The Ad Man Answers #61

Thursday + Gregory Huffstutter = The Ad Man Answers

Continuing our interview series with Ex-Advertising-Folks, this week The Ad Man brings you Part 1 of a conversation with Marshall Karp, author of “Rabbit Factory,” “Blood Thirsty,” and the recently-released “Flipping Out” (Minotaur).

 

Marshall Karp was the EVP/Exec. Creative Director at Lowe and Partners, creating such award winning campaigns as “Thank You, Paine Webber,” and supervising accounts like Grey Poupon, Citibank Visa, and Sprite.

 

He left advertising to write sitcoms in Hollywood, then returned to work at McCann-Erickson International where he oversaw such global businesses as UPS, Gillette, and Coca-Cola. In 1994, he founded Compelling Content, building it with clients like Chase, Royal Caribbean, and Schering-Plough. In 1999, he sold Compelling and began to pursue a life of crime. 

 

If you’d like to win a signed copy of Marshall’s “Flipping Out,” be sure to leave a comment in response to our question at the bottom of this weeks’ column.

 

And with that, on to our chat:

 

 

Marshall, your novels are Hiaasen-without-treehugging, laugh-out-loud funny in parts.  Was humor something you were known for in the ad biz?  

 

That’s the equivalent of asking Pam Anderson if anyone noticed her tits before Baywatch.  For better or for worse, humor is something I’ve been known for since grade school.  (We all can’t be voted most likely to succeed.  Somebody’s got to be Class Clown.)

 

Advertising was not my first career choice, but after I flunked out of Funeral Director School, I decided to look for a business that welcomes, encourages, or at least tolerates comedy.

 

Being funny was both an asset and a liability for me in the advertising business.  It pays off great when you have a beer client, but it can backfire when you’re trying to sell yeast infection suppositories.

 

I did a lot of award-winning work in my early days in advertising, but the punishment for being a successful copywriter is to promote you to Creative Director, and pay you extra not to write.  I enjoyed supervising other creative people, but after five years I was jealous of all the fun they were having.  So that summer I wrote a play — a comedy, Squabbles.  A Hollywood studio noticed it, and for the next five years, I had a development deal to write pilots for sitcoms, while still juggling all the responsibilities of running a 60-person Creative Dept. 

 

Thousands of people in television write pilots.  Very few go from paper to video.  When my first pilot got picked up for series, I turned down a job.  I couldn’t trade a career in advertising for a six-episode commitment.  But when the second one got picked up, I was deep in the throes of a mid-life crisis.  So I left advertising and headed for Hollywood.  It didn’t hurt that my agency left the door open for me to come back.

 

Here’s the irony: for many years while I was in advertising, I was that guy who writes sitcoms on nights and weekends.  But once I got into the three-jokes-per-page world of half-hour comedy, I was that guy from advertising.

 

What aspects of your advertising career helped you deal with working in Hollywood and the publishing industry?

 

Drugs and alcohol.  They worked in advertising, and they worked in show business. 

 

Beyond that, the single most important thing I learned in the advertising business was how to think like my target audience. I learned it from strategic planners, from smart account people, and from sitting behind hundreds of two-way mirrors listening to real people talk about their lives.

 

Understanding what makes people tick is a valuable skill.  It makes you a better ad guy, a better author, a better blogger, a better veterinarian … the list goes on.

 

You really make an attempt to brand your main characters —  Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs — giving them individual bio pages on your author website, which itself is called LomaxandBiggs.com.  What was your thought behind going that route, instead of pumping up "Marshall Karp", the author?  

 

Who would you rather hang out with?  Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster?  Or Superman?  The first two guys invented The Man Of Steel.  But Superman — he’s the brand.

 

When I was a copywriter, a lot of people knew my commercials, but they didn’t know who created them.  When I wrote for TV, nobody tuned in to see what Marshall wrote.  People come back to the same TV show week after week because they want the predictable emotional experience they get from the characters.  So when my first book was published, I had trouble coming to grips with the fact that readers wanted to connect with the author.  And that – gulp — was me.

 

That makes me the brand, or at least part of it, and I had trouble dealing with the loss of anonymity.  My solution was to try to share the spotlight with my characters, even to the point that I sometimes let them write the blogs.  But in the end, much of the promotion I do focuses on me.  Witness this interview.  You’ve directed all your questions at me, not Mike Lomax (who is much more thoughtful than I am) or Terry Biggs (who is a hell of a lot funnier). 

 

Who handled your recent website re-design?  Was that funded by your publisher, or did you tap your old advertising contacts?

 

In 1993, I added Executive Creative Director of McCann Interactive to my responsibilities at McCann Erickson, so I was involved in the Internet long before Al Gore invented it.  In 1995, I opened my own dotcom agency, Compelling Content.

 

I was lucky enough to have a foundation of twenty plus years in advertising, which is how I could compete with all those young kids with blue hair and nose rings who could make the client’s logo spin.  I had gray hair and marketing chops — a winning combination in the days when clients were still saying what’s a website and why do we need one?

 

You can learn a lot in the pioneer days.  But as much as I might know about communicating online, I still don’t do Photoshop or html.  So lomaxandbiggs.com is a collaboration.  I did a lot of the architecture and the planning, then I worked with a design team who makes it all happen.  They are incredibly talented and I found them on the Internet.  It’s not my publisher’s responsibility to pay them.  It’s mine.  Which also means I have control.

 

Do you struggle with being the product of a publishing house, instead of being the ad guy deciding how to best sell a client's product?  How are you and Minotaur going about marketing 'Flipping Out'?

 

I’ve given up the struggle. My publisher put up the money and I’m their product.  Correction — one of their products.  They have hundreds of authors to market. 

 

Three years ago, when The Rabbit Factory was released, I flew from city to city appearing at bookstores.  Expensive — and not very cost effective.  Times have changed.  With my third book, Flipping Out, I’ve barely left the house.  In April, I did a 30 day blog tour. 

 

I contacted 30 different bloggers, sent them a copy of my book, and they in turn interviewed me for their blogs — just like you’re doing here.  A blog a day — and each one turns out to be very different.  This interview is advertising-centric.  Others want to know about my road to publication.  And then there are people like author JA Konrath who asked me questions like, Do you know any cool famous people? Have you ever gotten stoned with any of them and accidentally killed a tranny hooker?  Or… In a movie about your life, who would play me? You can also say who would co-star as you.

It’s a smart way to market these days.  And the best part about it, is you can sell lots of books without having to wear pants.

 

 

To be continued in the next Ad Man column 6/4, where Marshall talks about Twittering and working with James Patterson…

 

 

In the meantime, how would you like a chance to win a free, signed copy of the new Lomax & Biggs’ mystery, “Flipping Out”?

 

All you have to do is let us know your favorite wisecracking literary character.  Personally, I’m an unabashed Gregory McDonald fan, so my vote goes to Irwin Maurice Fletcher aka “Fletch.”  

 

Who’s yours??  A winner will be chosen randomly from everyone who leaves a comment after either of our 2-part interview with Marshall.

 

 

Gregory Huffstutter has been punching Ad Agency timecards for the past dozen years, working on accounts like McDonald's, KIA Motors, Suzuki Automotive, and the San Diego Padres. His first mystery, KATZ CRADLE is on submission while he's working on the sequel. The first 100 pages of his novel are linked here. For general advertising questions, leave a comment or send e-mail to katz @ gregoryhuffstutter dot com with 'Ask The Ad Man' in the subject line.

Comments

[Stephen D. Rogers]

Having just finished The Maltese Falcon, I have to say I enjoyed the wit of Sam Spade.

[m.m.]

I gotta throw my hat in the ring for Robert Crais' Elvis Cole.

[Debbie]

I have to vote for either Stephanie Plum or Terry Biggs :)

[Rebecca Cox]

Marino from the Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell. Even though it is a very serious crime series, Marino always has some wise crack or comeback.

[Vintage Rings]

Interesting post, but I late to your contest. I think twenty years i advertising it's very respectable! I would like to read your book, where can I find it? Thanks for your post and good luck!