Accidental Admen

Have you heard the one about the seminary student, the winemaker, the budding comic and two lawyers who walk into an ad agency looking for a job? "In advertising, you never know where you'll end up, so it makes sense that the start is a bit off the beaten path as well," notes Nick Bartle, BBDO's West Coast planning director who, in his 20s, trained to become a winemaker. He's among many successful agency executives who once aspired to be something else entirely. "Advertising touches on so many diffuse abilities, it only helps if you can tap some other discipline," says Ogilvy & Mather's David Apicella, co-creative head of the New York office. Both Apicella and Eric Silver, group creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi in New York, graduated from law school but quickly abandoned any notion of working as lawyers.In 1991, armed with a degree from Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, Silver was clerking at a law firm. Discovering that 90 percent of cases don't make it to trial, he realized his life wouldn't live up to his L.A. Law-style expectations. One afternoon, after struggling with a convoluted statute, the 23-year-old marched into his boss's office and declared, "This isn't for me."His boss, who was in the midst of drinking a scotch, "just looked at me and said, 'If I were your age, I'd do the exact same thing,' and with that, raised his glass and toasted me," Silver recalls.It didn't take an epiphany for Pete Wood, head of art on Volvo at Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners, to leave the seminary—he was thrown out in his second year there. "I was going to be a missionary father," says Wood, who grew up in Scotland in the '60s. "I'd seen pictures of people living in the most abject poverty, and I was terribly affected by it. The thing that struck me was that all these families had 10, 12 children. … I naively thought I had the answer." He suggested the church promote family planning and, especially, condom use. Wood was immediately dismissed.For Bartle, there were few job prospects when he graduated from college with a psychology degree. It was 1989, and England was in a recession. He'd been working at a wine bar in London and stayed on, spending two years as its manager. "The thing I liked most about the restaurant business was the world of wine," says Bartle, 36. So he worked on an English vineyard, Thorncroft, while studying oenology at an agricultural college for a year. But when Bartle went to work in Burgundy, he realized his know-how wasn't good enough. "There's only so far that science will take you," he says. "And in that, there's a good comparison between winemaking and advertising: To go the extra mile, you have to have the magic. And when it came to wine, I didn't have the magic." Nor did he find success during his subsequent three years as a wine importer in London. "I was an appalling businessman," he admits. Lee Garfinkel learned he too didn't have the magic when it came to standup comedy. While a student at Queens College in New York—where Jerry Seinfeld was his classmate in a comedy course—Garfinkel had gigs in local clubs, at a time when comics like David Letterman and Robin Williams were headlining. And he spent six weeks in L.A. making the rounds of clubs there. But "in the end," says the 47-year-old chairman and chief creative officer at DDB in New York, "it wasn't satisfying enough. For the handful of people who make it, it's great. But for the 90 percent who don't, it can be a pretty miserable life."Making the leap to a job as a creative, Garfinkel says, was easy: "I write songs, play instruments, draw, I write stories on the side. Advertising was the one profession where I could use all those skills." And working the comedy clubs, he says, "was a great way to develop an ear for what works and what doesn't."Wood, 53, says his religious training "taught me a lot about the art of persuasion. Father McDermott could command a congregation." But Wood didn't pursue an ad career, attending art school and then, inspired by old bibles, cultivating an interest in typography. He spent his 20s at publishing firms and design shops before seguing into advertising at age 33 with a job at Saatchi & Saatchi in London. Bartle was 27 when he landed in advertising, after interviewing his friends about their careers. "I wasn't just going to move into some random career," he says. "The guy who I was sharing an office with said, 'I think you'd be really good in advertising.' I replied, 'God, advertising, no way! They're all liars and cheats and miserable people.' He said, 'My girlfriend's in advertising. And you should talk to her.' "She was head of planning at BDDP in Paris, and she turned out to be the only person who seemed inspired by what she was doing. Bartle, who spoke French well due to his time in Burgundy, begged her for an assignment, and moved to Paris when she relented. "Since I had no training in advertising, I applied what I'd learned about the analysis of wine to the analysis of advertising," he says. "And there are enormous similarities." Both marry science and precision techniques with art, he says. Five years later he moved to San Francisco for a job at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. "When I saw the vineyards in Napa, I said, 'This is the perfect place for me,' " says Bartle, who in January left for BBDO—where his biggest client is Gallo Wine Co.After passing the New York bar exam but realizing he'd rather be a creative than a lawyer, NYU Law grad Apicella studied Maxine Paetro's How to Put Your Book Together and Get a Job in Advertising. Then a friend introduced him to a copywriter who'd once been a lawyer. "He spent 45 minutes telling me I should stay in the law because advertising's a tough business," says Apicella, 48. "Then he looked at my book and said, 'Ah, you're pretty good, you'll probably do OK.' " Soon he had a job at TBWA and then an offer from Ogilvy, where Apicella has worked for 22 years.Silver had a harder time getting his ad career started. He worked as a valet parker at a mall while putting a portfolio together—even getting promoted to manager of the garage after a few months. Eventually he finagled a freelance gig at Larson Colby, offering to work for free, and the L.A. shop later hired him on. Both Silver and Apicella wonder if the transitions they made would be possible now. "I get a lot of offers to work for free, and it's not easy to say, 'OK, go to it,' " Silver says. "A lot hinges on that first job, and it's probably harder today to get your foot in the door like that."Apicella says ad school grads now have such sophisticated portfolios that "the little book I had wouldn't cut it today," even with himself. "Still," he adds, "I was told it wasn't possible back then either."

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Accidental Admen

David Kaplan

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David Kaplan