Per Your Request

A few weeks ago I shared an old Uncle Ben's Rice campaign I worked on with a talented team of folks. The million dollar effort never aired and now sits on a shelf somewhere in a storage bin off La Brea Ave.

The posting elicited quite a few reactions. None of them negative. All of them positive. And some of them stunningly positive.

Like this missive I got from a fellow freelance copywriter, Carrie Tallick, who wrote:

I want you to understand that I write this seething with envy for your blog but more so for your talent. God Damn, you're good. This was genius idea that should have aired and would have saved the brand. I completely love the ads. I can offer no consolation but only lament that truly great ideas are still thought up, but ever so rarely made. So, a humble nod to your fucking great ideas.

Wow.
There is nothing better than making a fellow copywriter jealous.

Though Carrie and I do have many mutual friends, our paths have never crossed. In other words, I don't know her. But I'd like her to meet my wife and daughters, because frankly I don't hear praise like that often enough.

Or even, ever.

Another gracious commenter asked to see other spots from the Uncle Ben campaign. Normally we don't take requests here at roundseventeen, mostly because those requests are along the lines of, "Why don't you shut up?" or "when will you stop with this narcissistic drivel?"

But today, we're going to make an exception.

It's a shame. I would have loved to keep writing these and developing the character. And making spots that were informative yet funny. And I would have loved to played a small part in righting the racial wrong of this unfortunate characterization.

As I've said before, Ben may know best, but the folks at the Mars Food Company did not.