Who wants Rice?

I'm an old man. Or so the calendar tells me. With my new Titanium hip restored to its former glory, I don't feel like an old man. Nevertheless, I'm not going to give up the privileges of an old man, er, older man. And by that I mean pass up the opportunity to revel in the hazy glory of the past. 

Last week, whilst cleaning out a closet that has become the 8 foot vertical equivalent of a Junk Drawer I came across a relic, pictured above. Thanks to some very clever design, it's not what it appears to be. in fact, it's a book. 

I hope the following pictures will do it justice as I remove it from its sleeve and walk you through it. 

But first, a short preamble. In 2009, or sometime near there, I was freelancing at TBWA Chiat/Day and was asked to work on Uncle Ben's. The client wanted us to address and correct the always touchy subject of Ben, a black man and his relationship with the rice. As you might imagine, Uncle Ben carried some unpleasant racial overtones, see Aunt Jemima, Land O Lakes Butter, etc. And represented a challenge in a those more-enlightened times

Our solution: elevate Ben to be the CEO/Spokesperson of the company. I won't go into details, suffice it to say our efforts lasted two years and included the shooting and production of 10 commercials that never saw the light of day. We also designed/wrote and produced this elaborate Brand Book that we had passed around to the top executives at Mars. Uncle Ben's Rice, was and still is, a division of Mars.

I showed it to Ms. Muse last week, who in turn suggested I share it with my 9 loyal readers, including Tamarindo Todd.

With no further ado...

At this point let's take a breather. Because what follows is a book within a book, including many of the maxims that served as a guiding NorthStar for Ben. In reality, many of them were lines I had written in case we got lucky enough to do outdoor boards.

Followed by some more wiki-based rice trivia.

And finally, the back of the sleeve.

I don't know if ad agencies do this kind of thing anymore. But I am happy I had the opportunity. And the seemingly endless exorbitant freelance checks.