Back to California, alien abduction-style
You'd think I would have learned that California would never work out for me from my CBS experience. Yet this lightning move to San Francisco became the best move of my career--back in New York.
It’s August 1, 1993, a lazy Sunday afternoon at home in Westport, Connecticut, and I answer the landline in the kitchen.
It’s a headhunter, and it sets off the craziest scramble of my family’s life.
22 days later, with our two cars and worldly goods somewhere on the road to Northern California, my wife Liz and I are frantically touring Marin County in a rented car with two shell-shocked kids in the back seat trying to find a rental house in a decent school district with days to go before school begins.
One tenacious headhunter
The call was from Vito Bialla, a San Francisco-based recruiter who set the hook on that first call and never let up on me—or Liz.
The gig: President of FCB San Francisco’s freestanding Taco Bell service unit.
It was an awful job and the best career move I ever made.
Vito held three aces
I had a strong 15-year track record in the New York ad scene, happily head-down at two great shops—Geer DuBois, then Backer & Spielvogel—but I had little professional visibility. I needed to lift my profile, and Vito knew it.
The Taco Bell account was a famously toxic revolving door in the provincial West Coast ad scene, so Vito’s East Coast headhunting was smart. It helped that I admired FCB San Francisco’s stellar creative reputation thanks to its 60-year run of consistently brilliant Levi’s campaigns.
What Vito didn’t tell me, of course: Taco Bell’s annual firing threat was “HOT & NOW,” to borrow the name of Taco Bell’s tacky burger chain, motivating him to hang a Flavor Flav countdown clock around my neck and crank up the tick-tock every day.
At one point he thought Liz was holding up the decision. He managed to get her on the phone and asked, “Do I have a problem here?” (If you want to set Liz off, just say “Vito” and stand back.)
The clincher was personal
Liz’s parents had recently retired and moved from Honolulu to Gold Rush country in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of San Francisco.
Taking the job meant we could finally live close to them and enjoy precious grandparent time as Liz’s mom was beginning her battle with cancer.
I say “yes” and our neighbor grabs our house
The day I resigned, I tell a friend and neighbor about our move, and he says, “What are you doing with your house?”
“We’re about to put it on the market.”
“Don’t. We’ll buy it.”
“Wait—what?”
“We’ve always loved your house. I’ll buy it. For cash.”
We get it appraised, split the real estate commision we didn’t have to pay, pack up and head west.
We rent Hal Riney’s house
We landed in Greenbrae, outside Kentfield in Marin County, and secured the legendary ad man’s rental property from one of his ex-wives. Famous for Reagan’s “Morning In America” ads, the Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler campaign, and the launch of Saturn cars for General Motors, Riney’s golden baritone seemed to call out a good omen to us.
We wedged the kids into schools with days to spare, and I settled in for the fast-food ad grind.
It was quickly “California Fiasco #2”
You may remember from previous chapters my unpleasant LA experience, six years earlier, on the CBS business. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, and I’ll take my share of blame for that transcontinental culture-clash.
This time around, I naively thought the Northern California vibe would better rhyme with me. (Wrong.)
I also thought, while difficult for my family, the whiplash was something we’d all adapt to. (Wrong again.)
We were quickly reminded how great the Westport schools had been
Our daughter’s school, in a top-three rated Bay Area public school district. was spartan and shockingly under-funded. For our son, the best pre-schools were already full, and the only one left proved to be little more than baby-sitting.
We started shopping private schools in the City.
The Hal Riney omen turns bad
We pulled up to a Pacific Heights open house at a promising school and parked behind a pristine Rolls Royce, out of which Hal Riney and his current wife emerged and headed straight into seats at what was clearly the star table.
With one opening the following year, we realized it wouldn’t be our daughter, and other options proved equally out of reach.
We gave up on private schooling.
The Taco Bell/Pepsico culture was hilariously toxic
Taco Bell (or “Taco Hell” as my wife renamed it) was still owned by Pepsico back then and famous for its knife-wielding culture.
Competing with McDonald’s—their true and worthy adversary—was secondary to the internecine warfare in the hallways of the Purchase, NY, Pepsico headquarters and inside Taco Bell’s Irvine, California, corporate offices. When bored with their intramural nonsense they would they threaten their agencies, and I was right on time for an extended threat-cycle.
By November, I’m sneaking back to New York looking for work
We decided to move back to Westport, and my New York interviews were encouraging. (The interest in me back home pointed out I could have looked for work without moving, but at least I was now in play.)
The best conversation I had was with Keith Reinhard, the down-to-earth Chairman/CEO of DDB, Omnicom’s biggest shareholder, and brilliant creative leader.
It was also the worst conversation—AdLand’s C-Suite is a very small town, and word of my treachery leaked back to my boss, the FCB San Francisco CEO.
And was he PISSED
He called me over to his office right before Thanksgiving, and not for a holiday turkey.
He cold-cocked me: “I just spent fifty grand on your relo and signing bonus, and you’re interviewing for jobs back in New York!? What the hell are you doing?! I bring you out here to help me save the [Taco Bell] business, and you’re bailing out on me?!”
I stumbled out of his office to meet my friend Mark Gumz downstairs at Il Fornaio for lunch. I was very lucky he happened to be in town.
“Tom, you look awful. What’s going on?”
I looked like death, but Mark talked me off the ledge.
The fun is just beginning
I dig back into the job, keeping the conversations on a low burn back east, and we manage to keep a review at bay while meeting the insane demands of the QSR (quick service restaurant) business: 13 promotion cycles a year, each requiring TV, radio, outdoor and in-store ads.
Kinda like this, just not as funny:
I settle into an uneasy, unspoken truce with the CEO
We make it into 1994, my “arranged marriage” with Robin Raj, the creative director hired around at the same time I was, gets into a good groove, and we start making some ads we actually like. Best of all, sales start to turn around.
This one starred Donald Gibbs, best remembered as Ogre, the outrageous frat-bro in Revenge of the Nerds, and it helped usher in a fresh attitude for the brand:
The honeymoon was short-lived
I finally accept a great job back in New York on my anniversary—March 3—a truly good omen that proves out this time.
I agree to stay on for another couple of months—long enough, it turns out, for another surprise by my wonderful boss: a public execution at the client.
More on that next week.
Notes & Sources
Hal Riney’s Bartles and James campaign put wine coolers on the map:
Riney’s “Morning in America” ad defined Ronald Reagan and is widely regarded as the greatest political ad in history:
This Riney film, introducing the Saturn car line from GM, is a master class in emotionally-charged brand storytelling: