I owe a lot to Dick Rich (standing between Stu Greene and Mary Wells.)  He was one of the founders of Wells, Rich, Greene — a brilliant writer and the guy who actually hired me.  But he was also the guy who trampled my confidence and almost made me throw in the towel. I was [...]

Royal Crown Cola was an important client of Wells, Rich, Greene.  In addition to their flagship brand, RC Cola, the agency also did the advertising for Diet Rite Cola.  Unfortunately, the Diet Rite campaign was not going well. It was a celebrity campaign and one of the spots featured the legendary Lena Horne.  She was [...]

I loved Sunday night’s episode of Mad Men.  One scene that really resonated was when Don Draper tells his associates that if they want to stand out in the Honda Motorcycle pitch, they’ll need “fireworks.” This reminded me of a stunt we pulled at Cohen/Johnson to get into the review for Mervyns clothing stores.  We [...]

When City of Hope hired The Phelps Group in May of 2000, I was thrilled to become the copywriter/creative director on their account.  I considered it an honor and a privilege to contribute my talents to an organization that saves so many lives.  Little did I know mine would be one of them. Sometime in [...]

It was my dream car.  The one I promised myself I would buy when I finally “made it”.  That time came in the second year of our agency, Cohen, Pasqualina and Timberman. We had just launched a huge TV campaign for Chrysler Corporation on the 1975 Superbowl.  It featured the very first car rebate – [...]

Mary Wells had a credo:  Love your clients (or someone else will).  One of the ways Mary showed her appreciation to clients was by giving jobs to their daughters. As a result, some smart-ass copywriter came up with the unflattering acronym, DORCs — Daughters Of Rich Clients. This moniker was particularly unfair given that most [...]

Columbia Pictures was a full-time client of Wells, Rich, Greene and a full time pain in the ass.  We were the agency of record for all 22 of their movie releases. That’s a lot of movie advertising and a lot of pressure – for us and for them.  Maybe that’s why they were such SOB’s, [...]

As sure as I’m sitting here at 9 PM on a Saturday night draining an icy glass of pear vodka, this will happen to you. Your prized client, for whom you’ve been doing great work for many years, will hire a new marketing director.  And, since it’s understood that the new guy was hired to [...]

Business was picking up at Cohen, Pasqualina, Timberman and we were starting to get calls from the marketing guys at the movie studios. One of our most challenging assignments was for a film  called “Inserts” starring Richard Dreyfuss. It was an odd career move for this fast rising movie star.  Thanks to his incredible performance [...]

I didn’t just offer up my creative talents to Wells, Rich, Greene.  I donated my athletic skills which were finely honed playing stickball on the streets of the Bronx. Every summer, the agency competed in the advertising softball league.  My specialty was playing centerfield, where I used my blazing speed to run down fly balls [...]