Stan Dragoti was the guy who directed the hit movies “Love at first bite” and “Mr. Mom.”  But before he was a Hollywood success, he was a big star at Wells, Rich, Greene. Most guys were pretty jealous of Stan because, besides being tall and dark with leading man looks, he was also a very [...]

As a wise friend once said to me, “Howie, the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” This could not be more true when it comes to pitching new business and trying to guess how well you did in the meeting. I’ve been in pitches where our team fired on all eights.  [...]

WTF!  Why is everyone using initials instead of words?  Is it supposed to save time? The other day I was sitting in an MTF meeting discussing our RFB. I had just come from a high level HR discussion about the need to hire an SAD, a TL, an IA and a UX. OMG, my head [...]

I remember the day in 1974 when I met Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson. I had brought my wife Carol to a recording studio in midtown Manhattan for a marathon music session orchestrated by my friend Steve Karmen, aka “The King of Jingles.” Our agency, Cohen, Pasqualina, Timberman, had won a piece of Chrysler business [...]

Jocko had won the first battle in his crusade to replace Pasqualina and me as creative directors of Wells, Rich, Greene/West.  He was now creative director on the Jack in the Box account and was spending more and more time in our LA offices. As his first official creative act on Jack in the Box, [...]

Petco just announced a major change in their theme line.  What was once “Petco, where the pets go” is now “Petco, where the healthy pets go.” But is this a healthy change?  As the creator of the original line and former creative director and writer on the Petco account for 13 years, I suggest it [...]

With the acquisition of The Townsend Agency and their marquee account, Century 21, Bob Pasqualina and I were promoted to creative directors of Wells, Rich, Greene/West. Now, our responsibilities were expanded to include our new Orange County office located an hour South of LA. That was the good news.  The bad news is that we [...]

Does evil lurk in the shadowy halls of the ad business? Are there really some sneaky, conniving people who are out to steal your job and ruin your reputation?  Nah, can’t be.  Or so I thought, until this happened. In 1981, when Bob Pasqualina and I were co-creative directors of Wells, Rich, Greene/West, we were [...]

Bumble Bee was looking for a new ad agency and we knew that Cohen/Johnson was perfect for them. We were new, creative and hungry. Somehow, my partner Mark Johnson convinced their marketing director and ad manager that they absolutely had to meet us. It was a Sally Field kind of meeting — they loved us, [...]

Mary Wells was the driving force behind Wells, Rich, Greene, the legendary creative agency that blazed new trails from the late ’60s through the ’80s. You can read all about her amazing contributions to our business in her book,  A Big Life in Advertising. Blond, beautiful and brilliant, she was the mentor that taught me, [...]