“There’s never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.” A quote attributed to many and experienced by many, many more.
Expedience has always been in the lifeblood of marketing and advertising. After all, the quicker the campaign gets out the door the quicker the leads and revenue start rolling in. However, while moving forward is it’s own reward, progress should never impede quality.
Here’s an example of the “do over” that wasn’t. This story will resonate with ad professionals and fans of America’s favorite pastime, baseball.
Tug McGraw – Phillies Famed Lefthander
In 1980, the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series for the first time in their long and frustrating history. They beat the Kansas City Royals, relying heavily on their star relief pitcher, Tug McGraw.
McGraw was a feisty Irishman with a fierce fastball, a physics defying curveball, and the attitude of a winner. He was a hero for the New York Mets before being traded to the Phillies where he became a superhero (and All Star) southpaw relief pitcher.
When he struck out Willie Wilson to seal the World Series title, he leaped in the air with his arms extended and he screamed. There’s no record of his scream but the photo of his leap became famous, never forgotten by us Phillies lovers.
Ken Mandel wrote “The image of Frank Edwin (Tug) McGraw leaping skyward off the Veterans Stadium mound after recording the most important out in Phillies history is first in the hearts of local fans.”
Tug was a guy who loved to have fun and knew how to make it happen. Soon he was doing a sports show on a regional ABC television station. He also did an outstanding job reciting “Casey at the Bat” at the beloved Philly Pops Orchestra.
“Tug”ging at Buyers’ Heartstrings
Among other things, Tug was just a plain nice guy. Therefore, he was responsive when my advertising agency needed someone to endorse a promotion to be run by one of our national clients. The promotion had to do with over three hundred distributors from all fifty states. We needed Tug’s picture in his Phillies uniform for the cover of the campaign brochure. We also needed a picture of him as an ethereal background for the copy inside.
Our client loved the idea, and Tug was his usual champion self with how helpful he was. The oversized brochure was written, designed, produced and printed. It was shipped to our client and I found a copy on my desk when I came to the office the next day.
The brochure looked good on first glance. Upon closer examination though we had what could be a huge problem on our hands…or more specifically Tug’s hand. The picture showed Tug in the background for the copy just as planned. He was throwing a pitch, just as planned. He was right handed. Let me reiterate; Tug McGraw, a man as famous as Rocky Balboa for being a lefty was…right…handed in the picture. Not such a small error. I knew the approximate cost to have the brochure done. It was a lot of money. In those days, technology was not nearly as advanced as it is today, or anywhere near as forgiving in correcting errors. To say the costs to rectify this mistake would be high is an understatement.
I called the client immediately. Being simply a nice guy, he told me not to worry because, “No one who matters will even notice.” I reminded him that several of his co-workers were Phillies fans along with many of his potential clients. He acknowledged my concerns, but insisted we shouldn’t worry.
He was right. I kept a copy as a keepsake after showing it to Tug. Predictably, nice guy Tug found it funny, even interesting. Many years later, about three weeks before Tug passed away, he and I attended a community event. He called me and asked me to bring the brochure. I thought he wanted it. Laughing, he signed it and returned it to me saying, “This thing might be worth something someday.”
Lessons Learned?
First off, I was damn lucky to be dealing with such a nice client and celebrity. To flip Tug’s visage and then go back to print would have cost a lot of people a lot of time and money. Secondly, I was lucky the market didn’t notice either. Because of one “slipped through the cracks” proof, the campaign could have gone from a stupendous success to an egregious embarrassment (part of me shudders to think of this faux pas being committed in the age of social media where every asset is evergreen).
I console myself with the knowledge that this ad was developed in a different age. It was a time when project tracking was handled on corkboards not automated ad agency software, digital asset management systems were job jackets and not digital at all, and Gantt charts tracking interdependencies consisted of someone we would have named Gantt sitting in a room staring at the aforementioned corkboard.
Ultimately, diligent review must be delicately counterbalanced with fast cycles. Asset review and tracking systems are far more sophisticated than back in my heyday, which is a huge boon to deadlines. However, these systems should always supplement the human review process since no piece of software is as much of a baseball fan as their human counterparts (Editor’s Note: Not yet Allan).
