Adventures In Advertising: Perception Is Reality

Once upon a time, I took a job as senior vice president and head of account management at what turned out to be one of the worst ad agencies, ever (I stayed less than six months).  Therefore, all names will be left out.  But this story happened exactly as I am reporting it.  And it is funny.

The creative director was well known; he wrote a column for one of the advertising publications and he had written and published a book about advertising. It was rumored that one of the account supervisors reporting to me was having an affair with him, but no one knew for sure.  What I did know is that anything I discussed with the ECD somehow got to the account person before I could tell her.  And, of course, anything I told her, he knew before I could tell him.

One day, we were all at a client sales meeting in the New Jersey suburbs.  I was due to present something to the client sales force at about 3pm.  The client was nice enough to have an agency suite.  At about 2:30 I realized that I had left my notes in the room.  

So I walked back to the room to get them.

I unlocked the door and walked in to retrieve my briefcase.  And what did my eyes behold?  There, to my surprise, was the creative director and the account supervisor naked on the bed, going at it.  She was on top, sitting up.  She tried to cover herself with one hand and looked straight at me.

She said, very seriously, “This isn’t what you think.”  Honestly, that is what she said.  I looked at both of them and said, “Yes it is.  It is exactly what I think.”  I got my briefcase and left, smiling all the way back to the meeting.

It was never discussed with either of them again.