A Winter Dream

Chapter


Eleven


Today another dream was realized—just not the one I hoped for most.

Joseph Jacobson’s Diary





By noon almost everyone on the floor had left for lunch. I walked down to the cafeteria and got myself a chicken Caesar salad, which I ate alone, then went back to my cubicle.

At five minutes to one I grabbed a yellow pad and pen and walked over to Potts’s office. In addition to Kim, there were six other people gathered near his door. The group was evenly divided between men and women. I was the only one in a suit.

One of the men, short, thin, and narrow-hipped, with red hair and glasses, put out his hand. “I’m Timothy Ishmael. Welcome to Burnett.”

“You’re the one who got me the job,” I said.

Timothy nodded. “I’m the team manager. I met your brother, Simon, three years ago on a joint project for Sears. He’s a good man.”

I nodded agreeably though I was miles away from feeling it.

“He really hated to see you go,” he said.

“I’m sure he did,” I said, trying not to sound sarcastic.

He turned to the others. “This is Sade, Chloe and Kate.”

All of them smiled and said hello.

“And you’ve met Len . . .”

“Unfortunately,” Sade said.

“Watch it,” Leonard said.

An Asian man standing nearing the door said, “I’m Parker.”

“Hi.” I pointed at each of them. “Timothy, Sade, Chloe, Kate, Parker and Len.”

“That’s the team,” Timothy said.

Just then Potts’s voice came over Kim’s phone. “Send them in.”

“Yes, sir,” Kim said. She nodded at Timothy, who raised his eyebrows.

We walked in single file. A mix of chairs were pulled up around Potts’s desk in a tight half-circle. I thought Potts looked even crankier than he had earlier. I wondered if he ever smiled.

“You all meet Jacobson?” he asked after we had sat.

“Yes,” Timothy said.

“Good, then we’ll dispense with the introductions. I’m not happy, people.”

No surprise there, I thought.

“I spent an agonizing morning with Cecilia Banks listening to her rant about why our campaign concept for BankOne could be the definition of ‘phoning it in.’ We have until tomorrow noon to come up with something that blows their minds or, and I quote, ‘they’ll find someone else who will.’ ”

“What specifically did they not like about our concept?” Timothy asked.

“By ‘not like’ do you mean ‘thoroughly detest’?” Potts replied. “Let me read you the summary.” Potts lifted a paper from his desk. “Internal focus test results of the People Caring for People campaign. Here are a few representative comments: Are we advertising a bank or a nursing home? Haven’t I already heard that slogan a million times before? Did the chairman’s five-year-old son come up with that? Slogan could be the Wikipedia example for the word ‘generic.’ ”

Potts lowered the paper to look at us. “And my personal favorite, ‘This is the kind of advertising slogan that makes me want to gouge out my eyes with my BankOne ballpoint pen.’ ”

Leonard burst out laughing.

Potts glared at him and Leonard immediately stopped.

“I’m glad you find this amusing, Leonard. Because hearing this from our client was anything but amusing. We’re lucky they didn’t walk.” He looked over the group coolly. “This is the agency that created the Marlboro Man—I can’t believe Edward didn’t fire the bunch of us. We have until tomorrow noon to pull a hat trick and show BankOne something worthy of Leo Burnett. And you have until ten-thirty tomorrow morning to present it to me. Don’t let me down.”

“Did they give you any more specifics?” Timothy asked. “Other than we suck?”

“Original. Memorable. Colloquial. Appeals to the everyman—not just Dom Perignon drinkers.”

“We won’t let you down,” Timothy said.

“You already have. Don’t do it again. Wow me. Wow them.”

Timothy stood. “On it. Let’s go, team.”

In spite of Timothy’s contrived enthusiasm, gloom had fallen over the group. When we were out of earshot of Potts’s office, Sade said, “Tomorrow morning? Is he serious?”

“As a quadruple bypass,” Timothy said. He turned to Parker. “Call Mangia and order sandwiches and Red Bulls. This is going to be an all-nighter.”

“Can we have sushi?” Leonard asked.

“No. Everyone has ninety minutes to come up with something. We’ll meet in the conference room at three. Kate, have Kim book the room.”

She shook her head. “So much for my son’s first baseball game,” she said.

Leonard turned to me. “Hope you brought your game today, new guy.”

I guessed that he had already forgotten my name. “Joseph,” I said.

“Right.”

I went back to my cubicle and began my creative ritual, scribbling BankOne in ballpoint pen on a yellow notepad. I had never worked on a bank account, though a few years back I had written award-winning copy for a credit union in Thornton. There are few things less titillating than bank advertising, and the name of my award should have been the Less Boring Than the Rest Award.

Then I remembered my dream. You can bank on it. I ripped off the page and feverishly began roughing out my concept.

An hour later Parker came by my cubicle. “It’s time for our meeting,” he said. He sounded grim, more like he was on his way to an execution than a creative meeting. “I’ll show you the way.”

I grabbed my notepad and followed him to one of the smaller conference rooms—the one decorated with a gigantic box of Froot Loops from our Kelloggs account. Timothy was already inside sitting at the head of the table. He was talking to Kate and shaking his head. Leonard was the last to arrive. He was holding a bag of popcorn and a notepad.

“Shut the door,” Timothy said to Leonard.

“Can do, chief.” He kicked it shut with his foot.

Timothy took a deep breath. “All right, this is soft-clay phase, no such thing as a dumb idea, just dumb writers. Who wants to go first?”

Everyone looked at each other. Then Kate shrugged. “Don’t wait for me, Tim already shot me down.”

“Happens,” Timothy said. “Sade?”

“Okay. I’m still fleshing it out, so bear with me.” She stood. “We’re trying to sell credibility, right? So I went back to our original notes and started looking over the trends. BankOne has a larger amount of hospitals as clients than any other major bank. So what if we say, “Four out of five doctors choose BankOne . . .”

No one responded.

“Don’t everyone clap at once,” she said.

“Comments?” Timothy asked.

Parker shook his head. “No, everyone knows that doctors are horrible with money.”

“Overdone,” Chloe said.

“Sounds like a joke,” Leonard said.

“Take it easy,” Timothy said.

Sade sat down. “Fine. Let’s see what you’ve got, Lenny.”

Parker stood. “I’ll go. I’m with Sade on the credibility. I think she’s got the right question just the wrong answer. I say we bring on a celebrity spokesperson, someone people already trust about money, like Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey.”

“Are they available?” Timothy asked.

“No idea,” Parker said.

“Can we find out before ten-thirty tomorrow morning?”

Parker frowned. “We can try.”

“Could work,” Sade said.

“They’ll never do it,” Kate said. “They’re not going to tie their names to a specific financial institution. It will taint their credibility.”

“You never know,” Timothy said. “Bob Dole was a pitchman for American Express.”

“He also did that Viagra spot,” Kate said.

“I think Orman’s already linked up with a firm,” Sade said.

“Still leaves Ramsey,” Timothy said. ” Or that Howard guy. The one with the radio show. All right, that’s a possibility. Len, what have you got?”

Leonard stood. “All right, people, prepare to lose your socks.”

“Just read it,” Sade said.

“BankOne. One heckuva bank.”

Everyone looked at him dully.

“Are you freaking joking?” Parker said, tossing a crumpled paper at Leonard’s face.

Leonard dodged the paper, then said, “Think about it, morons. Behind its simplicity is brilliance.”

“Behind its simplicity is a simpleton,” Parker said.

“Wow. I think Lenny just called himself brilliant,” Chloe said.

“And you called my idea a joke?” Sade said. “Did you even try?”

Leonard turned red. “You people are whack. They wanted something colloquial. That’s the way normal people speak.”

“What do you know about normal people?” Kate said.

“All right, enough,” Timothy said. “Back off.” He looked at Leonard. “Is that all you got?”

Leonard sat down. “Yes.”

Timothy turned to me. “I know it’s your first day, but did you come up with anything?”

“I did,” I said, slowly standing. “Bank advertising is tough, because banks aren’t sexy. They’re not even cool. Personally, I don’t want to be sold my bank. I don’t even want to think about it. I just want it to be something I don’t have to think about. Something I can count on. Rock-solid.”

“We will rock you . . .” Leonard blurted out.

Everyone ignored him.

“Prudential’s already got the Rock of Gibralter,” Parker said.

“I’m not saying I want to use a rock,” I said. “I’m saying that people just want something solid—especially today. So what do people say when they want to express certainty?”

Everyone just looked at me.

“Bank on it,” I said.

Everyone was quiet a moment. Then Timothy said, “I like it.”

“Bank on it,” Kate said, nodding.

“How will that apply to the customer specifics that our research pulled?” Chloe asked. “Personal touch, solid assets, no hidden fees . . .”

“It fits with all of them,” I said. “We can cut right to whatever we’re selling with the new tagline. Low fees? At BankOne you can bank on it. Friendly service? You can bank on it.”

Sade smiled. “That works.”

“I had this other idea too,” I said. “We could use a word play on ‘BankOne’ and ‘one bank,’ like ‘Only one bank offers low fees and high service, BankOne. You can bank on it.’ ”

Now Timothy was nodding.

I continued. “I liked Parker’s idea of using celebrity credibility, but I don’t think it needs to be a financial celebrity, just someone who sounds authoritative. I’m thinking we could have Jason Robards voice our tag, the way CNN uses James Earl Jones.”

“Robards is a Chicagoan,” Chloe said.

“What do you think?” Timothy asked the group.

Everyone was quiet, then Parker said, “I love it. We’re commandeering an idiom. It’s like the McDonald’s ‘i’m loving it’ campaign.”

“It also has graphic capabilities,” I said. “We can pull the ‘bank on’ from the BankOne logo. So, whenever the logo is shown, the tagline is implied.”

“Awesome,” Kate said.

“Chloe? We still haven’t heard your idea.”

“I like this one better,” she said.

“Len?”

Leonard was still pouting over his rejection. “Where’d you get that idea?” he asked.

“Honestly,” I said, “I dreamt it.”

“Dream on,” Chloe said.

“That’s getting paid in your sleep,” Parker said.

“All right, Len, assuming that was a ‘yes,’ we’re unanimous. Bank on it. Let’s get to work. Chloe, Parker, get me some storyboards and radio scripts. Len and Kate, let’s get some preliminary art, in-house usage and style sheets. J.J. and I will put together print. We’ve got nineteen hours. Go, people.” Then he added in Potts’s low, gruff voice, “Wow me.”

After everyone but Timothy and I had filed out of the room, Timothy said, “Your brother was right.”

“About what?” I asked.

“He said you were good under pressure.”

“He would know,” I said. “The man’s a boiler.”