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ghporter · May 17, 2006, 08:10 PM

These horror stories sound like the crap my mom's ad agency had to go through with local advertisers. Ollie Fretter in the Detroit area wanted to be in every one of his ads and commercials. He was HORRIBLE! He LOOKED like a used car salesman! His ads looked like a junior high shop class had put them gogether. Ollie if you're out there, you WERE that bad!

ort888 · May 18, 2006, 11:03 AM

We've got a lot of guys who want to be in their ads. The funny thing is, everyone of them is butt ugly. One guy looks EXACTLY like Borat from the Ali G show.

Salty · May 18, 2006, 12:42 PM

Ha we had a guy in Winnipeg who wanted to be in his furniture shop's TV ads, they were THE WORST commercials ever. You can tell he wrote them himself then hired professionals to make it look good but... there's only so much you can do.

olePigeon · May 18, 2006, 01:16 PM

Howdy, friends, it's Crazy Ernie from "Crazy Ernie's Used Car Emporium!"

It's a giant supermarket of cars!

I got red cars, I got green cars, I got enough cars to choke a camel! Tell you what, friends.

If nobody comes down and buys a car from me in the next hour, I'm gonna club this baby seal.

That's right, I'll club this seal to make a better deal.

And you know I'd do it, too... cause I'm crazy!

Severed Hand of Skywalker · May 18, 2006, 01:21 PM

Originally Posted by wallinbl

Dude, you're paying for the space, you better fill it up! If not, you'd better get a discount for the parts you left empty.

It was their own magazine.

DigitalEl · May 18, 2006, 03:10 PM

I'm gonna take the unpopular devil's advocate position here.

First off, MrsLarry, I feel your pain. As a creative person, it sucks to have your stuff messed with. However... As a onetime advertising manager, there are times when the art gets in the way of the message.

[long response deleted]

IMHO, just as artists need to trust the people who employ them in knowing how they want to present their message... Marketing types need to trust the artists they employ to have an active hand in meeting that goal. Not every ad can be high art, but they don't all have to look like a Sunday paper car dealer insert either.

DigitalEl · May 18, 2006, 03:16 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

These horror stories sound like the crap my mom's ad agency had to go through with local advertisers. Ollie Fretter in the Detroit area wanted to be in every one of his ads and commercials. He was HORRIBLE!

Anybody in Phoenix remember the old Howie World furniture store spots?

Picture an obese guy in a cowboy hat, holding two six-shooters. "How-eeeeeeee World... <fires guns one at a time> Shootin' down the competition!"

Or what about you Pittsburghers? Remember Century III Chevrolet?

Picture the lyrics at the bottom of the screen, with the bouncing ball pointer like on kiddy sing-along shows. "Century Three Chev-ro-let... Lebanon Church Road, Pittsburgh."

Say what you want about how bad these spots are, but it's years later and they're still in my head.

El Gato · May 18, 2006, 03:34 PM

Originally Posted by DigitalEl

Anybody in Phoenix remember the old Howie World furniture store spots?

Picture an obese guy in a cowboy hat, holding two six-shooters. "How-eeeeeeee World... <fires guns one at a time> Shootin' down the competition!".

:: shoots DigitalEl for reminding me of that phat bastard ::

Todd Madson · May 18, 2006, 03:46 PM

Or in Minneapolis there was a Dodge dealer in Burnsville that had a catchy
jingle to the tune of "Do you know the way to San Jose?" that went:

"Do you know the way,
to Burnsville Dodge,
Dodge of burnsville,
Takethefreakingexitrightoffhighway42overtowherever theheckweare"
(last line crams the directions in an impossibly syllaballic way).
Then at the end they said "Do you know the way to Dodge of Burnsville?"
Pause with a beat then "You should."

ACK!

The funny thing is that I used to do the graphic design thing too and
finally got fed up with places that didn't pay well, constantly meddled
in design decisions and then imposed impossible deadlines using
equipment that was too slow to meet them ("Hi, we need these 111
35mm slides generated from a Mac IIci in 15 minutes?" "No chance
in hell, sorry.")

I ended up being an IT person and then used my design skills on my
website and music CD projects. Not ideal but art became fun again
and it was at my leisure and discretion.

Of course, then computers became a little less fun but it all adds up.

Salty · May 19, 2006, 01:02 PM

Oh I can say I'm doing a fun creative project that I can happily say the "customer" is happy with and hasn't asked for any changes! Granted it's a cartoon for their wedding invites that I'm doing for free. But they're doing a super hero theme so I'm drawing them both dressed up kinda like super man and wonder woman. Anyway this is the groom, I still have to do the bride.

Apparently he was so excited about it that he dragged her out of bed this morning and was excited like a little school boy.

EFFENDI · 02:51 AM

Lose the soul patch....or extend the smile further across the face.

At first glance, it looks like there is something wrong with his mouth.

Salty · May 23, 2006, 03:17 AM

They're happy with him. That said the bride's cartoon is requiring the face to be reworked multiple times. Sadly I don't have any good photos of my own that I've taken of her.

MrsLarry · Jul 24, 2006, 01:55 PM

Originally Posted by MrsLarry

i have a non-designer here at work (I AM the designer) who just pisses me off every chance she gets. Her job is a higher level than mine, but she is not my superior, nor is she even in my department. she's a mediator between our company and the client. but she feels the need to put her two sense into everything that comes out of my department, and tosses just about everything back with her revisions before it goes out. so our client doesn't get to see what I design, rather, the sad little skeleton of what I designed, ripped apart by someone who doesn't know any better. Some phrases i'm particularly tired of hearing:

"there's a lot of empty space here, can you find a picture to take up some space?"
"let's make this line bold so it 'pops' "
"this needs to 'pop' - can you just make it red or something?"

POP, POP, POP - i wanna POP you in the face!

The worst has happened!!!! Re-structuring, guess who's my new boss.... somebody help!!!!

Dakar · Jul 24, 2006, 01:59 PM

Oh, good lord, no.

Chuckit · Jul 24, 2006, 02:02 PM

If you don't have children, walk. There are a lot of design places on God's green earth.

andi*pandi · Jul 24, 2006, 02:15 PM

I feel your pain. Run, don't walk, to monster.com, aiga.com, aquent.com, etc.

Kr0nos · Jul 24, 2006, 03:15 PM

Originally Posted by MrsLarry

The worst has happened!!!! Re-structuring, guess who's my new boss.... somebody help!!!!

Heh. I had a similar problem a few weeks ago when I was working on a website with a 'designer' (went to college for 'graphic arts') and I ended up doing the whole thing including picking the colors, the general layout and the coding of the site (even-though, I was supposed to do only the HTML and CSS etc.)

After reviewing the site she said that the text needs more 'air to breathe' and the site was too 'red' blah…

I basically told her that I don't give a f*ck what she thinks, and that my only concern was, wether the customer was happy with it or not, to which she replied '…I don't care what the customer thinks. I'm the one going to design school and I know about this kinda stuff…'

I asked her to logically and objectively tell me what was wrong with the content area, to which she just replied '…well, I can't - I just have a feeling for these kinds of things blah blah blah'

At that point my BS meter went way off the scale and I just ignored her from then on.

Point is, there are OBJECTIVE criteria for design, typography, color scheemes etc. People who are in charge of creative departments should know about these things and be able to justify their decisions objectively. Anything else is horse manure.

A funny side-note, during the project she asked me what I was using to design the site, and I told her 'Dreamweaver', to which she replied 'Oh, I thought you were going to do it in CSS…'

Rumor · Jul 24, 2006, 03:23 PM

Take a ping pong ball, use a syringe and fill it with bleach, put a band-aid over the puncture, insert ping pong ball into her gas tank, walk away.

Jawbone54 · Jul 24, 2006, 03:26 PM

Originally Posted by Rumor

Take a ping pong ball, use a syringe and fill it with bleach, put a band-aid over the puncture, insert ping pong ball into her gas tank, walk away.

Ooooooo...

Shaddim · Jul 24, 2006, 03:50 PM

Originally Posted by MrsLarry

'pop'inated

That's quite an impressive pair you have, they pop nicely.

Ok, this is a quote from an old post, but no one else said it so, neh!

Jul 25, 2006, 06:24 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

These horror stories sound like the crap my mom's ad agency had to go through with local advertisers. Ollie Fretter in the Detroit area wanted to be in every one of his ads and commercials. He was HORRIBLE! He LOOKED like a used car salesman! His ads looked like a junior high shop class had put them gogether. Ollie if you're out there, you WERE that bad!

Life-long D'town-er here...

HAHA - I haven't thought of good 'ol Ollie in YEARS! From what I remember, he was a round, balding, sweaty guy and was in all of his ads. I think at the end of the retail run, though, they went to using a caricature in the print ads (??).

Personally, I was a Highland Appliance guy, myself.

MrsLarry · Dec 1, 2006, 01:51 PM

Originally Posted by MrsLarry

The worst has happened!!!! Re-structuring, guess who's my new boss.... somebody help!!!!

Ok, I promise this is the last time I revive this thread....

I'm freeeeeeeeee!!!! She was canned this morning. she got pulled from a meeting yesterday right before 5 for being nasty to the CEO (her boss, well, her former boss). I heard things like "don't interrupt me" "don't talk to me like that" "you just want to disagree with everyone" "that's it, in my office, NOW!" coming from the conference room.

Christmas came early!!! Wahooooo!

Gossamer · Dec 1, 2006, 01:57 PM

Congrats

Dakar² · Dec 1, 2006, 02:06 PM

Get smashed tonight.

Edit: Any chance you get her position?

Rumor · Dec 1, 2006, 02:10 PM

I still think you should take up Greenamp's offer.

Edit: Dakar, you sig needs more red.

EFFENDI · Dec 1, 2006, 04:53 PM

Time to celebrate.

Dakar² · Dec 1, 2006, 04:56 PM

Originally Posted by Rumor

I still think you should take up Greenamp's offer.

Edit: Dakar, you sig needs more red.

I shall bathe it in the blood of my enemies.

MrsLarry · Dec 1, 2006, 04:59 PM

Originally Posted by Dakar�

Edit: Any chance you get her position?

Unfortunately no, we come from different backgrounds, she dealt with clients' accounts directly, I don't have experience (or interest, for that matter) in that.

Dakar² · Dec 1, 2006, 05:00 PM

Yeah, screw dealing with actual people. Coworkers are bad enough.

olePigeon · Dec 1, 2006, 05:16 PM

Originally Posted by MrsLarry

I heard things like "don't interrupt me" "don't talk to me like that" "you just want to disagree with everyone" "that's it, in my office, NOW!" coming from the conference room. ... Unfortunately no, we come from different backgrounds, she dealt with clients' accounts directly, I don't have experience (or interest, for that matter) in that.

This is right outta Office Space.

Bob: Well, what would you say… you do here?

Tom: Well, look, I already told you. I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to!! I have people skills!! I am good at dealing with people!!! Can't you understand that?!? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!!!!!!!

vexborg · Dec 2, 2006, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by MrsLarry

Unfortunately no, we come from different backgrounds, she dealt with clients' accounts directly, I don't have experience (or interest, for that matter) in that.

Weehey! At least you got rid of her now... Congrats and enjoy!