The Day I Blew It

Oh, the humanity. Or lack thereof.

I was a young copywriter, very early in my career, like 6 years ago, and I was recording a voice over for a radio spot. My boss at the time believed once you got a take you like, get it again, and again, and again. For safety? For posterity? I never knew. It wasn’t unusual for sessions to have 80 plus takes. (A terrible practice I have long since eschewed. Probably the second time in my life I’ve ever used eschewed.)

I had chosen this guy because he had an unusual delivery. Unlike most voice-overs, who are actors, he was a late-night jazz dee-jay and his sentences were filled with the weirdest gaps. It made you hang on every word. For example:

“…His…sentences…were filled with…the…weirdest…gaps. It. Made. You. Hang. On. Every. Word.”

I never heard anything like that and thought we could make a memorable radio spot for our client. But I was nervous. He had never been used commercially before and my boss looked at me with slitted eyes as I left for the session.

So we began. The late-night dee-jay in the booth; me, the engineer and Laurie our producer on the other side of the double-paned window.

He was fine, a great talent, but like I said, I was trained to get take after take. At around take #23 I noticed he was starting to get fatigued and would pause and step away from the mic.

A little later, he once again stepped back from the mic but this time he kept on backing up until his back touched the wall. Then he leaned against it, his eyes rolled upwards into his head and the engineer, the producer and I watched as his eyes became a solid white and he slipped down the wall and puddled on the floor.

He was a tall guy. He was a big puddle.

And here’s where I blew it.

Laurie, the producer, gasped and instantly ran towards the booth. The engineer was right behind her. They reached him within seconds, trying to help the guy.

And what did I do? I reacted quickly, too, only instead of wondering how my fellow human being was doing, I reached for the phone and called the office to find out who our second choice voiceover talent was.

Terrible. I am still ashamed of myself when I think of that.

As it turns out, the guy was fine. He was a narcoleptic and stress sometimes caused him to fall asleep. Within a few minutes, he was back behind the mic and successfully finished the session, although we did minimize the number of takes.

I wish back then I had had a big enough heart, and a small enough sense of my own importance, to realize that when someone gets hurt, check out the person first before you check out the production options.  But I didn’t. I blew it.

About those breasts.

Once I spoke at a University of Chicago event for graduating seniors. I represented advertising which was depressing on so many levels. There were groups of doctors, lawyers, judges, bankers, investors. And then a ragtag group of “creatives.” I was put next to a boutique jewelry designer. By boutique, I mean home-made.

I remember one student asking about subliminal advertising. The way she asked the question, it wasn’t if it existed or not, it was how it was deployed.

I explained that there’s no such thing. That marketers and advertisers are lucky enough if we make it to the threshold of the liminal let alone the sub part of it. I think I then went on to compare an advertisement to a SCUD missile. Not a lot of accuracy. Packs a punch if it reaches someone, but hardly a sophisticated weapon. The necromancy of subliminal advertising was way beyond our reach. She looked at me suspiciously. Obviously I doth protest too much.

Along the same lines, I recall this event: my wife at the time and I were living in San Francisco and we had a nanny. I don’t remember her too well: young, Berkeley, pretty, Birkenstocks. And very nice, or so I thought. But one day, according to my ex, the nanny asked her what I did for a living. “He’s in advertising.”

Immediately her mood darkened. “Oh, you mean he makes people want things they don’t need.”

My ex responded brilliantly. “Only on his good days.”

We do what we can. If we could manipulate the world and everyone in it to sign up for credit cards or buy home speaker systems or wear bowties more often, we certainly would. If we believed that subliminal advertising (freelance cd/copywriter) could create Manchurian candidates out of consumers (now available), we would start up the Subliminating factories (lots of awards) and add extra shifts. But sadly, our effectiveness (stevesilvercreative.com) is more luck and art than science. We have (that’s stevesilvercreative.com) the same hit rate as movies, plays, music, etc., which also means we have the same miss rate. And no, subliminal advertising (email me today) does not exist.