(Theodorick Of York, Medieval Barber, bleeds a patient
suffering from “an imbalance of bodily humors”.)

A couple of weeks ago (after years of stubborn resistance) I replaced Outlook Express and Microsoft Schedule for Office 97 with the full version of Outlook. Much as I dreaded it, my initial reaction was unexpectedly optimistic. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it wasn’t so bad after all. Not only that, it offers several technical advantages that I formerly didn’t have.

Now, after spending two weeks really getting to know Outlook inside and out, I am absolutely positive that there is no hope of my ever regaining the efficiency I once enjoyed with my “outdated” programs. Just one example: Outlook’s AutoComplete function—which apparently cannot remember from day to day that when I type “E”, I want to send an email to Erin.

In a related vein, I recently completed an excellent book entitled Beer Blast (The Inside Story of the Brewing Industry’s Bizarre Battles for Your Money)—by Philip Van Munching. If you’ve ever peeled a Heineken bottle, you’ve probably seen his last name on the top label—after the words “Imported By”. Philip worked several years for the family business—then several months with the corporation that bought Van Munching Co. from his father.

One of the more poignant chapters in the book describes, in detail, the sweeping changes Van Munching’s new bosses introduced to a number of policies Dad had rigidly enforced over the years. They gave local sales reps broad freedom to offer periodic discount-pricing incentives. They added brand extensions—most notably Heineken Light—thereby broadening their product line beyond just Heineken and Amstel Light. They developed a 7-ounce Heineken bottle. They updated the advertising—with humorous spots that featured sophisticated people having good times while drinking beer, rather than focusing strictly on the Heineken brand.

Every change resulted in unqualified disaster.

That got me to thinking how easy it is for an ad agency to fall into the trap of Change For Change’s Sake—particularly in serving a new client. But here’s the thing I’ve learned: Just because we can do “better”, that doesn’t mean it’s always the right thing to do. For instance, have you ever gone shopping for a specific product, and literally couldn’t find it on the shelves because the new package design looked nothing like the one you’ve bought for years?

I’m not suggesting, by any stretch of the imagination, that change is bad. Just be sure that—when it comes to your marketing communications—your agency has a perfectly sensible reason for recommending the change. And that the change is consistent with the brand you’ve presumably spent years building in the marketplace.

Now, if someone could pass this message along to the half-wits who make Outlook, I’ll  be really happy.

We’re picky about the people we’ll work for. Which has meant, on a few occasions, passing-up what were generally considered “good opportunities”. On the other hand, it’s been a very long time since we’ve worked with the kinds of clients in the recorded conversation below.

(Although I make no guarantee for this entry’s veracity, I found no mention of it either on Snopes.com or UrbanLegends.com. And besides, it sounds pretty real to me!)

ON TALKING WITH CLIENTS.
What follows is an ACTUAL TRANSCRIPT of dialogue between the client and the creative team responsible for creating a documentary about the Rose Bowl Parade. Enjoy.

CLIENT 1: It’s confusing the way you jump around in time.

ME: How so?

CLIENT 1: Well, the show opens, and it’s present day, and then all of a sudden you say: “The Rose Parade was founded in 1890,” and we’re looking at old black and white pictures that clearly aren’t present day.

ME: Those are the pictures from the first parade in 1890.

CLIENT 1: But you never say that.

ME: I guess we thought when we said “The Rose Parade was founded in 1890,” it would sort of go without saying that the black and white pictures we’re seeing are from 1890.

CLIENT 2: But you see, YOU already know that. The viewer doesn’t.

CLIENT 3: Maybe you should say: “The Rose Parade was founded in 1890, and these pictures are pictures from the first Rose Parade, taken in 1890.”

ME: We could say that, but it might slow things down a little.

CLIENT 1: Well otherwise there’s no way anybody’s going to get it.

CLIENT 2: Also, it comes out of nowhere. People aren’t expecting a history lesson. You should warn them: “Here’s a historical fact about when the Rose Parade was founded: It was founded in 1890.”

CLIENT 3: And you should mention that those are horses pulling the horse drawn carriages.

CLIENT 1: There’re too many floats. We don’t want people to think the Rose Parade is all about floats.

CLIENT 2: It’s more than that. There’s too much emphasis on the parade. We don’t want people to think the Tournament of Roses is all about a parade.

CLIENT 1: One of the volunteers you interviewed really didn’t look good.

ME: So we should take her out?

CLIENT 1: No, she’s important. But can you make her look less fat?

ME: That’s really not something we can fix in editing.

CLIENT 2: Her hair’s bad too.

CLIENT 2: I’m a little upset. We specifically said that we wanted to see diversity, but you make the Tournament Association look like it’s a bunch of white men.

ME: Not to be out of line, but isn’t the Tournament Association pretty much a bunch of white men?

CLIENT 2: That’s not the point. You show the Tournament presidents of the past several years, and every one of them is a white man.

ME: Has there ever been a Tournament president who wasn’t a white man?

CLIENT 2: That’s not the point. You show a series of Grand Marshals from the past hundred years, and only three of them are black.

ME: There have only been three black Grand Marshals in the past hundred years.

CLIENT 2: That’s not the point.

CLIENT 1: One of the float designers said floats start as a “figment” of his imagination. “Figment” is a copyrighted Disney character. We can’t have him say that.

ME: Disney owns the character “Figment,” they can’t actually own the phrase “figment of my imagination.”

CLIENT 1: Yes they can. It’s a Disney character.

ME: Yeah, well so’s “Dopey.”

CLIENT 1: What’s that?

ME: Nothing.

CLIENT 3: Watching this video, no one would ever know there are horses in the parade.

ME: We actually have a lot of shots of horses.

CLIENT 3: Okay, you have shots of horses, but you never specifically say “The Parade includes horses.”

ME: Um, actually, after you brought it up at the last presentation, we put in the exact line: “The Parade includes horses.” We also have a scene where a horse driver talks in detail about specific horse breeds.

CLIENT 3: I still don’t think it comes across.

CLIENT 1: I really loved the ending

CLIENT 2: Me too. It’s a great ending.

CLIENT 3: Very emotional.

CLIENT 1: Still, it could be more emotional.

CLIENT 2: Yeah. It doesn’t quite wrap up what the Rose Parade means to me.

CLIENT 3: It could be more emotional.

CLIENT 1: It was kind of dry.

CLIENT 2: Maybe if you had some, I don’t know, people bursting into tears.

CLIENT 1: Really, the ending now. It just ends. Nobody cries. Nobody jumps for joy.

CLIENT 2: Why don’t you have an interview with the Grand Marshal right before the parade?

ME: You mean right before this year’s parade?

CLIENT 2: Yeah.

ME: This year’s parade has already happened, so it’s hard to go back and get a new interview from that day.

CLIENT 1: It’s too bad, because the ending’s really weak.

CLIENT 3: Maybe you could add a horse.

“An idealogical system in conflict with the facts generally finds it prudent to defer to itself.”—David Berlinski

“I’ve gone into hundreds of fortune-teller’s parlors, and I’ve been told thousands of things. But nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest them.”
—New York City Detective

“Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.”
—Anonymous

“There are 3 kinds of people in the world: Those who can do math, and those who can’t.”
—An English Major

“Writing is easy. You just sit at your typewriter and concentrate until beads of blood form on your forehead.”

—George Axelrod, 1922 – 2003

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re still happy.”

—Dorothy Parker

“If they laid all the coeds from Yale end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

—Dorothy Parker

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

—Bill Watterson  (Calvin and Hobbes)

There is a pivotal scene in the 1984 mockumentary classic “Spinal Tap”—the comic history of a band’s slow decline from second-rate psychedelic hucksters to fourth-rate thud-rock has-beens. The band’s members are discussing ideas for rebounding from yet another career low, when someone roars, “I’ve got it!—Let’s bring back ‘Stonehenge!!’” (an atrocious rock opera Spinal Tap had originally recorded a decade earlier).

It’s a scene that has stuck in my mind ever since a day in early 2006. I was returning to Birmingham after an afternoon in Chattanooga, during which the Executive Director of that city’s Community Foundation had spent nearly two hours showing-off his city’s many accomplishments over the past decade—while also pointing out about a half-dozen civic projects underway; all as large or larger than, for instance, the Railroad Park, a project which (IMHO) offers more potential for impacting our own City Center’s quality of life than any proposed in decades.

When I reached Birmingham radio reception range, one of the evening’s top news stories involved yet another effort to garner support for the domed stadium originally proposed well over two decades ago.

Which is when it hit me: The dome has become Birmingham’s own personal “Stonehenge”. Much as it’s been romanticized as Future Birmingham’s proverbial grail, it was a starry-eyed idea in the first place. And if you ask most taxpayers, it’s one that has decidedly not improved with age. Consider, for starters, the cost—which is currently projected to be $530 million. Assuming Birmingham manages the all-but-unprecedented task of staying on budget, that price is only the beginning. Here’s where it could get really scary.

According to the Wall Street Journal’s December 29 Yield Curve Scale chart, 20-year municipal bond rates for AA-Rated cities (which, amazingly, is Birmingham’s rating, according to acting Mayor Roderick Royal) were 4.87%. Plug the principal and interest into Bloomberg’s online Mortgage Calculator, and suddenly the price tag jumps to roughly $830,355,090. And that’s not counting all the fees involved in originating and issuing the bond—not to mention the additional tab for operating, maintaining and (equally important) marketing the facility, once it’s actually open.

All of which could easily add-up to a total taxpayer burden of $900 million—or an average annual payout of $45 million over the next 20 years. Now, consider arguably the single biggest revenue-producing event that a dome-equipped Birmingham could hope to attract: The SEC Championship game—which seems to be doing quite well in Atlanta, thank you very much, and last year generated an economic impact of $25 million. In a town where there are a lot more places to spend money than Birmingham. And remember, “economic impact” doesn’t remotely equate to profit.

Forget the obvious question (Namely: How’s the dome ever going to pay for itself?). Proponents have long claimed its primary draw will be as a convention destination. Forget the various reports of declining tradeshow attendance in cities across the country—including a lot of towns (most notably Las Vegas) light-years up the convention / tourism food chain from Birmingham. Where’s the wisdom in spending 900 million taxpayer dollars on something we hope will be used primarily by folks who don’t even live here? And where’s the direct impact on our own quality of life?

Place that potential $900 million tab against the $12 million public outlay for the Railroad Park—which will feature 10 acres of open lawn, walking trails and shaded pavilions, in addition to a lake and an open-air amphitheatre. That makes the dome 75 times more expensive than a project we can all but guarantee will be used by folks who do live here.

Put another way, how much more could Birmingham benefit from 74 other projects as appealing as the Railroad Park, than we would from a single dome? Here’s an even better idea: Let’s identify maybe a half-dozen other practical civic projects, save the taxpayers $816 million, and file the dome—once and for all—in its rightful place: Alongside “Stonehenge” in the cutout bin.

Originally published in the Birmingham News Editorial section, Sunday January 3, 2010

http://bit.ly/nodome