“Nobody Knows Who the Hell We Are!” (Sometimes You Gotta Sell the Client)

There are creatives in the industry today who are capable of doing advertising that doesn’t drive people nuts. They create really clever stuff. But it’s interesting that when we talk about creative we seem to always be discussing brands. What about the company behind these brands?

Companies don’t get a lot of attention because nobody thinks they need attention. It’s the product people care about, not somebody sitting behind their desk, looking at a distribution map.

Yet sometimes clients need branding more than the product. I learned this a number of years ago, working with a client fresh up from the United States. His name was Nick and he’d been in San Francisco, making quite a name for himself. Canada was a lateral move of sorts. There were a lot of lateral moves in the pharmaceutical industry back then. Nick’s real ambition was to run international operations. First he had to solve Canada’s problems, and they were more screwed up than he realized.

We were the agency of record at the time, and our first day in front of this guy wasn’t pleasant. He’d been through the sales numbers and his face bore the expression of a man on the verge of an aneurysm.

When we sat down in the boardroom, he put aside pleasantries, slamming his hands down on the boardroom table. “Nobody knows who the hell we are!” he yells, looking around at his own product managers. I’d like to say there was guilt written all over their faces, but they were pointing imaginary fingers at us. “Well?” he asks. “Is anybody going to say anything?”

The sales manager pipes up, complaining there’d been so much rotation, nobody could put a name to a face anymore. “Bulls**t,” Nick says. “You people are out there every day. I don’t care if they remember your name. I’m worried they don’t remember our name.”

That’s when our chief strategist, Tony, interjects with something about corporate objectives. We’d had brand objectives but nothing concerning corporate identity. “That’s a different strategy entirely, Nick,” he says, figuring he might as well get on a first name basis. Big mistake. Familiarity gets you as far as the wastebasket. Especially with a guy like Nick. His back was up higher than a dog sh**ting razor blades.

“Beat it,” he yells at us. “We’ll solve this ourselves.”

We start collecting our stuff, figuring we’d lost the account, when suddenly Tony turns to Nick and says, “It’s you.” Nick’s eyebrows go out like a windsock, but he looks intrigued. He nods for Tony to go on. “You said so yourself, Nick,” Tony says. “The company doesn’t have a face. You’re the face. That’s what we need to get across. You need to represent what this company stands for.”

Tony starts walking around the boardroom table, leaning on it, gathering up his confidence. “Here’s my thinking,” he says. “We create a bunch of ads with you talking. Maybe you’ve got a bone to pick. Maybe you’re not satisfied with industry standards. Show everybody you’re about to make changes.”

The whole boardroom knew Tony was making it up as he went along. Nobody gets that bug-eyed rattling off straight hyperbole. Next thing we know, he’s talking about tape recorders and photo shoots. “You wanna take my picture?” Nick asks, and Tony says, “Sure, we’ll take a whole roll while you’re talking. Then we’ll turn the transcripts into first-person testimonials.”

Nick looks around at his people. Nobody says anything. “Do it,” he says to us and Tony tells him he’ll bring in a tape recorder. “Screw the tape recorder,” Nick says. “Write the ads and I’ll tell you which ones sound like me.”

So we took pictures, recorded all the stuff he had to say about the industry, then drove back to the agency. We figured somewhere in his rants was the nut of a testimonial campaign.

To make a long story short, we did six ads, the first being: “Anyone who asks for a minute of your time can’t have much to say.” That really got the sales force going. Pharmaceutical reps are always begging for time with doctors. This turned everything around. Now they were saying “Give me at least ten minutes. Our latest research numbers just came in and they’re great.”

What really sent the industry into a spin was the second ad “If you’ve got a beef, call me. I can take it. I know a good M.D.” The M.D. was the medical director at the company. This was the first time a pharmaceutical manager was giving out their medical director’s number publicly. Using the word “beef” really did it. Doctors have beefs. They liked the idea of having a medical director they could call. What we didn’t plan on was all the response. The receptionist was going crazy trying to handle all the calls.

The funniest ad was Nick sending a message to doctors who enlisted their patients in the company’s latest trials. It simply said “Thanks for your patients.”

Putting a face to a company is never a bad idea. Personality counts, especially a personality that isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. I found out later Tony got his idea from Lee Iacocca. Iacocca had a big hit in the nineties with his famous line “If you can find a better car, buy it.” It was reprised later in 2005 with Chrysler’s “Employee Pricing Plus” (along with Snoop Dogg, no less).

When I was putting the ads together, I spent a lot of time going back over Scali, McCabe, Sloves’ work for Perdue Chickens. Having Frank Perdue as the company face, made that campaign. I’d like to think it was Ed McCabe’s idea (my hero). But I’m sure Tony was betting it was Martin Sloves, and the art director, Vos, was probably betting on Sam Scali.

Whoever it was, Frank Perdue sold a lot of chickens with his famous line, “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” The first year alone, sales leapt from $35 million to $80 million (that’s with an advertising budget of only $200,000). The advertising would go on for almost twenty years with Frank appearing in over 200 commercials. He even advertised his direct complaint line, telling people to “Say whatever you want, I can take it.”

Our campaign wasn’t nearly as long-lived, but I’m happy say Nick’s sales more than doubled the first year after launch. By the second year, sales had quadrupled. If you understand the pharmaceutical industry, those numbers made Perdue’s sales figures look like chicken feed.

You’ve got to be smart in this business, not just with the brands you sell but the companies behind those brands. Doing one without the other is a mistake, and I hope when people throw their ads up on LinkedIn and other social media, a few will show corporate branding. So far, I haven’t seen any. And that’s a shame. Maybe we’ve lost the characters like Frank Perdue and Nick.

I hope that’s not the case.

What do you think? Have we forgotten about corporate identity? Or are we simply short on personalities like Nick? Let me know at: rcormack@rogers.com

Robert Cormack is a freelance copywriter looking to build corporate identities. He is also a blogger, journalist, satirist and humorist. His first novel: “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available on line and at most major bookstores. Check out Skyhorse Press or Yucca Publishing for more details.