I heard this story from my friend Bob Wolf, former chairman of Chiat/Day, who I worked with on the Columbia Pictures account at Wells, Rich, Greene.  One day,  Bob and one of our copywriters drove out to Burbank to present an ad campaign for an upcoming Columbia picture to the marketing director.  It was edgy and irreverant, and he absolutely loved it.

But what would his more conservative bosses think?  “This is fucking great.” said the marketing director.  “I don’t give a shit what my management says.  This campaign will run.  And if they don’t buy it, I’ll fucking quit!”

Bob and the writer drove back to the agency feeling the warm glow of victory – until later that day when the client called and said the campaign was dead.  “What!”  Bob said,  “I can’t believe it.  This afternoon you were ready to stake your career on this campaign.” “I know” he said.  “But my boss thought it sucked, and I couldn’t bring myself to argue with him”.  “Jesus” said Bob “Where do you get your integrity?”  Without missing a beat, the client said, “Where do I get my integrity, Bob?  Let me tell you a story.”

He said, “George Segal was a big star whose movies made a lot of money for this studio.  Then he developed a little drug problem.  One day, George gets stoned and decides he wants to see our president, but our president can’t see him because he’s at lunch with some important people.

So, George goes ape shit. He barges into the president’s office, knocks over plants, dumps cigarette butts on the fancy shmancy carpet, rips pictures off of walls—- he really trashes the place.  When our president comes back from lunch and sees what George has done, he becomes enraged and says to the entire executive committee, ‘George Segal will never work for this studio again!”

“Well, it seems that George went on to have a big hit movie with another studio and was back on top again.  And one year to the day later, our president hired George Segal to star in Columbia’s next big blockbuster.”  With that, the marketing director looked Bob directly in the eye and said, “Where do I get my integrity, Bob?  Right from the top!”

Like my stories?  Please comment here or send questions to howie@madmensch.com.  And if you like it, spread it.

© 2010 Howard Cohen, All Rights Reserved