The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

‘I may have something to show you by Monday,’ I tell them. I’m not exactly looking at George, but he knows where I’m aiming. ‘By the middle of next week for sure. I want to give Billy a chance to see what he can do.’ Billy Ederle is our newest hire, and doing his break-in time as my assistant. He doesn’t get an invite to the morning meetings yet, but I like him. Everybody at Andrews-Slattery likes him. He’s bright, he’s eager, and I bet he’ll start shaving in a year or two.

George considers this. ‘I was really hoping to see a treatment today. Even rough copy.’

Silence. People study their nails. It’s as close to a public rebuke as George ever gets, and maybe I deserve it. This hasn’t been my best week, and laying it off on the kid doesn’t look so good. It doesn’t feel so good, either.

‘Okay,’ George says at last, and you can feel the relief in the room. It’s like a light cool breath of breeze, there and then gone. No one wants to witness a conference-room caning on a sunny Friday morning, and I sure don’t want to get one. Too much other stuff on my mind.

George smells a rat, I think.

‘How’s Ellen doing?’ he asks.

‘Better,’ I tell him. ‘Thanks for asking.’

There are a few more presentations. Then it’s over. Thank God.

I’m almost dozing when Billy comes into my office twenty minutes later. Check that: I am dozing. I sit up fast, hoping the kid thinks he caught me deep in thought. He’s probably too excited to have noticed either way. In one hand he’s holding a piece of poster board. I think he’d look right at home in Podunk High School, putting up a big notice about the Friday-night dance.

‘How was the meeting?’ he asks.

‘It was okay.’

‘Did they bring us up?’

‘You know they did. What have you got for me, Billy?’

He takes a deep breath and turns his poster board around so I can see it. On the left is a prescription bottle of Viagra, either actual size or close enough not to matter. On the right – the power side of the ad, as anyone in advertising will tell you – is a prescription bottle of our stuff, but much bigger. Beneath is the cutline: PO-TENS, TEN TIMES MORE EFFECTIVE THAN VIAGRA!

As Billy looks at me looking at it, his hopeful smile starts to fade. ‘You don’t like it.’

‘It’s not a question of like or don’t like. In this business it never is. It’s a question of what works and what doesn’t. This doesn’t.’

Now he’s looking sulky. If George Slattery saw that look, he’d unload. I won’t, although it might feel that way to him because it’s my job to teach him. In spite of everything else on my mind, I’ll try to do that. Because I love this business. It gets very little respect, but I love it anyway. Also, I can hear Ellen say, you don’t let go, babe. Once you get your teeth in something, they stay there. Determination like that can be a little scary.

‘Sit down, Billy.’

He sits.

‘And wipe that pout off your puss. You look like a kid who just dropped his binky in the toilet.’

He does his best. Which I like about him. Kid’s a trier, and if he’s going to work in the Andrews-Slattery shop, he’d better be. Of course, he also has to be a doer.

‘Good news is I’m not taking it away from you, mostly because it’s not your fault Vonnell Pharmaceutical saddled us with a name that sounds like a multivitamin. But we’re going to make a silk purse out of this sow’s ear. In advertising, that’s the main job seven times out of every ten. Maybe eight. So pay attention.’

He gets a little grin. ‘Should I take notes?’

‘Don’t be a smartikins. First, when you’re shouting a drug, you never show a prescription bottle. The logo, sure. The pill itself, sometimes. It depends. You know why Pfizer shows the Viagra pill? Because it’s blue. Consumers like blue. The shape helps, too. Consumers have a very positive response to the shape of the Viagra tab. But people never like to see the prescription bottle their stuff comes in. Prescription bottles make them think of sickness. Got that?’

‘So maybe a little Viagra pill and a big Po-TENS pill? Instead of the bottles?’ He raises his hands, framing an invisible cutline. ‘“Po-TENS, ten times bigger, ten times better.” Get it?’

‘Yes, Billy, I get it. The FDA will get it, too, and they won’t like it. In fact, they could make us take ads with a cutline like that out of circulation, which would cost a bundle. Not to mention a very good client.’

‘Why?’ It’s almost a bleat.

‘Because it isn’t ten times bigger, and it isn’t ten times better. Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, Po-TENS, they all have about the same effectiveness when it comes to penis elevation. Do your research, kiddo. And a little refresher course in advertising law wouldn’t hurt. Want to say Blowhard’s Bran Muffins are ten times tastier than Bigmouth’s Bran Muffins? Have at it, taste is a subjective judgment. What gets your prick hard, though, and for how long …’

‘Okay,’ he says in a small voice.