A friend of mine was in Dublin recently, and was told a story about a small advertising agency there. The great international conglomerate Wilsons’s Nails had decided to focus its latest publicity on its origins in 1843 as a small factory producing nails in Wisconsin. In keeping with this image, the company had decided to use not one of the slick international agencies but a small, relatively unknown agency, and had announced a competition for the work.
Ryan and Connelly knew it was a long shot, but if it came off it would make their fortune, and they put everything they had into it, working 24/7, and turned up at the company’s headquarters with high hopes.
As the smallest of the competitors they were the last to make their presentation to the vice-president for public relations. It was a video of an ancient city’s streets, crowded with stalls and people. A subtitle announced “Jerusalem, Easter, 33 AD”. It tracked through the streets, through the gate, towards a dusty hill in the distance, angelic music rising. It closed in on three figures, men in loincloths handing on crosses, and then right in close to a nailed hand. As the music ended, a voice-over urged the listeners: “For those really important jobs, use Wilson’s Nails.”
The vice-president hit the roof. Wilsons’s Nails was a mid-West company,bedded in Christian history. The president was a born-again Christian. Their most important customers were born-again Christians. The religious right was on a high. And Connelly wanted an advert that implied Wilson’s Nails were used for the crucifixion!
Connelly did a U-turn. Noo, no, no, of course he realised they had made a horrible mistake, and was truly grateful to the VP for showing him the error of his ways. But if they’d only give the company a second chance, they would, he guaranteed, come up with something completely different. As for this trial, it was a dreadful mistake, but after all the VP had to admit it was memorable. Give them a month and Ryan and Connelly would come up with something just as memorable, but with a utterly opposite theme.
And he got away with it. In the end the VP agreed, and next month Ryan and Connelly returned triumphant, with “exactly what you want, just like you explained it to us”. They turned on the video.
It showed an ancient city’s streets, crowded with stalls and people, and the VP’s eyes started to bulge.
“No, no,” said Ryan. “We had to use some of the same footage that’s all, but the message is just the opposite. You’ll see!”
The camera panned through the city gates, up the road towards Golgotha, but suddenly there appeared a bearded man in a loincloth, hotly pursued by two Roman soldiers. As he sprinted past, the camera briefly showed the holes in his hands and feet where he had torn himself down from the cross.
The soldiers in their heavy armour gave up the chase and stood gasping in exhaustion. Then one of them looked gloomily at the other. “You see,” he said reproachfully. “I told you we should have used Wilson’s Nails.”