The Day of the Chicken
The agency I worked for had a chicken
account. Well, that’s actually an understatement. We had, as a client,
one of the largest fried chicken producers in the country.
The
CEO, Hans Wende, was a tough guy. He was an excellent businessman and
had grown the company from a couple of fast food take-out stores to a
large, international corporation. He was a man of definite ideas and
had a deep-seated I-don’t-know-what’s-right-but-I-know-what-I-like
philosophy. He was also a very “hands-on” top executive.
The
suit on the account was Ken Williams, a totally off the wall, wild and
crazy ad-guy, and he enjoyed the role immensely. For obvious reasons
though, he played this account straight. It was kind of funny, seeing
Ken file normal contact reports and fight with the art department to
keep the creative “down the middle.” We were all waiting for the
inevitable conflict between Hans, a man who took his business very
seriously and Ken, who didn’t really take anything seriously.
We were almost a year into the account, and we knew, as the great
advertising guru Pete Wolfe often said in his newsletter, Blood and
Guts, “As soon as you acquire a client, you begin to lose him. Your
goal is to prolong the process as much as possible.” We also knew that
it was impossible for Ken to play it straight for much longer. You
could almost see the transformation taking place. He was becoming
quiet, reserved, almost morose. He was becoming someone else.
There were a few instances when the old Ken would rise from the rapidly
growing pile of ashes. Like the time he had a print ad done for a small
family owned ladies clothing shop. The headline read, “Save One Million
Dollars this Weekend.” In very small type beneath it was the line,
“just buy 100,000 of our dresses.”
What became known in the
agency as “The Day of the Chicken,” was the day that Ken couldn’t
handle it any longer. The final ad proofs were going to Hans. They were
just for his files because he had already approved them and they had
been sent to the newspaper. They were promoting the Company’s new,
“Family Meal Box.”
After the ads had been picked up by the
courier, Ken and Scott, our artist, breathlessly summoned us all into
the boardroom. The ad mats, all three of them, were on the wall.
There was a major and immediately discernable difference between the
ads on the wall and the ones which had gone to the newspaper. The ads
on the wall, which were exact duplicates of the ones that had just been
sent to Hans had, emblazoned across the bottom in boldfaced type,
“Guaranteed No Beaks Or Claws.”
[BB]
There were mixed emotions around the room. Most of us were in stitches but the agency owner was not amused.
“Chrissake Williams” he screamed. “Are you trying to eighty-six this
whole agency? I mean, doesn’t a regular pay-cheque appeal to you
anymore?
His rant was interrupted by Sheila, our receptionist. “Hans is on the phone,” she said. Her face was scarlet.
“I’ll take it in my office,” Ken said calmly. “Hey, that’s a fast courier we have. We better keep him.”
We all listened outside Ken’s office. He didn’t seem to know or care
that a public firing was a probable event in his immediate future. The
walls were paper thin.
“Yeah, Hans. I know. I added that later.
Some of our research showed that people were really worried about
getting beaks and claws in their fried chicken. Hey man, we beat the
Colonel getting to this one. He’ll be copying our ads. You watch.”
When he decided to break it to Hans that it was all a joke, he had to
literally screech into the phone to be heard over the Germanic
expletives that were so loud in the earpiece we could hear them through
the walls.
We didn’t lose the account. Hans spanked us though.
He cancelled about fifty thou in media bookings and a bunch of creative
stuff we had already started working on. Then he let us back in.
But here’s the punch line. Two years later, the international Marketing
Director of Hans’s company was none other than . . .you guessed it . .
.Ken Williams.
Scott, the artist, and I were having a beer one night and reminiscing about the “Day of the Chicken.”
I vowed my undying love and respect for the man who had the kind of
cajones that would let him pull a gag like that. Scott had a look of
awe on his face. We hoisted our glasses to Ken.
Then Scott broke the reverent silence. “I bet Hans makes him wear the chicken suit at the football games.”
We had a few more laughs and a few more beers over that. By closing
time we were raising our glasses and yelling “Ken Williams . . .
Chicken Man.” We were still laughing as they ejected us from the bar.
Tags:
Family government Movie Food Art advertising air ad-man 
