There's no business like no business

Let’s talk about ideas. I’ll start. I have lots and lots of them. Not exactly an earth shattering revelation. After all, it’s what I do for a living. As Hyman Roth put it, “This is the business we’ve chosen.”

But for as many ideas I have being in advertising, I’ve probably had just as many with regards to getting out of advertising. Don’t give me that look. It’s not the confession you think it is. The dirty little secret is everyone in advertising is working off a strategy.

An exit strategy.

I’ve done it as well. I know what you’re thinking: where did I ever find the time? Well, come to find out those endless, countless status meetings, agency pep talks and kick offs are actually good for something besides catching up on my naps.

Under the heading of sticking close to what you know, my late pal Mardel and I decided to open an ad agency of our own called Bigtime Professional Advertising. We did this because, as everyone knows, what the world always needs is one more ad agency. I wrote up some funny stationery that Mardel designed, and we entered it in an awards show under the self-promotion category and won.

So technically, even though we had no accounts, we were an award winning agency.

Then there was my radio production company called Radio Royale. It was Vegas themed, with the business cards looking like casino gambling chips. The tagline was, “It’s radio baby!”

Alright, they can’t all be gems. Let’s just say Dick Orkin’s Radio Ranch, Oink ink Radio and Bert Barz were not threatened.

The next one my friend Michelle South and I came up with. It was called Bar Soap. The idea was to reinvent the laundromats, especially those near colleges and universities, by attaching an upscale bar and restaurant to them. There’d be a large wall of glass on one side where customers could see the state-of-the-art machines and watch their laundry spin. They’d have an app to add more time to the machines, but there’d be a two-hour limit.

And they’d be happy with the results, because after a couple hours drinking who’s going to notice stains anyway, amIrite?

The last example is actually the first idea I had. The Guidance Counselor. After my late, great friend Paula (just realized too many friends are gone now. That’s another post…) who was VP of Marketing at Disneyland hired me to be a creative consultant on the review, I decided I liked being on the other side of the table at agencies. Not gonna lie- it was fun having creative directors who were assholes to me when I was freelancing for them suddenly bowing, scrapinng, serving me coffee and croissants and just generally laughing a little too hard at my jokes all in the name of trying to win the Disney account.

Won’t name names, but do the initials J.M. mean anything? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Anyway, my great, yes you guessed it, late friend George Roux designed my Guidance Counselor stationery when I decided to make a business out of it. That was as far as it ever went.

But now, I’m on a new career path I think is really going to pan out: multiple lottery winner.

Believe me, I’m working on it.