This is my first grade report card. Miss Albright was my teacher. She was hot. I had a big crush on her.

I am not showing you my grades. Even back then, book learning wasn’t my thing. I knew early on that a full ride at MIT was not in my future.

You can see, though, that I was a pretty good “citizen” of Miss Albright’s first grade class. Except for my inability to “think before talking”, which still haunts me today, I was a model student. I am particularly proud of the fact that I was able to use a tissue effectively and sit up straight. Straight A’s in sitting up straight.

What I remember most about my early days of public education was the fact that Miss Albright loved for “her possums” to ask questions. I like to ask questions. Even today, when anyone asks me if I have any more questions, I reply, “would you tell me who shot Kennedy?” I figure someone knows the answer, they just haven’t been asked the right question.

Here’s a thought for clients looking for partners. After the agency shows you their reel why not ask, “are the people who did that work still working here?”

Just askin’.

Bob and I did some pretty darned good advertising at Leo Burnett, long before anyone had ever heard the phrase “branded entertainment”.

One or both of us were entertaining the great unwashed with spots like “Northing But Net”, “Perfect Season”, and “Sign”. (See www.jimbobdallas.com). Big, famous commercials are what we did. Mostly for McDonald’s.

I can’t even begin to tell you how many McDonald’s spots our group produced over a five year period.  One year alone, we produced over 100 commercials. We sold pizza in a cup. Square pizza! Peppermint Shakes for Christmas. Pumpkin Pie. Shamrock shakes for St. Patty’s Day. A Steak Sandwich for “a new kinda cowboy”. All white meat chicken McNuggets. Double and Triple Cheeseburgers. Chicken McNuggets Shanghai. Even a sliced pineapple sandwich. The test kitchen never ran out of ideas.

The amount of work that went out to Oak Brook every Friday morning was mind boggling. Hundreds of storyboards, radio spots and print ads. The Creative Review Board, or CRB as we called them, could go on for hours. Thank goodness there was a McDonald’s on the third floor that delivered.

During the CRBs, it wasn’t uncommon for creatives to do magic tricks and juggle. Others played the guitar and sang. Once, an entire group dressed in NASCAR pit uniforms and acted out their boards. (Bob and I could neither sing nor juggle, so we just presented smart, good ideas and sat down.)

The only sanity to the insanity that was McDonald’s was our client Roy Bergold…a man who loved great advertising and expensive red wine. I once tried to get Roy into the Guiness Book of World’s Records as the man who approved more advertising than any man alive. Counting just the national ads, Roy had approved over 20,000 ads during his tenure as Head of Advertising. I worked for a year, but could never make it happen. Dang!

Back to the CRB, if you please. This is how it worked: The agency would present its work to a room full of McDonald’s marketing folks. It was usually SRO. Roy took notes.  Roy would ask for an agency recommendation. More notes. Then he would go around the room, starting with the Brand Manager, all the way up to the CMO, Paul Schrage, asking them the same question, “Thoughts?” Notes and more notes. They would all say what they liked or didn’t like about the campaign presented. It could be brutal. No holds barred. I saw many a creative reduced to tears during the meeting. Some vowed never to come back.

Roy NEVER looked up from the notes he was taking.

He’d ask the agency again for its recommendation. One last chance to fall on a sword, if you will.

Finally, Roy would look up and say the magic words, “This is what we’re going to do.”

Roy knew his brand and trusted his gut.

Decision made.

Meeting over!

Ferg Out

Yes, I am getting old. I double nickeled it last May.

My friend Lee Garfinkel told me that he’d read that “40 is the new 60″ in advertising. Somewhere, I’d heard that “50 was the new 30″. My friend Ed would probably like to tell you that “60 is the new 40″. But he can’t do that. He’s dead. When people ask me how I’m doing, I have been known to say, “I am above ground. And everyday above ground is a good day.” I mean it with every vein in my clogged arteries.

I have never been one to think about age or getting older. I know that creatively, Bob and I have never been better. It’s called experience. And there’s a bunch of it rattling around our little corner of the ad world here at Pearl & Main (Plug goes here). Call us and we’ll talk to you about our market-proven creative.

But a few minutes ago, I got hit right between the eyes with my walker and diaper.

I want to share it with you.

“ARE YOU TIRED OF SPAM?”, the headline read.

Tired of it! I hate the crap. I got to the point of not being able to choke it down when I was a kid. No matter how my mama dressed it, brown  sugar, pineapple slices, maple syrup, there was one thing for certain…Spam is not the best part of the ham. (Bob Shallcross’s mom used to chop it up and add Miracle Whip to make “ham spread” sandwich.) Bottom line…Spam sucks. Bigtime. Worse than fish sticks or chili mac perch.

Then, I realized the ad was from Yahoo and had to do with email.

55 is still 55. But I’ve never been better creatively, if I do say so myself.