June 10, 2024 • 17 mins
Defying Gravity is a funny and sometimes cynical peek behind the scenes of one of the world's most influential businesses – Advertising. David Random takes us on a wild and wacky tour of the advertising world he lived and breathed for decades. David's remarkable story-telling ability and keen eye for detail bring to life this humorous […] The post David Random: Defying Gravity and other short stories from a career in Advertising appeared first on WebTalkRadio.net.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, book lovers, and welcome to Author's Corner. Get ready
for a whirlwind tour of the latest and greatest reads
and the fascinating stories behind them.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Join us as we chat.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
With authors and newsmakers from all over the world, diving
into their journeys and creative processes. And now here's the
host of Author's Corner, the Emmy Award winning Kate Delay.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I am so thrilled as always to have a conversation anytime,
any day, anywhere with David Random.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
He is an.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Author, he is an artist, he's a former ad man,
and he has fabulous stories. And I think that's what
I just love about David so much. These are his books,
all of his books. This is his latest one, and
then of course we're going to talk about some of
these other ones as well. And I thought it'd be
fun to talk about Defying Gravity and other short stories
(00:51):
from a long career in advertising. And this is the
cover of the book, and you know, it's in pretty
good shape. I've had this for a while, but I
pick up and it's like a sacred book to me.
So I put it in a place where it doesn't
get all gnarly, and my coffee spills all over it
and somebody else picks something up. But what I love
about it is, and what I love about David's books
(01:14):
is that you can pick it up at any point
and read the short story and just get it. I
think you just get a good shuckle. Your humor is wonderful.
So David, always good to chat with you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Thank you, Kate, glad to be with you again. Let's
talk about define gravity first.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Let's set this up, so giving birth to this baby,
what was that feeling like?
Speaker 5 (01:35):
I being in advertising for so many decades, starting in
the late nineteen sixties, when if you've watched the show
mad Men, that's exactly like it was very chauvinistic and crazy,
and I was just so amazed at the things that
I would see, mostly behind the scenes in advertising that
(01:58):
people never or never realize, and also something's right out
front that were just astounding to me right out of college,
and I just started keeping a more a mental note
of all these things, thinking, oh, I should write these
down someday, and that's what I ended up doing, because
it's such a crazy business. Not so much anymore, I
(02:21):
think it's advertising has changed quite a bit, quite a
bit since my retirement and almost twenty years ago now.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And what do you think has changed the most about advertising?
I think one thing is that it's I think taken.
Speaker 5 (02:40):
More seriously now by not only people who create the ads,
but also by clients. We had some clients who would
push us over that we'd reach the stop point and
they'd say, oh, come on, go further, you can you know,
and he'd push us over that line of either good
taste or.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
You know something.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
And I think another thing that's changed, of course, is
the advent of computers.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
When I started, we didn't have any computers.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
So you had to do a layout for a magazine
ad with magic markers and do the type by hand,
and then it.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Would be mechanicalized.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
You'd have to send out to a typographic shop to
have them set the type according to your specs and
hire a photographer, of course, and that's changed so much,
people shooting their own photos, obviously setting their own type.
With the advent of computers, and you know, there's just
(03:40):
a lot that's changed. And TV commercials, for example, you
can't skip over the commercials like you can now. You know,
when you record a show or something, you had to
watch everything back then.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
You know, it's so clever that they do now in
advertising because of that reason that you can skip over
and people dvo things and they can fast forward through.
It is if you're watching something live, they have the
split screens and they have those short ads where you
have to hit them with like ten seconds. So you've
got to be clever right out of the gate, no
time to I mean, thirty seconds is short, but can
(04:15):
you imagine ten seconds?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Also the product placement.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
You see a lot of TV shows where they'll actually
be a product in the whether it's a sitcom or what,
and they'll actually name the product. It'll be part of
the plot. And that's you know, product placement that gets
paid for. Oh yeah, I may get pretty big dollars
for it, as you know.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
So I've made a list of I made a list
of some of my favorite I mean, I like everything
about this book, but I've made a list of some
of my favorite chapters.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And some of them that I came up with is
this one. How about this?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
God on for me, God on spaghetti, God on spaghetti,
tell me about that? So at first blush when someone
sees that God on spaghetti is like, what is that about.
I said that to somebody that I was talking to
the test and I said, Hey, what do you think
about God on spaghetti? And they just started laughing, what
are you talking about? And then I told them about
your books, so tell us about that little chapter.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
We had a.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
Client that was an Italian pasta company and they didn't advertise.
A lot of products that you see in supermarkets do
not advertise. They rely totally on their package. You know,
you're walking down the aisle, that's their only ad. And
in fact, that's how I buy wine, the big wine
(05:42):
connoisseur that I am. I just pick out whatever label
I like best. I like ones with animals on it.
But yeah, the pasta company was Italian pasta. It was
not made in the United States with some Italian sounding name.
It was actually from Italy and their product I decided
(06:08):
to have like a clear cellophane window on the front
so you could see in and see what kind of
pasta it was. And what I did was for the visual.
And this is this is the only time that I
know of I could be wrong. This is the only
(06:28):
time I know of where a product on its package
had an actual depiction of God, not Jesus God. It's
from Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
where God reaches out his finger and Adam's finger. It
(06:48):
comes close, not quite touching in the painting, and that
was like God giving birth to man.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
And I use that as the image on the package.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
And right below their fingers where they almost touched is
where this oval of cellophane was where you see the pasta.
And you know, so it was I mean, it's two
naked men on the package, and it was you know,
how could women resist that?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Right? It was mostly women who bought the food products
in those days. That was I wanted to.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Have the the slogan let's see what was it? Oh?
I just wanted to say in quotes underneath God, that's
good pasta, but that was nixed at the last minute.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I would have loved that. Was it a successful campaign?
I think it would have been really interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
They sold, Yeah, they sold a lot of product.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
I wouldn't call it a campaign, but that's you know,
they ended up selling a lot of products in supermarkets.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Nice, God on pasta. So we go from God on
pasta and define gravity to which that line is God
that's good pasta. How about the truth in advertising? The
truth about truth in advertising? And we talked a little bit.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
About how the ad game has changed.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Yes, yes, truth is something that there are a lot
of ways to come at this. But truth is something
that is not always something that.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Happens in advertising. To some extent, it has to happen.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
There are organizations, government organizations that oversee product. Like if
you make a claim in a TV commercial that this
brand tastes our brand tastes better than this brand, and
you need to have in order to say that and
(08:44):
be legal, you need to have independent studies done that actually,
you know, taste tests that prove that people like the
taste of your product better. So you can't you can't
just say anything you want in in an ad or
a TV commercial. But there there is government oversight of that,
(09:07):
and a lot of people don't realize that. They think, oh,
advertisers say anything they want. Another way to see truth
in advertising is what we called accepted premise. If you
tell people a couple things about a product that they
already know, you know, they start nodding their heads, yeah yeah,
(09:31):
in their mind, mentally nodding their heads. And then you
add a third thing that they may not know about,
but because you've got them nodding their heads and okay,
these Peo people are telling me what you know, what
I already know.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
That's the truth. That's the truth, and.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
They accept the third thing that you throw in that
may be a little questionable. And you know, one thing
that comes to mind is I think it was Jamaica
where in their ads they say, come to Jamaica where
the weather is warm. People know that, and so are
(10:07):
the people. Well, the people may not be any different
than any place else in the world, but people it's
accepted premise. You've told them one thing that they agree with,
so the next thing that you say, okay, that must
be true too.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
He's telling me a list of true things. Wow, that's
so interesting.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
And you can see if people are watching, as of course,
we're listening to this, because either way, you can probably
think in your mind of some of those examples that
you've seen in advertising.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
There's a lot of those.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Volkswagen and a lot of people won't
remember this, but way back when when Volkswagen first came
to you know, the United States, back in the sixties,
they talked about there was one ad I remember was
a print ad that said it's ugly but it gets
you there.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Well, they were kind.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
Of detigrating their own product, but it was okay because
people could already see what it looked like.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
They make up their own mind, well, that doesn't look
too bad.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
So whether they thought it was good looking or not,
you're not telling them anything. They can't decide for themselves.
It's not like how something tastes before they buy it.
They can see what it looks like. And so when
you've told them it's ugly but it gets you there,
it's like, okay, Wow, they're telling me.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
They're telling me some bad things about their product, how
ugly it looks, so all these other things they're telling
me that. You know, if they're telling me that the
truth about that, all the other things about low maintenance
costs and how it never breaks down, those things must
be true also, so you know, it's kind of accepted premise.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Accepted premise, that's something to walk away with, all right.
And if I didn't have a list, I would just
be going off in all kinds of directions because I
was like, oh, I have to narrow it, so we
don't want to give everything away, all your secrets, but
this was another one I liked. I liked you know
that one of the things that you pointed out in
there was the ninety nine cents cigarettes. And I and
(12:12):
I had a grandmother, because it was a different time,
my great grandmother smoked, and I can remember we'd be
we had a summer seashore house and there would be
these shells and they would be filled with cigarette butts
and my grandther's a heat beautiful lady, and now it
would be so people would be so aghast. But ninety
nine cents, and it was the same thing that you said,
They just told you this is the deal.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
Yeah, well that I when I first started in advertising
back in the sixties late sixties, I promised myself that
I would never advertise cigarettes. Well, you know, being our
director at an ad agency, if they have a cigarette account,
you're working on it, you know, you can't say no no.
I refuse to do that. So to get around that,
(12:58):
when it came time for me to do an ad
for a brand of cigarettes which is now gone by
the wayside, I can't even remember what the brand was.
In fact, but it was not for the cigarette itself,
but it was for a line of convenience stores that
we had as a client that had hundreds of stores
(13:19):
in the New York City and Boston area. It was
a very urban kind of store that was open all night,
twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
And the.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Cigarette ad that I did, and the client actually liked this.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
In order to get.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
Around my saying, oh, I'll never advertise cigarettes, the client
let me do an ad that just was no, you know,
beautiful people sitting on the sands of a beach or
palm trees around to let you think, to lull you
into a fall sense of thinking, oh, this is healthy product,
(14:02):
and you know it makes you very popular, good looking.
It was just a picture, unadorned of just the package
of cigarettes, and in huge type, bigger than the photograph
of the product. It simply said, bad habit, great price.
I love that great price.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Right, And that bailed you out too, because you know
it's exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
So it's perfect, So define gravity. What do you hope
people take away from reading this very funny, clever book.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
A couple things. First of all, I hope they laugh,
and I love short stories anyway. It's just like you said,
you can read, spend ten minutes reading one put the
book down, come back to it a.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Week later if you want.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
But what I hope people take away from this is
learning about just the crazy things that happened behind the
scenes in advertising, things that people don't realize. For example,
people think that supermarkets, for example, make their money selling products.
(15:15):
Well they, yeah, they make a little money selling products.
But you know, you sell a can of Campbell soup,
which is one of the most popular items on the
shelf in a supermarket, they don't make that much money
on the product.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
They make money.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
By by allowing that company, Campbell Soup company, to show
their product on their store shelves.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It's like they're selling real estate. So this is called
a slotting fee. That's where supermarkets make their money.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
And you know, it's things like that that I'd like
people to take away, things that they might not have
ever realized otherwise, or crazy thing that happened behind the
scenes that people don't talk about.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
They don't talk about. You're right, well, this has been
as light as always. Next time around, we're going to
talk about this.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Book Rebles Travels and then Random Acts of Blindness too
as well, because this is your latest and this is
certainly one in the collection of many, many, many wonderful
books that.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
You have out there. So we'll do it again next time.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
David Random, where can people find you?
Speaker 5 (16:30):
They can find me at author David Random dot com.
All my books are on there, David Random dot com.
I like it, Author David Random dot com.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
How easy is.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
That to remember, David Brand, I do have a website,
David Random dot com, but that's mostly my rocket ships
and the other the artwork that I do, and we're going.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
To talk about that again too in a future episode.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
So David, thank you.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Kay always a pleasure,
Hello, book lovers, and welcome to Author's Corner. Get ready
for a whirlwind tour of the latest and greatest reads
and the fascinating stories behind them.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Join us as we chat.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
With authors and newsmakers from all over the world, diving
into their journeys and creative processes. And now here's the
host of Author's Corner, the Emmy Award winning Kate Delay.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I am so thrilled as always to have a conversation anytime,
any day, anywhere with David Random.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
He is an.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Author, he is an artist, he's a former ad man,
and he has fabulous stories. And I think that's what
I just love about David so much. These are his books,
all of his books. This is his latest one, and
then of course we're going to talk about some of
these other ones as well. And I thought it'd be
fun to talk about Defying Gravity and other short stories
(00:51):
from a long career in advertising. And this is the
cover of the book, and you know, it's in pretty
good shape. I've had this for a while, but I
pick up and it's like a sacred book to me.
So I put it in a place where it doesn't
get all gnarly, and my coffee spills all over it
and somebody else picks something up. But what I love
about it is, and what I love about David's books
(01:14):
is that you can pick it up at any point
and read the short story and just get it. I
think you just get a good shuckle. Your humor is wonderful.
So David, always good to chat with you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Thank you, Kate, glad to be with you again. Let's
talk about define gravity first.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Let's set this up, so giving birth to this baby,
what was that feeling like?
Speaker 5 (01:35):
I being in advertising for so many decades, starting in
the late nineteen sixties, when if you've watched the show
mad Men, that's exactly like it was very chauvinistic and crazy,
and I was just so amazed at the things that
I would see, mostly behind the scenes in advertising that
(01:58):
people never or never realize, and also something's right out
front that were just astounding to me right out of college,
and I just started keeping a more a mental note
of all these things, thinking, oh, I should write these
down someday, and that's what I ended up doing, because
it's such a crazy business. Not so much anymore, I
(02:21):
think it's advertising has changed quite a bit, quite a
bit since my retirement and almost twenty years ago now.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And what do you think has changed the most about advertising?
I think one thing is that it's I think taken.
Speaker 5 (02:40):
More seriously now by not only people who create the ads,
but also by clients. We had some clients who would
push us over that we'd reach the stop point and
they'd say, oh, come on, go further, you can you know,
and he'd push us over that line of either good
taste or.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
You know something.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
And I think another thing that's changed, of course, is
the advent of computers.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
When I started, we didn't have any computers.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
So you had to do a layout for a magazine
ad with magic markers and do the type by hand,
and then it.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Would be mechanicalized.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
You'd have to send out to a typographic shop to
have them set the type according to your specs and
hire a photographer, of course, and that's changed so much,
people shooting their own photos, obviously setting their own type.
With the advent of computers, and you know, there's just
(03:40):
a lot that's changed. And TV commercials, for example, you
can't skip over the commercials like you can now. You know,
when you record a show or something, you had to
watch everything back then.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
You know, it's so clever that they do now in
advertising because of that reason that you can skip over
and people dvo things and they can fast forward through.
It is if you're watching something live, they have the
split screens and they have those short ads where you
have to hit them with like ten seconds. So you've
got to be clever right out of the gate, no
time to I mean, thirty seconds is short, but can
(04:15):
you imagine ten seconds?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Also the product placement.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
You see a lot of TV shows where they'll actually
be a product in the whether it's a sitcom or what,
and they'll actually name the product. It'll be part of
the plot. And that's you know, product placement that gets
paid for. Oh yeah, I may get pretty big dollars
for it, as you know.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
So I've made a list of I made a list
of some of my favorite I mean, I like everything
about this book, but I've made a list of some
of my favorite chapters.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And some of them that I came up with is
this one. How about this?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
God on for me, God on spaghetti, God on spaghetti,
tell me about that? So at first blush when someone
sees that God on spaghetti is like, what is that about.
I said that to somebody that I was talking to
the test and I said, Hey, what do you think
about God on spaghetti? And they just started laughing, what
are you talking about? And then I told them about
your books, so tell us about that little chapter.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
We had a.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
Client that was an Italian pasta company and they didn't advertise.
A lot of products that you see in supermarkets do
not advertise. They rely totally on their package. You know,
you're walking down the aisle, that's their only ad. And
in fact, that's how I buy wine, the big wine
(05:42):
connoisseur that I am. I just pick out whatever label
I like best. I like ones with animals on it.
But yeah, the pasta company was Italian pasta. It was
not made in the United States with some Italian sounding name.
It was actually from Italy and their product I decided
(06:08):
to have like a clear cellophane window on the front
so you could see in and see what kind of
pasta it was. And what I did was for the visual.
And this is this is the only time that I
know of I could be wrong. This is the only
(06:28):
time I know of where a product on its package
had an actual depiction of God, not Jesus God. It's
from Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
where God reaches out his finger and Adam's finger. It
(06:48):
comes close, not quite touching in the painting, and that
was like God giving birth to man.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
And I use that as the image on the package.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
And right below their fingers where they almost touched is
where this oval of cellophane was where you see the pasta.
And you know, so it was I mean, it's two
naked men on the package, and it was you know,
how could women resist that?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Right? It was mostly women who bought the food products
in those days. That was I wanted to.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Have the the slogan let's see what was it? Oh?
I just wanted to say in quotes underneath God, that's
good pasta, but that was nixed at the last minute.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I would have loved that. Was it a successful campaign?
I think it would have been really interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
They sold, Yeah, they sold a lot of product.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
I wouldn't call it a campaign, but that's you know,
they ended up selling a lot of products in supermarkets.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Nice, God on pasta. So we go from God on
pasta and define gravity to which that line is God
that's good pasta. How about the truth in advertising? The
truth about truth in advertising? And we talked a little bit.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
About how the ad game has changed.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Yes, yes, truth is something that there are a lot
of ways to come at this. But truth is something
that is not always something that.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Happens in advertising. To some extent, it has to happen.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
There are organizations, government organizations that oversee product. Like if
you make a claim in a TV commercial that this
brand tastes our brand tastes better than this brand, and
you need to have in order to say that and
(08:44):
be legal, you need to have independent studies done that actually,
you know, taste tests that prove that people like the
taste of your product better. So you can't you can't
just say anything you want in in an ad or
a TV commercial. But there there is government oversight of that,
(09:07):
and a lot of people don't realize that. They think, oh,
advertisers say anything they want. Another way to see truth
in advertising is what we called accepted premise. If you
tell people a couple things about a product that they
already know, you know, they start nodding their heads, yeah yeah,
(09:31):
in their mind, mentally nodding their heads. And then you
add a third thing that they may not know about,
but because you've got them nodding their heads and okay,
these Peo people are telling me what you know, what
I already know.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
That's the truth. That's the truth, and.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
They accept the third thing that you throw in that
may be a little questionable. And you know, one thing
that comes to mind is I think it was Jamaica
where in their ads they say, come to Jamaica where
the weather is warm. People know that, and so are
(10:07):
the people. Well, the people may not be any different
than any place else in the world, but people it's
accepted premise. You've told them one thing that they agree with,
so the next thing that you say, okay, that must
be true too.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
He's telling me a list of true things. Wow, that's
so interesting.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
And you can see if people are watching, as of course,
we're listening to this, because either way, you can probably
think in your mind of some of those examples that
you've seen in advertising.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
There's a lot of those.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Volkswagen and a lot of people won't
remember this, but way back when when Volkswagen first came
to you know, the United States, back in the sixties,
they talked about there was one ad I remember was
a print ad that said it's ugly but it gets
you there.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Well, they were kind.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
Of detigrating their own product, but it was okay because
people could already see what it looked like.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
They make up their own mind, well, that doesn't look
too bad.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
So whether they thought it was good looking or not,
you're not telling them anything. They can't decide for themselves.
It's not like how something tastes before they buy it.
They can see what it looks like. And so when
you've told them it's ugly but it gets you there,
it's like, okay, Wow, they're telling me.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
They're telling me some bad things about their product, how
ugly it looks, so all these other things they're telling
me that. You know, if they're telling me that the
truth about that, all the other things about low maintenance
costs and how it never breaks down, those things must
be true also, so you know, it's kind of accepted premise.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Accepted premise, that's something to walk away with, all right.
And if I didn't have a list, I would just
be going off in all kinds of directions because I
was like, oh, I have to narrow it, so we
don't want to give everything away, all your secrets, but
this was another one I liked. I liked you know
that one of the things that you pointed out in
there was the ninety nine cents cigarettes. And I and
(12:12):
I had a grandmother, because it was a different time,
my great grandmother smoked, and I can remember we'd be
we had a summer seashore house and there would be
these shells and they would be filled with cigarette butts
and my grandther's a heat beautiful lady, and now it
would be so people would be so aghast. But ninety
nine cents, and it was the same thing that you said,
They just told you this is the deal.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
Yeah, well that I when I first started in advertising
back in the sixties late sixties, I promised myself that
I would never advertise cigarettes. Well, you know, being our
director at an ad agency, if they have a cigarette account,
you're working on it, you know, you can't say no no.
I refuse to do that. So to get around that,
(12:58):
when it came time for me to do an ad
for a brand of cigarettes which is now gone by
the wayside, I can't even remember what the brand was.
In fact, but it was not for the cigarette itself,
but it was for a line of convenience stores that
we had as a client that had hundreds of stores
(13:19):
in the New York City and Boston area. It was
a very urban kind of store that was open all night,
twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
And the.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Cigarette ad that I did, and the client actually liked this.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
In order to get.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
Around my saying, oh, I'll never advertise cigarettes, the client
let me do an ad that just was no, you know,
beautiful people sitting on the sands of a beach or
palm trees around to let you think, to lull you
into a fall sense of thinking, oh, this is healthy product,
(14:02):
and you know it makes you very popular, good looking.
It was just a picture, unadorned of just the package
of cigarettes, and in huge type, bigger than the photograph
of the product. It simply said, bad habit, great price.
I love that great price.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Right, And that bailed you out too, because you know
it's exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
So it's perfect, So define gravity. What do you hope
people take away from reading this very funny, clever book.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
A couple things. First of all, I hope they laugh,
and I love short stories anyway. It's just like you said,
you can read, spend ten minutes reading one put the
book down, come back to it a.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Week later if you want.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
But what I hope people take away from this is
learning about just the crazy things that happened behind the
scenes in advertising, things that people don't realize. For example,
people think that supermarkets, for example, make their money selling products.
(15:15):
Well they, yeah, they make a little money selling products.
But you know, you sell a can of Campbell soup,
which is one of the most popular items on the
shelf in a supermarket, they don't make that much money
on the product.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
They make money.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
By by allowing that company, Campbell Soup company, to show
their product on their store shelves.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It's like they're selling real estate. So this is called
a slotting fee. That's where supermarkets make their money.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
And you know, it's things like that that I'd like
people to take away, things that they might not have
ever realized otherwise, or crazy thing that happened behind the
scenes that people don't talk about.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
They don't talk about. You're right, well, this has been
as light as always. Next time around, we're going to
talk about this.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Book Rebles Travels and then Random Acts of Blindness too
as well, because this is your latest and this is
certainly one in the collection of many, many, many wonderful
books that.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
You have out there. So we'll do it again next time.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
David Random, where can people find you?
Speaker 5 (16:30):
They can find me at author David Random dot com.
All my books are on there, David Random dot com.
I like it, Author David Random dot com.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
How easy is.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
That to remember, David Brand, I do have a website,
David Random dot com, but that's mostly my rocket ships
and the other the artwork that I do, and we're going.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
To talk about that again too in a future episode.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
So David, thank you.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Kay always a pleasure,
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