When a campaign or an individual spot happens to hit big - locally, regionally and especially nationally - it seems everyone who was in the building, in one meeting, used to work on the business or walked by the conference room while it was being presented is ready to jump on the credit bandwagon.
The industry is lousy with examples of it: VW. Joe Isuzu. Apple. Nike. FedEx. Nissan. The list goes on and on. And on.
In the late 80's, there was a McDonald's campaign called Mac Tonight. It sprang from a local promotion by an operator's group for dinner at McDonald's. It was created by my friend and former art director partner Jim Benedict before we worked together.
Under the agency leadership of Brad Ball and Mark Davis, Jim was given the freedom and support to create a genuinely unique, fun and memorable spot for a client who wasn't particularly known for taking risks. With Jim's vision of a quarter moon leading man, and parody lyrics to Bobby Darin's "Mac The Knife", the spot took off in a way no one saw coming.
Wildly popular, McDonald's picked up the promotion nationally and suddenly it was everywhere.
What happened next was sadly familiar.
The executive creative director at the time (who has since long gone) started giving national press interviews about how he came up with the concept - some bullshit about how he was looking at the moon one night and it just came to him. Jim started getting assigned to other, less visible accounts. And his name was mysteriously absent from both the interviews and award show entries (and the spot won many awards).
To no one's surprise, McDonald's wanted to pool out the character and did in other, lesser spots created by the people who claimed they'd done the original.
To their own credit, the agency leadership was always honorable about rightfully giving the credit to Jim.
But, creatively speaking, low people in high places are a devious mix. If you've worked for one - and eventually we all do - I'm sure you have war stories of your own to tell.
Jim eventually became a creative director at McCann, where he continued to take on the challenge of doing outstandingly creative work for clients that had reputations for being resistant to it (I'm looking at you Nestlé). He died in 1994.
The agency, even in its current incarnation, still displays the spot on its website. And it should. It continues to be a great success story.
For them, and for Jim.
