Cinderella & The Copywriter

"Brian, you're wanted in the bunker, straight away."

Brian Palmer was surprised. As the youngest copywriter in the agency it was unusual for him to be summoned to the main conference room. He looked up at the man who had appeared in front of his desk. Eric Mansell was probably the best creative director in Perth. Anyone who could show up for work whenever he liked in an Hawaiian shirt and a company BMW had to be good.

"Hmm, OK, what's it about?"

"You remember that we gave you the Bailey's shoe account as your first big job? A rep from the client is here and wants some words about that print ad you and your partner put together."

Brian took a deep breath. "Well, if it's gone wrong I'm sorry but you know that I practically begged you and Georgina to do it my way. If they're looking to blame somebody I guess I'm the one who has to wear it."

"It's all experience. Get hold of Georgina and find out what the problem is."

Brian reluctantly put aside his work for City Motors and began wandering around looking for Ms Georgina Tench, a remarkably good looking young lady who could fairly be described as a high profile target. She was almost two metres tall, her blonde hair so long it reached her waist, last seen wearing faded blue jeans, a T-shirt promoting tours of Outer Mongolia and a small round straw hat with ribbons dangling from it. Even by advertising agency standards she cut quite a noticeable figure. And, like a lot of other people around the place, she made Brian feel very aware of his youth and inexperience. A bush high school had done little to prepare him for this place. Not that he cared about his rawness: it just added even more magic to a workplace he'd fallen in love with from the first day he'd entered it. Perhaps because it was so full of life and energy -- on this side, anyway.

Like Korea, the ad agency was divided into two conflicting parts, the reception desk marking the cold war zone between them. On one side was the 'suit' territory, where the account executives, accountants and others of that ilk lived. Very quiet and dignified, a lot of individual offices and several conference rooms, forums for the frequent discussions held with the many VIP visitors. Indeed, Brian had already decided that the only real difference between advertising management and prostitution was that the ad industry seemed to need a lot more meetings to make things happen. But the heart and soul of the agency was on his side, where the 'creatives' did their thing.

As he walked through it seeking Georgina, Brian felt the adrenalin tingling within him as it always did. Each of the open plan corridors bustled with activity, the ringing of telephones, the rise and fall of conversation as busy groups coalesced briefly to exchange sheets of paper, photographs, gossip and wails of anger because somebody somewhere had just totally stuffed things up. It was a place of experts. Creative artists, photographers, TV production specialists, printers, and the backbone of the creative side, the finishing art department. But all of this collective expertise was useless without the creative impetus supplied by the copywriters; and you couldn't make a copywriter, because that job was out on the edge where there were no rules. You had to be born a copywriter -- and maybe it was going to turn out that he hadn't been. The thought of being kicked out of the agency made Brian feel sick with apprehension.

As he had expected, he found Georgina in the finishing art section, talking to a couple of the girls over the drawing boards and probably exchanging dirty jokes to judge by the expressions on their faces. He was hesitant to interrupt the conversation. In the first place the finishing art workers were an insular crew, as touchy and awkward as a gang of longshoremen, best left to other artists to deal with. In the second place Georgina Tench made him feel about five years old whenever she talked to him. For each copywriter to be assigned a creative artist was perhaps a good idea, but Brian would have been happier with a team associate that he had something in common with.

Until he'd got the job at the agency his home had been in Dampier, two thousand kilometres away from the nearest city: Georgina bitched every lunchtime because the agency was ten minutes walk away from the centre of the metropolitan shopping area. Brian had once asked her if she'd ever been to the north west. For somebody who used to think a trip to Perth once a year was a big deal, her answer was unforgettable: "Oh, yes, I often fly up there at the weekends with my parents for the game fishing."

Which at least proved that having a rich family in the background certainly gave a different perspective on life.

"You want something, Brian?"

Georgina had at last decided to notice him. "I don't, but Eric wants both of us in the bunker, now. We've got a visitor from Bailey's shoes who wants to talk to us."

"Oh God," she answered, turning around to stare at him. "I warned you what was going to happen if you didn't change that ad but you wouldn't be told, would you?"

"I've already made it clear to Eric that I remember fighting both of you to send it out the way I wanted it. It was my ad and I'll take the blame if it's a cockup."

"You certainly will. Come on then, let's get it over with."

Inside the bunker Brian had no thought of looking out of the windows at the thirty storey panoramic view across the Swan river. His attention was first focused on Mr Du Cann, the head of the agency. Impeccably dressed as always, down to the red carnation in his buttonhole, Du Cann was in a class of his own for smoothness and slicing people into fine slices with their own silly mistakes. It was strange for a man in his position to be bothering personally about a print ad, which was pretty small potatoes. The big money and the big decisions usually revolved around the TV commercials. But Du Cann would know what he was doing. He'd reached his mid fifties with most of his own hair, all of his teeth and a lot of other people's money. At this precise moment he was standing in front of an easel with a large blow up board of the Bailey's ad displayed on it.

"Ah, Georgina and Brian. Let me introduce you. Mr Highfield, Sales manager for Bailey's Fashion Shoes."

Mr Highfield was short and chubby, perhaps a few years younger than Du Cann, though looking a lot more harassed. He seemed to have put his clothes on in a hurry whilst trying to drink a cup of coffee at the same time and without having had a chance since to look in a mirror. Probably due to drop dead from a coronary any month, Brian thought. Unlike Du Cann, who was unlikely to be killed by anything except overindulging himself with some spectacular female like Georgina.

Highfield clearly had his dreams though, because Georgina seemed to be getting all of his attention. "This is a very remarkable ad you've done for us, young lady. Congratulations."

Georgina beamed, Brian rocked on his heels in astonishment and everybody's eyes rested for a moment on the blow up projected on the white board. The dominating feature of the photograph was a green baise table top littered with multi coloured poker chips and ashtrays with crushed cigar butts in them. Three pairs of heavily muscled forearms and hands were resting on top of the table with five cards lying face down on the table just in front of each pair of hands. Standing on the centre of the table was a woman in a blue ball gown, visible only from the waist down. Her hands were holding up the hem of the dress well above her knees, showing off her shapely calves and ankles. One foot was still wearing a Bailey's high heeled shoe, the other foot bare and gracefully arched on tip toe as she maintained her balance. A huge hand which looked as if it belonged to Arnold Schwartzeneger was holding up the discarded shoe and turning it over, letting cards spill out from inside it into the smoke filled air. Three of a kind: the ace, the king and the queen of hearts.

Underneath the photograph was the caption: "BAILEY'S FASHION SHOES -- THE BEST BET IN THE HOUSE WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN".

"Interesting," Du Cann observed. "Clearly there's a story involved but it's up to the individual to decide what kind of a story. Was she caught cheating? Or attempting to help somebody else to cheat? Was it an attempt to stop the game by hiding some cards? Or a very grandiose way of playing the winning hand? Are more cards hidden inside the other shoe. Or something else, perhaps? Certainly there's something salacious about it -- tastefully so, though. Apparently it's generated quite a lot of interest amongst the ladies."

"But even more interest amongst the men," Highfield cut in. "We've been getting a lot of reaction to the ad from men who want to know what the girl on the table looks like. We regard this as very important because we also sell mens' shoes as well as womens', and it's been a slow moving business of late. We want to take advantage of the male interest to increase the sales of our mens' lines. So the company been wondering whether we might be able to use the shoe that's been taken off as a kind of Cinderella gimmick in a follow up campaign."

Brian was fascinated by the idea. "You mean -- have some kind of a ball?"

Highfield nodded: "Perhaps. We could put an entry form in the box with every pair of mens' shoes we sell. Every form that's returned goes into a barrel and the first fifty pulled out are invited to the ball to try on a shoe and find Cinderella."

Brian shook his head. "We could have a problem there -- we might find the shoe fitting the wrong girl. Maybe we could use the card angle as well and make it a sort of a gamble?"

"Would you like to suggest something, Brian?" the agency chief asked.

"I'm just thinking aloud. Mr Highfield talked about inviting fifty men to this ball. I suppose the idea would be to have one of them find the Cinderella at the ball and win some kind of a prize?"

Highfield nodded. "Yes, a world cruise perhaps, for the Prince and his Princess. It may sound a bit corny but the prospect of a few weeks on an ocean liner with a pair of legs like that . . . Of course we don't guarantee any romance, we just supply the tickets to the happy couple and let them sail off together in the sunset. How do we tie it all in though?"

Brian rubbed his palms nervously on the sides of his shorts. "Suppose we invited fifty two men and had the same number of girls, all real good looking sheilas. One of them is the Cinderella and they're all wearing shoes like the ones in the ad. OK, so we'll deal out a deck of cards and the three guys who get the ace, king and queen of hearts get a chance to try and pick out which girl is Cinderella. If they get it wrong the cards are dealt out again and the next three guys to draw the same cards have their chance."

Highfield nodded approvingly: "I like it. The question is, how do they find out which is the real Cinderella?"

"We turn it around. Whenever a guy picks a girl he takes one of her shoes off instead of trying one on, just like in the ad," Brian answered eagerly, tapping the blow up. "The girls can all have cards hidden in their shoes but only the real Cinderella will have the same hand as in the ad: the three hearts, ace, king and queen."

Highfield smiled, Du Cann smiled, everybody seemed happy. Then somebody went and ruined the happy moment -- Highfield. "And best of all, when we finally find the real Cinderella everybody's curiousity about what the mystery girl in the ad looks like will be satisfied. We'll get good media coverage on the strength of that alone."

Georgina looked daggers at Brian, Brian gaped at Georgina. "By the way, have you got a full length picture of the model handy?" Highfield continued. "I'd like a sneak preview, you understand."

"We didn't think we needed a professional model, under the circumstances," Georgina said shyly. "To tell the truth, I posed for that shot myself."

The two older men beamed on her with even fonder approval as Brian took a firm grip on the back of a chair to prevent himself from falling over. The rest of the meeting passed in a blur of congratulations and a smooth tasting glass of single malt from Du Cann's private stock. It wasn't until they were safely back inside creative territory that Brian felt free to say what was on his mind. His only problem was in deciding where to start.

"You conniving, lying, two-faced, double-crossing, publicity hungry cow!"

"Be reasonable, Brian. Was I supposed to tell him that we let some temporary secretary with a face like a hairy nosed Wombat pose for those shots? She's gone, nobody else knows what happened and a pair of legs is a pair of legs. Problem solved."

"No, it is not bloody solved by a bloody long way," Brian snarled. "What the hell do you think is going to happen when what's her name, Mary, sees all the follow up ads about the ball and about how the real owner of those legs is going to be sent off on a cruise around the world? She'll be knocking on the door wanting to know why nobody has contacted her and told her to start packing, won't she?"

Georgina considered the matter. "So who's going to believe her? How can she prove they were her legs?"

"If she takes us to court she'll soon be able to prove it. Your little white lies won't last long in a witness box under a barrister's cross examination."

"A witness box! Are you crazy or something?"

Brian slumped down behind his desk and spread his hands out. "I'm crazy am I? If you'll remember the day we did the shots on that ad, it was one when everything went wrong. We had a deadline to meet, we couldn't get a photographer until the last minute, we were digging out the lumber room to get the props. I found that green table top jammed underneath a stuffed polar bear. Then the model we'd booked never showed up. I had to go around the office asking the girls to let me have a look at their legs so we could use one of them instead. And I was in so much of a hurry I never even got to enjoy it."

"So?"

"So, I don't remember anybody organising a clearance contract for Mary to sign to give us the rights to any pictures we took. I don't think we've got any legal right to be using that picture in the ad. She didn't say anything to me about it at the time, she just seemed to think it was a big joke that her legs were going to be famous. That's what she said. And I gave her a hundred bucks out of the petty cash for her trouble, which she seemed happy about at the time. But it's going to be a different story when she finds out she's missing out on a world cruise. We'll have to tell Du Cann the truth."

"No we won't," Georgina said decisively. "That girl had a face which looked as if it had been chopped off the top of a totem pole. We couldn't possibly let her be the Cinderella. The guys at the ball would start a riot. That's why I said I posed for the shots. And I've got no intention of going back to Du Cann to tell him that a team I am part of made such a stupid mistake as forgetting about getting a clearance contract signed."

"But . . ."

"But me no buts, young Brian. Get on your motor bike, go around to the temps agency and find out where the creature from the black typing pool lives. Take her out to dinner, fill her up with booze and put a release contract in front of her. If you have to you can even promise her a world cruise too, just as long as she signs."

"A world cruise? Who's going to pay for her cruise if Bailey's Shoes are paying for yours?"

"Daddy will. He can afford it. She gets a cruise, I get a lot of useful media coverage at the ball and congratulations from Du Cann for a job well done. And as soon as I get on the ship I can pass whatever yobbo I've been lumbered with onto our typist. Then I can have some real fun. I may even send you a postcard from Tahiti if I feel in a good enough mood."

Brian did as he was told. At least as far as he could. There were a few embarrassing moments at the agency when he was unable to remember Mary's second name, eventually solved when he described her. Mary Shact was her full name and the agency also provided her phone number. A carefully worded call was successful in arranging a meeting. Having already booked a table at the Golden Plum restaurant in Northbridge, Brian asked her to meet him there.

It started out with all the makings of very nice evening. Despite Georgina's caustic comments Ms Shact seemed to Brian to be an attractive enough girl for anybody to be seen with in public without flinching. Taking a second and more leisurely look at her he was still sure he'd picked the best female volunteer in the office on the day. Mary's figure was about as perfect as you could judge without using a micrometer, particularly her legs, a judgement which many men in the state of Western Australia seemed to be keenly supporting. It was also a refreshing change after Georgina to meet a girl who was satisfied with a wearing a simple black frock and a single strand of pearls at her neck.

"It's nice to see you again," she told him over the first glass of wine. "I was sorry to leave the agency, it's the most interesting place I've ever worked in. I always think about it when I see that shoe ad we did. I bet you remember that day, don't you?" She almost dropped her glass in a fit of giggles. "Running around asking all the girls to lift up their skirts! You were lucky not to get your face slapped, I reckon."

"The girls who work there get used to some pretty strange requests," Brian answered defensively. "I suppose it seemed odd to you because you were only there for a week and not used to the place."

"I was there long enough to find out that the strangest requests usually came on a Friday afternoon." Mary laughed again, apparently totally relaxed and happy.

She had always been the same the few times he'd talked to her before, bubbling over with high spirits. It was just a great pity that what Georgina had said was true; this Cinders couldn't go to the ball. The guy who won the contest expected to walk out with a glamorous model girl on his arm and Mary was just not glamorous. For a start, she wore glasses. Fashionable glasses perhaps, with outsize gold octagonal rims but they were still glasses. Even if she took them off and had enough residual vision left to walk around without falling over the furniture she still wasn't right. Her nose and mouth looked at least a size too big for the rest of her face -- perhaps the mouth could be called two sizes too big. Somehow it still produced a wonderful smile though.

In fact, Brian mused, nature had been uncharacteristically fair in the way it had treated Mary. A stunning figure offset by a face which you couldn't call ugly, but certainly wasn't beautiful. Nothing grotesque, nothing which would affect her personal relationships, not with her bright and breezy character which more than made up for the lack of facial symmetry. But as the mystery prize for a massive advertising campaign -- no, she just wouldn't do.

He managed to keep her curiosity at bay until after the meal and most of a bottle of riesling had been disposed of. Then he explained the situation as delicately as he could. The final part was very difficult.

"You see, Mary, the thing is that if they decide to have this promotion show -- this ball -- we have to produce a Cinderella, the girl who is supposed to have been the original model. We don't want to short change you, so it's been decided that you'll get exactly the same prize as they give to the model we use for the promotion. I just thought it would be better if we told you about it first. All we need is for you to sign this clearance contract and everything will be OK."

"Why can't I be the Cinderella? After all, it was my picture you used."

"Hmm . . . yes, that's true: we used you for the legs, Mary. But this ball will be different. Lots of pictures will be taken and a lot of performing under pressure in public. It just seems so much better to use a professional model instead."