that there wasn't a pill he could give me or a miracle he could perform, my mind turned inward. He gave me tips on how to stay hydrated–I remember hearing, "Gatorade" and "water" and thinking, 'Yeah right, doc, like you want me to give this unfriendly alien in my lower intestine something to drink only so it could spit the stuff out, are you kidding!' but mostly, he sounded like an adult in a Charlie Brown cartoon–"Mwa, mwa, mwa."

Looking back on it, I thought about all those people we try to talk to that are in pain, the target of a lot of pharmaceutical advertising. Pain is distracting. Pain is preoccupying. Pain is totally self-centered. And, Pain wears the hell out of us. How do you talk to someone with Pain?" You make one simple point at a time. And keep to short sentences. Even punchy fragments.

Stopping at a light and thinking about creative direction.

I was recently driving along and wondering what the subject of my next post would be, when I was reminded of an article I read a few years ago about how the brain develops. (I don't remember the exact article but I do know that it alluded to research by Dr. Harry T. Chugani, about whom there is lots of related information.)

It seems that our brains have these synapses, junctions between various transmitter cells along which all the information that goes toward stimulating ideas must pass. When we are infants, a new one is established with almost every new idea, but after awhile, we begin to run out of room and a way to organize a whole mess of them, so our brain gets very practical. It cuts down on the number of new pathways and develops the ones that get the most traffic. By the time we reach our early teens, our brains have half as many of these connections that we did when were three. Some of them have atrophied and withered away, while the other pathways become important to us.

These are the roads that receive the most traffic, the ones that develop and become most productive, where information stimulates a receptor, the receptor gets excited, and sparks fly – "Eureka! I have a great idea!" Shakespeare had a language superhighway; Beethoven a music

superhighway. Of course not all roads are superhighways. When information travels along the back roads, these neurotransmitter vehicles don't move as quickly, nor can those pathways carry the same load. But on the highways, well, the highways allow for the big 18-wheeler ideas.

For a creative director–for any manager, for that matter–the implications, I think, are pretty clear.

The only way to assume someone is working at full capacity is to make sure she is working on her four-lane highways. If we could direct a creative person down one of those highways, she would have a good chance at flourishing. On the other hand, what if we directed her according to our own tastes, the way we would do it, or according to the creative-award-style du jour? And wouldn't it be tragic if someone got fired without us knowing what that person was really good at or what would have really inspired her?

I've heard of (we've all heard of) creative directors that are like traffic cops. They give the red light to those ideas they dislike and the green light to those they approve. And that's the extent of it, which is to say that the creative director doesn't really direct much creative.

To be an effective creative director, one has to really know a person, know the person so well that you know what her extraordinary talent is and at what she is just so-so. You can't be a great creative director, or be relied upon to provide great creative direction on a regular basis, unless you do. Only then can the creative director apply the right tools of teaching, inspiring, bolstering and setting expectations.

Anyway, that's the gist of it. And off I drove, I believe it was down a two-lane thoroughfare. 

It's not 'New Yorker' readers Obama team should be worried about.

The Obama team was not happy with The New Yorker folks. And while I don't think this cover will do much harm to their campaign, and I do think that they should probably lighten up a bit, maybe they have a point.

Had it been inside the magazine, they probably wouldn't have had a problem. It would communicate with New Yorker readers who would get the joke, understand that it pokes fun at the suspicion that Obama may be a scary Muslim. It's an ongoing bit on The Daily Show.

 

But what if on the newsstand it catches the eye of some burly racist? In that half-second, the cover reinforces his prejudice. If you've ever sat in focus groups you know that there are a whole lot of literal people in the world and someone is going to say, "So Obama IS Muslim! That sum-bitch!"

 

Fortunately, its placement is not next to Guns and Ammo, where more burly racists would see it than next to The Atlantic Monthly. Even still, if you're on the Obama team and thinking that every single solitary vote counts, then you might get a little testy.

 

So I wonder about our responsibility to those outside a target audience. What about an ad for Grand Theft Auto that adults find disturbing? What if an ad is loved by the consumer, but stockholders detest it?

I suppose there are times when we should simply try to find another solution, however tempting it would be to go forward with something that we're almost certain would meet our primary objective. No doubt it would be a tough decision. Like, what if you're the illustrator and you're an Obama supporter? Do you pass on the opportunity to be on the cover of The New Yorker?

Communication from the grave.

Recently I saw a cartoon by Harry Bliss. A mother and daughter stand at a grave site–the daughter sadly holding the flowers, the mother looking at the ground before the headstone with her mouth agape in disbelief. A bony hand is reaching out from the dirt. The caption reads, "Oh, that's just great. Now you want to reach out to us!" Timing is absolutely everything.

The hack in the backseat.

 So I'm in this cab. On the front dashboard, the taxi license says the driver was Sikh.

 A few moments after I told him my destination, he started to speak some Middle Eastern language. I figured there must have been a little English strewn in there somewhere but had missed it. No matter. Cleverly, I pretended I hadn't heard him.

 

 After a few seconds, he started talking again. Damn, I thought. Not that I had anything against him, I just hate being in a conversation where I can discern only one in 10 words and have to nod as if I know exactly what he's talking about.

 

 "Excuse me?" I asked.

 

 He didn't respond.

 Then he started up again. I still had no idea what he was talking about.

 

 "Excuse me?" I said at a level he might actually hear.

 This time, he turned and looked in the direction of my utterance. And that's when I saw his phone. He was talking on the phone. He had Bluetooth technology. He wasn't talking to me.

 

 Oh.

 

 Reflecting on this moment, I thought it was kinda like the one-way conversation that some advertisers have with young people who've grown up with computers.