“The first thing we do, we’ll give all the lawyers
wedgies.” I think Shakespeare said
that. Fie, and fo fum on the pencil-necked
lot of them. After having done the best
ad campaign in the category, EVER, Our client, the Lempke-McKray family of
funeral parlors and cemeteries was having second thoughts. All because of some (cough, spit) lawyer.
"So what, exactly, did the attorney say?” Carol, our day manager/senior art director
asked Arpil, whose familial connection to the McKray in Lempke-McKray was the
reason that Smug’s ad division had come out of hibernation to sell funeral
plots to millennials. April, if you
haven’t been reading this blog, was Smugglers’ Inn’s new seating hostess,
except she had been given a promotion to server for her role in landing the
restaurant its first genuine branding assignment in over a year.
“He said he was 50/50,” said April, twirling a ginger lock
around a manicured finger. “He wouldn’t
stop Uncle Jer from running the stuff you did, but he pointed out that there
was, like, risk.”
“Well, Uncle Jer has
a risk of me kicking his dimpled, entrepreneurial ass if he thinks that we did
all that for free.”
I put my hand on
Carol’s shoulder and led her away from the hostess’ lectern where the three of
us had congregated. There were only six
people having dinner at 5:45, but I thought it best we didn’t brawl in front of
them, early-dining cheapskates though they may be. Carol made one of those corny, “my eyes are
on you” gestures over her shoulder at April, who stuck out her tongue. Did I mention I work in a playground?
“She hates me,” said April, twirling a new lock . “I’m nice
to HER.”
“She’s just frustrated.
I think we all are. What can we
do to convince your uncle and this lawyer that he should just trust us and go
with this campaign?”
“My mom always called him her brother in law, the adding
machine. Uncle Jer always has a reason
for doing what he does. And the reason
is always money.”
“Then he should be
all over this. We have everything figured out, social media, SEO,
events, out of home advertising, targeted partnerships. I wouldn’t be surprised that this campaign
would increase their name recognition by 50-70% and traffic to the website by
several fold.”
“You mean, it would win an award.”
“Awards are nice.”
Before you criticize me for being just another ad man who places
winning some brass statuette or Lucite globule over the needs and wishes of his
client, let me tell you some things about this campaign. The first thing is, I didn’t do it. Well, I was the creative director. Which means I could attach my name to it, I
suppose—but the real authors were Scotty and Erin, our bartender and relief
seating hostess, respectively. If anyone
should be credited with “Like, go for it,” it would be those two.
Of course, I helped.
I started the brainstorming session by asking, “what’s the very opposite
of funerals and death?” This approach exploits
something called “cognitive dissonance” which happens when you have to consider
two mutually exclusive things at the
same time. I found it in a marketing
book. Well, an online course. OK, it was a YouTube video. The point is, I FOUND IT.
“Skydiving!” said Erin.
“Punching a cop!” said Scotty.
“Punching a meter maid!” said Erin.
“Punching a shark!”
“Punching the Little Mermaid! Or Santa.
Or that bitch, Mother Theresa!”
“She’s dead.”
“Punching dead Mother Theresa!”
“Go for it! Arrr!”
“Arrr!” said Erin.
“Arrrrrrrrr!” said all of us, pounding our faux pewter beer
steins on the Hofbrau’s faux Medieval banquet table.
And there you have it.
A first-round knockout that Mike Tyson would be proud of. “Go for it!”, when combined with the visual
of an absurdly dangerous activity, made you smile. When you kiss it off with the logo of Lempke-McKray
cemetaries and funeral services, the immediate reaction is instantaneous
giggling. Well, that would be a human
being’s reaction. A lawyer…
”April, where does this lawyer live? I mean, where’s his office?”
“I think his name is Steinholtz. It’s Stienholtz and another name. ”
“I’ll look it up in the yellow pages.”
“The…?”
“Nevermind. Before
your time.” I pulled out my iPhone and Googled
“Stienholtz lawyer, Minnesota and found
“Steinholtz and Schwantz, attorneys at
law. Workers compensation and
accident/injury a specialty.”
“An ambulance chaser!”
April had stopped twirling her hair and her expression was
something that might pass for concern.
“What are you going to do?”
There are time when people ask, “What are you going to do?”
and sincerely want you to tell them your intentions. This was not one of those times.
“Nothing,” I lied. “Nothing at all.”
