Thirty years ago, I had been in the agency business for just five years, and I was working in Richmond, Va. We didn't do TV in Richmond back then, and all I worked on was print, with a smattering of radio once in a while. We all dreamed of the day when we would create and produce our first television commercial. As it turned out, I had to move to New York City for that opportunity.

I went to Young & Rubicam, my first job on Madison Avenue, in 1983. I got the job with a pretty good print portfolio, and then I never did another print ad again for five years. All we did at Y&R was TV, and all the entry-level people were put to work on Chef Boyardee. The agency was having a tough time finding a commercial that tested well enough to run, and they hoped that if they put enough bodies on the assignment someone would be able to crack it.

For six solid months I worked on that assignment with gusto, even though, as an Italian girl from Brooklyn, I hadn't even known spaghetti came in a can. Finally I wrote a commercial the clients bought, and it went in for testing. When the results came back, the creative director on the business came into my office with the shocking news.

"Congratulations," he said with a big smile. "Your Chef Boyardee spot just came back with the highest recall score of any TV spot they've ever tested on the business."

"No!" I cried.

"Yeah," he chuckled. "Over 96 percent of the people who saw it remembered it."

"Ninety-six percent? NINETY-SIX PERCENT?"

"Yeah," he said. "Astonishing."

"OHMYGOD," I yelled. "When do we go into production?"

I started fantasizing about my first trip to Los Angeles, the coveted, glamorous production location for everyone back in the '80s. LaLa Land, where we could stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel and have breakfast in the Polo Lounge, where famous people met to discuss big movie deals and phones were brought to them so they could talk at their tables. The Beverly Hills Hotel, where we could spend downtime at the hotel's famous pool, where a big, strapping Swede named Sven handed you towels and tall, frosted drinks filled with rum, fresh fruit and umbrellas.

Everything went out of focus, and I began hyperventilating, until the creative director snapped me back to reality.

"Don't pack," was his answer. Now he was laughing.

It seems that in addition to the recall of 96.4 percent, my commercial also had the highest aggravation score.

"Aggravation?"

"The reason it had such high recall," the creative director explained, "is because everyone who saw the spot hated it."

"Everyone?"

"Well, 94 percent of the 96 percent who remembered it. But congratulations, kiddo. Nobody ever got such high 'dislike' numbers, either. You broke two records."

"Does that mean we won't be producing it?"

The creative director left my office howling hysterically.



Soon, though, my luck changed, and I was put in a group that had great accounts, and I was paired with a great art director, Frank Costantini. We shot so much TV that I started dreading production. I hated going to L.A., I never saw the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and I looked forward to taking red-eyes home so I could spend less time away from New York. Be careful what you wish for.

Now, 30 years later, we still want to make films, but the delivery systems have changed remarkably. Now, more than ever before, the idea is king, and the creative people who can figure out how to reach an elusive audience are the rock starts of our business.

When I was entering this profession, a twentysomething creative person was tolerated until he or she did successful TV. Now, I am discovering that entry-level people are more fascinating to me than I am. These young people understand the Internet, digital technology and other young people. They don't know what barriers are, and their ideas about communication are dazzling.

We still have clients who are wedded to TV advertising, but as ideas get more and more unconventional and the media gets more and more unexpected, even that game is changing.

We will always have clients who believe in the 30-second TV spot, but more and more of them are willing to roll the dice with a two-minute film, or an event that captures the imaginations of millions, or something we haven't even thought of yet. The good clients have always leaned in that direction; now, the ones who don't get that are the ones whose brands will be left behind.

Even with all the changes and advances over the past 30 years, some things are still the same. We are still in the business of building brands. We are still matchmakers, trying our best to make consumers fall in love with our brands. Creative is still king, and being in the advertising business is still the most fun you can have if your idea of fun is solving marketing problems with your wits and imagination.

I continue to work with McCann's offices around the world, and the one thing we all have in common is our love of the unexpected and our desire to solve problems the way no one has ever done before. This self-imposed pressure is what keeps us fresh and relevant, and while it may also keep us up at night, it's what makes us happy to get up each morning and see what lies ahead.

Some things never change.

--Nina DiSesa is chairman of McCann Erickson New York and author of Seducing the Boys Club.