Veto Power

Originally published within "Under the Covers," from Signature Magazine, 9/16/21

You may recall that AM&P hosted a little virtual get-together back in June. They called it “Reset, Reinvent, Revenue 2021,” and I’m sure we all hoped at the time that it would be the last remote gathering of this type for the duration. On the second day of the two-day event, my company hosted what was billed as a Lunchtime Social. This was to be an hour-long networking session, organized around a group participation project, that was intended to provide attendees with a diversion from the more serious-minded programming found elsewhere during the event. We decided to enlist attendees in brainstorming the cover of this issue of Signature.

As someone whose job entails the daily receipt of unsolicited creative advice, I cannot adequately express the trepidation with which I approached this opportunity. There’s an old saw in advertising that the quality of an ad can be estimated in inverse proportion to the number of people who contributed to it. How could a crowd-sourced cover produce anything but the world’s ugliest camel (to mix in another hoary metaphor about committee thinking)?

Two things saved us. 1) We were lucky enough to field a team of 25 or so thoughtful, engaged, and downright funny conference attendees; and 2) We remorselessly subverted the most basic tenets of Democracy. I hear that’s the new thing.

Our brainstorming sessions were organized in Zoom breakout rooms. We randomly split attendees into one of three teams, each of which spent just under 30 minutes working against the only two slivers of direction we provided: The cover should be a reflection of the EXCEL Awards, which had been presented the previous day; and it should incorporate a capital ‘X,’ which has been the EXCEL issue’s defining design element for at least the past decade. Our teams were then funneled back into our main Zoom room to trade pitches for their respective ideas and vote on a winner.

My own team decided to riff on language inspired by the Re/Re/Re pattern of the event title. We scribbled down inspiring words like “re-emerge,” “reset,” “renew,” “rebirth,” “rejuvenation,” and the one I have circled in my notes for some reason, “resilient.” While I don’t recall us settling on specific wording for the headline, our visual concept consisted of a shiny, golden ‘X,’ having just shed the detritus of the previous year. I wasn’t sure how to represent those shed elements, but if we won, I was sure I’d think of something.

Oh, did I forget to mention: Part of the fun of this exercise was to be the unveiling of a completed cover design in time for the closing remarks of the conference, due to begin just two hours after the conclusion of our brainstorming session. Not a lot of time for yours truly to solve a ton of thorny conceptual problems of his own making.

But we lost. The winning team described an image of a slice of pie, using the headline “Piecing Together an Award-Winning Program.” The ‘X’ would be revealed in an aerial view of a pie, having been sliced in that pattern.

I set to work, but within 10 minutes, a message appeared in my inbox from Signature publisher and editorial director Carla Kalogeridis. I have preserved our subsequent exchange for posterity…

Carla: Just some follow up: “The pieces of an award-winning program” is not what the issue is about… Hmmm. Do we have to go with the winning one?

Scott: Wasn’t planning on running with that headline. I think Chris [Okenka] was nearer the mark with “ingredients.” It’s a little trite, but maybe “Recipe for Success” or “A Winning Recipe,” or something. I think the pie image is good because it’s a natural place to find the ‘X’ (vents in pie crust).

Carla: Don’t think “Recipe for Success” or “A Winning Recipe” is compelling. Too overdone, plain vanilla. The ‘X’ on the pie crust is the only thing interesting about this idea… Let me see if I can come up with a coverline…Unless you have an idea?

Scott: I’m mulling some things over. “The Excellence Is Baked In?”

Carla: SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE…You won an EXCEL? (That’s a joke…I think?)

Scott: Like hell. That’s the winner.

Scott works feverishly to render the image, delivering a comp in mere minutes, albeit one that omits Carla’s punctuation.

Carla: Without the punctuation, it reads a little different. It sounds like, “Stop complaining,” instead of “No way! Really??”

Scott: I totally didn’t read it that way, even with the punctuation. In fact, I wouldn’t imagine saying, “Shut your pie hole,” as a prelude to a compliment under any circumstances.… Ooo… Maybe it should be “I won an EXCEL”…?

Carla: I like “I” better than “You.”

Not the first time I’ve been told that.