Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful

Ellen’s black glass table constantly needed dusting.

She kept a bottle of Windex and roll of paper towel in her shiny black credenza where, in earlier decades, would’ve been a bottle of whisky and set of highball glasses.

In the center of the glass table sat Ellen’s week-by-week calendar, whose entries only had her elegant handwriting in red, black and green ink. If I scheduled a meeting, an interview or a presentation for her, she insisted I write the details on a Post-It note and leave it on top of the right column, so she could later re-write it in herself.

She liked the desk clean and bare, though in the corner of the table was usually a recent fashion or shelter magazine like Vogue or Elle Décor. Every six months, I would overnight boxes of the archive to her home in the back woods of Connecticut, where she lived with her artist husband and beloved German Shepherd. I’d imagine she (or her maid) carefully unpacking the box and lovingly adding them chronologically to an endless wall of bookshelves, with issues dating back to the late sixties when the world began.

I had much to learn from her and the other creative directors as an assistant.
I loved hearing from Ellen about the ra-ra days of seventies and eighties advertising. Television and print ad campaigns I knew only from award books, people like Bill Bernbach and Mary Wells, glamorous parties full of martinis and drugs.

As in each of my six interviews to become a group assistant at the agency, I confessed my ambitions to become a copywriter. Without a portfolio, I knew, the creative assistant job was the best doorway in to learn about advertising and to get some writing assignments from generous creative directors for whom I would answer the phone, paste up storyboards, make travel arrangements, handle expense reports, timesheets and do research.

My interview with Ellen, most of all, was fantastic.
After graduating from Smith as an English major (like me), Ellen too started as a creative assistant. Of course, she would help me. As the creative director on the Avon account, there was plenty of work and opportunity. I only needed to do the basics as her assistant -- and the opportunities would flow. Then I got to hear how she used to iron her hair.

Attitude is a big part of advertising, and the late eighties were a highpoint of it. For Charivari, Kirshenbaum & Bond created “Wake us When It’s Over” In fact, advertising people usually build their careers on one or two memorable campaigns, for which they are forever known and depending on how many awards they win, helps command how deep into the six figures their salaries go. When I met Ellen, her biggest accomplishment was penning the Pantene shampoo theme line “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful.”

The attitude in the line perfectly captures the unabashed and unforgiving nature of what many people thought was one of the toughest and meanest advertising women working. I would witness Ellen's wrath daily – screaming at account managers for not thinking, screaming at junior staffers for sloppiness, screaming at media planners for not enough full page spreads and sometimes even at clients for not knowing as much as she does about beauty, skincare and persuasive communication. Luckily, she never yelled at me. I probably would've crumbled.

Management tolerated her behavior, since she was a ‘legend’ and ran a powerful and important account. Like the old Hollywood star system, yes. This was the early nineties, after all, and advertising was still considered the center of brand marketing.

I waited with baited breath for assignments from her and from the other five creative directors for whom I worked.
Like I did for other creative directors, I did tons of unsolicited research on her products, leaving her articles on her desk (neatly), with provocative insights and compelling facts highlighted. One night, for Avon, I was up reading about what it was like to be a woman approaching forty and I wrote her a passionate manifesto with tagline ideas and even TV scripts. Nothing came of it, and over time, I gave up and instead embraced work on Nabisco and other accounts, flowing from other creative directors.

I also got my own portfolio together, worked on some new business pitches, including the successful one for AT&T business. After eighteenth months, I was promoted to junior copywriter and worked on radio, print, TV and even early internet assignments for several creative directors, occasionally including Ellen.

Parting shots
After some big account losses, though, including cuts at a big client, my art director partner Rajiv and I were laid off with about fifty others.

As I left, I asked human resources for my past year’s performance review. I was curious to see what each creative director I was working for thought of me, and figured it would help when I interviewed with new agencies.

Most reviews were great, or good, or at least constructive. I was full of ideas, I had a lot of energy, I needed work in this area or that. Twenty years later, though, Ellen’s exact review still sticks out in my mind. She wrote “Mat should consider becoming an account executive; he’s not really a good writer.”

Not a good writer, huh? I was stung by the assault on my craft and chosen professional and also annoyed that she never hinted at this nor did anything to test me out or tell me. Instead she put it in writing that would be part of my staff record. I wouldn’t know until it was too late.

The subjects of Ellen’s wrath were lucky. They knew how she felt about them.

I had to wait until she didn’t need me to answer her phone.