"Wait–you guys weren’t FIRED ON THE SPOT for that?!"

I was lucky to survive my first decade in Adland given these brushes with disaster

I dodged a few bullets growing up in the advertising business, and I’m grateful that the following stories played out during my early years at Backer & Spielvogel—years I look back on with gratitude for what I learned, and what I was forgiven for.

The Client Dinner From Hell

In 1989, Backer & Spielvogel threw a private holiday dinner for our Miller Beer client in a private room at The Four Seasons. Carl Spielvogel and Bill Backer hosted the top Miller brass led, by their delightful mensch of a CEO, Lenny Goldstein. I was the most junior member of the Backer team in the room.

After settling into our seats and some chit chat, the doors swung open, a line of waiters proudly paraded in carrying linen-covered champagne buckets, placing one next to every other seat.

Once the buckets were all in place, there was showy, synchronized whoosh-away of the linens, and the big reveal:

A glistening array of BUDWEISER bottles.

Silence. SHOCK. Darting eyes and visions of imminent death

It was Goldstein who finally broke the ice (not bottles over heads) with a dismissive laugh, neutralizing the terror, and we slowly, tentatively, got the dinner back on track.

Agency protocol always pinned logistic responsibilities on the most junior person in the room. Even though I had nothing to do with setting up this affair, I was sure I was a dead man.

But at least I spotted Donald Trump while stumbling to the bathroom

Amazingly, Miller didn’t hold this against us, I never caught blame for Le Grande Faux Pas, and our Miller relationship held for a few more years.

PTSD has erased my memory of the rest of the dinner, but I do remember spotting Donald Trump schmoozing his way down the bar, hoovering up attention during my first shaky trip to the mens room.

What if DDB had pulled that on August Busch III & IV?

In the early 2000’s, a decade after my Miller Time at Backer, DDB Corporate deployed me to its Chicago office for six months to help put out a few fires. Most weeks I lived out of a hotel attached to our office building, often going days never going outdoors.

A highlight of those marathons, however, was hanging out with John Greening, the long-standing account leader of DDB’s Budweiser account. We remain fast friends to this day, and are still amazed we spent years as opposing generals in the Beer Wars never knowing each others’ names.

The only time I momentarily rendered John speechless

When I told John this story, his first reaction, after a long, shocked silence, was the headline of this post.

After much laughter between us, he began to spin alternative scenarios of how August Busch III and August Busch IV would have responded to being served Miller by John’s troops at DDB.

We should have pitched his what-ifs to Quentin Tarantino.

Three lives down, no more to go

Turns out this wasn’t my first near-disaster at Backer, or even my second.

Five years earlier, I survived two fiascos in one day with each of the two named agency partners—first with Carl Spielvogel on a private jet flight, then with Bill Backer at—yes—a big client dinner.

Carl had hired a PJ to fly us to Dayton, Ohio, for a major creative presentation and kick-off dinner with our new client, NCR. He had an important breakfast in LA the next morning, and flew on to the coast that night after our dinner.

We flew out of Teterboro that morning. After stashing and securing all our presentation portfolios in the passenger cabin, Carl directed me to sit across from him to finish briefing him on the upcoming meeting. He faced forward, with a small table between us.

Good rule of thumb: don’t scald The Chairman

A waiter served us coffee and breakfast snacks on a single shared tray as we slowly taxied to the runway.

We were all engaged in conversation when the plane suddenly lurched forward. I grabbed my coffee with my left hand, and the snack tray with my right as it was heading into Carl’s lap, and Carl managed to deflect his coffee.

No drinks spilled, the snacks scattered, and Carl never said a word—he just stared at me with a “you are one lucky SOB” look. (Turns out he didn’t have a full change of clothes for his breakfast the next morning, so suit-splatter would not have been good for my career.)

This time, the dinner faux pas was on me

The presentation and follow-up meetings went well, and we headed to a dinner I’d set up at a nearby private club. At the time, Dayton was a semi-dry town, and only a quirky form of private club skirted the dry laws of the day.

When the waiter handed me the check (about $6,300 in today’s dollars), I pulled out my credit card, and he waved it off with a dismissive, “Cash only.”

Bill Backer was sitting next to me. I turned to him, helplessly. We locked eyes–mine in terror, his with a steely squint.

The Virginia Gentleman saves my life

He held the eye-lock while, very, slowly, reaching into his inside jacket pocket with one hand while taking the check from me with the other. He pulled out his wallet, extracted a stack of 100-dollar bills, and slowly counted them out on the table while the waiter–and everyone else–took in the scene in deathly silence as my life flashed before me.

Among Bill Backer’s many rare talents and personal attributes was his fine, Southern manners. He never mentioned this to me, nor this last story that made my first day at Backer a little unnerving.

“You CANNOT wear bow ties here—that’s Bill Backer’s thing!”

During my agency career, I only wore bow ties—a quirk it turned out I shared with Bill Backer.

I didn’t know this, however, when I showed up for my first day on the job at Backer & Spielvogel—a thrilling day for me, joining what was then the hottest shop on Madison Avenue (actually, on West 42nd St, but whatever…)

Day One, all day, I was pulled aside by people whispering earnestly to me that I could not—AND SHOULD NEVER—wear bow ties, since that was Bill Backer’s trademark.

I ignored that advice and had a glorious decade in the agency—further proof that Bill, Carl and the agency was filled with fine, talented creative people.

What’s YOUR Story?

Would love to hear your stories of your early career days—and of course, your near-death disasters on the job. Until then, I’ll see you next week.