Over the years, Smith Public Relations has had the honor of working with Chiat/Day on a number of assignments from Nike wall boards on the side of buildings to Home Savings to Worlds of Wonder (Teddy Ruxpin and Lazer Tag) to Cakebread Cellars when Fred Goldberg, CEO of Goldberg Moser O’Neill and former president of Chiat/Day San Francisco sat on the winery’s board of directors and conducted their PR agency review.
I just finished reading Fred’s intriguing book “The Insanity of Advertising: Memoirs of A Mad Man” (www: the Insanity of Advertising) which just came out and is really a insightful and valuable resource for anyone in the marketing business. It started me thinking about the elements of cohesion between two aligned but very different businesses—advertising and public relations.
Of course, the increasing roll up of marketing companies through mergers and holding companies large and small has led to an often rocky road for those with a mandate of sorts to refer business internally or to a sister agency for the logical reasons. One of the many great attributes of Chiat/Day was its commitment to bring in the best fit for a client regardless of whether it was a “family” resource or not.
Fred was no exception at Chiat/Day or at Goldberg Moser O’Neill. He expected your best creative and strategic thinking with an execution that paid back multiple times on the marketing spend. He always asked that our public relations campaign equalled his agency’s creative execution. I can’t say that we ever reached the top of that mountain. However, we got closer to the peak because we knew Fred was watching and we never wanted to see Fred mad or, even worse, disappointed in us.
Fred was kind enough to say: “Steve has proven to me time and time again that he has the ability in generating the required publicity to get product and company exposure by creating programs that garner high interest in the target mind sets. I was fortunate to work with Steve on a number of companies and had it not been for his efforts they would have been far less successful than they were….Beyond his talents and skill as a PR and publicity person, Steve is a smart, dedicated, hard working, creative executive. And, a joy to deal with if you are one of his clients. Just ask them”
Thanks for an incredible ride…and read, Fred. Maiden Lane was a trip but Memory Lane is so much better.