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Paul Greenberg (alum/NYC ‘84-’99), and his partner Gary Damiano were joined in Civil Union at their home in Guilford, Connecticut on Dec. 17th, 2005.
Paul is interested in knowing if he is the first CD alum to enter into a gov’t recognized domestic partnership.
I was just reading an item on the blog of Guy Kawasaki, one of the original employees of Apple Computer. He's reviewing a book about dealing with assholes, and one of the anecdotes he recalls from his own professional life involves a certain ad agency that sounds suspiciously like Chiat/Day:
Funny thing about assholes: Standing up to them shouldn’t necessarily scare you. While I was an Apple employee, I was in a meeting with a highly placed Apple exec and Apple’s ad agency. The ad agency person showed the new television spots and said he’d give a copy to the Apple exec and me. The Apple exec told the agency person not to give one to me. I spoke up: “Are you saying you don’t trust me?” The Apple exec answered: “Yes.” To which I replied, “That’s okay because I don’t trust you either.” You know what? The sun rose the next day, and my family still loved me.
This is one of my favorite reference sites on the Internet. It's a traditional thesaurus, jazzed up with a very compelling interface.
An invitation from Jackie End to see her new jewelry collection.
See the large version of the invitation by clicking here.
Introducing a new jayday feature, in which I ask an alum who is still very much in the business to tell us what books we should all be reading.
Here's our first contribution, from former C/D senior account planner, Ted Nelson, who now runs his own strategic branding company called Mechanica.
Positioning - The Battle for Your Mind
-- Trout and Ries' seminal book on positioning.
Chaos: Making a New Science
by James Gleick -- a book about the science of Chaos Theory, that really struck me as incredibly relevant to the modern day consumer marketing context.
Plenitude (culture by commotion)
Jon Hartman, who is now living in Minneapolis.
Kaz Endo. "I interned from 88-90 (LA) - I learned so much!"
Brian Belefant. "Worked in LA from '86 to '89."
Craig Martin. "I was at C/D SF from 1983-1985 and worked in Media (for Dave Yoder and Camille Johnson) and Account Management (for Fred)." Craig is now working in executive development.
Kristie Shields. "I was in the class of 1991-1994 (sometime in there). I now live in Seattle and am a freelance Media Director. I was at a party and saw John Kerr was and he told me about this site. While at C/D, I worked in the warehouse and then in the binoculars with Lily katz and Mike Rose in the media department. I loved those days and I think fondly of the Charles Chips guy who used to bring big barrels of pretzels and drinking alot on the job - but that is a whole other story!"
Cheryl Doose (Hotra). "I worked at the Venice (LA) office from 1995-1999. Chiat/Day was quite the matchmaking agency from what I have heard. I married Todd Hotra who also worked at the Venice office during the Jay years."
Bill Delaney. "I worked in the Chiat-Day SF office from 1981 - 1984. I managed the Paris, France office of Regis McKenna Inc. when Jay acquired Regis' agency." (More on Bill later as soon as he sends me a digital photo.)
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The alums are coming out of the woodwork here at JayDay Central. This time it's Robert Chandler!
I was a copywriter and co-group head in the L.A. office from '77 to '81.I was partnered first with Bob Dion, whom I had known back in my Interpublic days when he was a bigshot CD serving down in South America for part of his tenure. Main client with Bob was Pioneer Electronics, National Semiconductor, and Suntory.
Then I was partnered with Yvonne Smith. She and I have stayed friends to this day. We worked on Mitsubishi electronics, Midori, Allstate Savings, and a buncha others stuff.
In the mid 80s we worked together on Apple at BBDO/LA, Steve Hayden having recruited us. (Steve and I were good friends at Chiat, both starting there about the same time.) First thing we did, though, was pitch Northrop. Which we won, and I stayed on to run, eventually becoming CD on Apple.
Jay had hired me directly, originally on a retainer basis because I had been on my own for several years when he and I met. Mal Sharpe, (the droll radio real-people-interview-commercials guy) referred me to Jay in '77 when Jay was looking for someone to do movie campaigns.
Ray Stark had approached Chiat to do some cmpgns for him. Which project Jay immediately accepted. Then asked, who the hell do we know who knows how to do movie ads? That, it turned out, was me.
Later, when I was on staff, Jay would always come to me with all the oddball things like political campaigns. And movies, of course, including the ridiculous, but thanks to us very successful, The Blue Lagoon. Of Brooke Shields almost naked but it was somebody else fame.
Anyway, there are a lot more adventures to tell, naturally. But, I'm going to skip forward to many years later.
I have my own agency (www.robertchandler.com) which has been medium size sometimes and small at others, but we've always accepted subcontracts from our large agency brethren.
In early 2002, because I had so much tech in my b.g. (Apple, Microsoft, IBM, etc) Lee brought me in to head up the Cisco pitch for him and also do some self-promotion work for the agency. (My outsider-insider status being useful for perspective on such tasks.)
I had last seen Jay the previous December when a tribute dinner was thrown for him by Lee at a gallery--I believe LA Louver-- in Venice.
All his friends knew Jay was ill and I was afraid this would be the last time my wife, Wendi, and I would see him.And so, as circumstances (and to me, fate) would have it, when Jay died in April, I was in the L.A. office in the midst of a four-month project.
Because I was one of the few in the office from the old days, Lee asked me to write a memorial piece for the man who had been such a great influence on so many people. (In every conceivable way, of course--love, hate, fear, adventure, laughs, parties, or all of the above, depending on who it is you're asking).
It was meant to be a memorial ad to be run by the agency, and a short piece. (My standard was no longer than the Gettysburg address.)
I've never worked harder or more meticulously to get every word as right as I was capable of and stayed up all night to do so.
Lee approved it the next day with a few judicious and heart-felt edits.
Attached is a PDF of the ad. It ran in Ad Age and maybe AdWeek.
It should also have run in the New York Times, but you'll have to ask Omnicom about that. Times were tough in ad biz in 2002.
Take care, Steven. Excellent of you to be running this site.
In business since 578 (yes, you read that right), the Japanese firm of Kongo Gumi is about to go into liquidation.
Ken Youngleib - "copywriter at Chiat LA from 93 to 98. I worked on Nissan, Infiniti, Apple (the Think Different years)."
Irina Lapin - "I''ve been in NYC now for almost 5 years. Came back to TBWA/Chiat, but have been at Grey for the last 2."
Click here to see larger sized format.
A few weeks ago, after posting a "Hey, has anybody run across Tom Harbeck" alert, I received an email from Tom which simply said ...
Remember "ugh ugh" ?
Were my brain a seive, it could not adequately strain rigatoni these days, so I had to confess I did not remember "Ugh, ugh," although I suspected it might be the punchline of some embarrassing story Tom had been harboring for years about me getting sick after drinking one too many Maker's Marks, my post-work beverage of choice.
It turns out, "Ugh, ugh" is the story of a t-shirt. Here it is, in Tom's own words ...
"Ugh Ugh" is not something you did when you were drunk (not that I witnessed). It was the evolution of the "Good enough is not enough" T-shirt. First some taped over the "Good" and the "not" and created "Enough is Enough." Then someone taped over all but the "ugh ugh." Brilliant as the brit planners used to say.
I have a handful of the old shirts -- the best one "God, Guts and Creativity" I think generated during the last Apple pitch looks like a hell's angel's knockoff complete with skull and crossbones -- it's so worn it's full of holes. And I think I have a Chiat/Day/Mojo one somewhere too.
I'm well. As you might recall I married Virginia Pirie (management supervisor on reebok) -- 16 years ago -- we have two boys now: Cole age 13 and Conor age 11. Life is good.
I've attached a family photo -- from the Great Sandunes in Colorado -- a trip we took not last summer but the one before.
I recall everything (except the names of the streets in my town despite having lived here for 10 years). My head is full of Chiat/Day memories. I worked with Butler Shine while at my last job and was good to so John and Mike again -- and they did great work for me.
I am glad to see that Tom has once again been "found" and is not, despite the photographic evidence above to the contrary, wandering the desert. (Or, at least, when he is, he is doing so in such beautiful company.)
An applicant to a media buying position tries his best ...
I think the only qualification I have that really applies for this position is my extencive CD collection. This shows I can research and purchase media, and media related products.
Why aren't more companies taking to telecommuting?
A company in South Africa provides a network of furnished business centres, shared work spaces and meeting rooms in South Africa and all the major business nodes in Africa. They also throw in professional back-office services including the most advanced virtual office services, call answering, administration, payroll processing, accounting and technology support.
Ed Collins has turned himself in. "I worked as an Account Supervisor at Chiat/Day on the Nissan account for about a year in 1989."
He also provided whereabouts for Mark Shoptaw, who worked at C/D for a few years in the late 1990s.
And hello to Lisa Rosenstein ...
I had a very brief but fun career at C/D in the 80s. Worked as assistant to Steve Bayer next to John Spurney.I am in touch with Paula Dombrow and would love to stay connected to the alumni. Was friendly with Carey Zeiser, Julia Platt. Linda Schneider and Spurney et al. Went on to a film career producing indie films in NYC and Philadelphia.
I now own a children’s clothing company based in NYC that caters to kids with sensory issues. chickchatclothes.com - Wewere shown in Timeout NY Kids this month.
There was nothing like woking at C/D in the 80s- like working in a frat. Our entire salaries - $17,000 for assistants - were spent at the Old Town and an occasional martini at Union Square when we won an account. I worked on Reebok UBU- a fine moment in advertising.
