The Shedman Story
No one saw it coming. From straight D's in high school to a stint in the Marines followed by two years as a world class highway hobo traversing the asphalt arteries of America. Bartender, cab driver, bank security guard, beer truck driver, store clerk - you name the nickel and dime minimum wage job and he held it. One day our hero found himself working as an auto parts counter man out of a joint in East L.A. and living in a twenty-five buck a week rooming house on Olympic Boulevard, near Pico.
One of his fellow boarders was a juicer, a 12-stepper who kept tripping over the third step. He was a hell of a copywriter but no one would hire him fulltime because of his regular diet of pimento stew, extra dry, shaken not stirred. The rummy took an instant liking to the transient from the Baystate and suggested he consider a career in advertising. The little jarhead had no idea what an ad agency was or did. Sure, like most Americans he was a devoted follower of Bewitched but not because of the pencil-neck husband Darren or his spineless boss Larry Tate. No. Our man watched because he liked the way the little witch twitched her little nose. Oh yeah. He was definitely a nose man.
The gin-sopped buddy helped him assemble a portfolio of sorts and managed to get him an appointment with the creative director of the largest agency in California - Foote Cone & Belding. Oh yeah. Mazda, Sunkist, Suzuki, Smokey the Bear - this place handled all the advertising for a little long-nailed hermit named Howard Hughes. By the end of the day he had landed the gig at a nifty $10,000 a year. Oh yeah.
It was a sweet gig. Dames, dough and double-truck spreads. In time, our man was stricken by wanderlust once again and decided to return to test the ad waters in his hometown of Boston. Over the years he's honed his craft with stints at BBDO, J. Walter Thompson, Earle Palmer Brown, McCann-Erickson, Fry Hammond Barr, Ted Bates and others. From copywriter to senior copywriter to associate creative director to creative director he ascended.
He served as a huckstering hero for the likes of Coca-Cola, Kentucky Fried Chicken, IBM, Fidelity Investments, Parker Brothers Games, Titleist Golf, Florida Lottery, Suzuki, Mazda, Florida Tourism, Xerox, Hershey and a gaggle of other blue chip, Fortune 500 outfits. One day, convinced he was God's gift to free standing inserts and the ultimate master of the 8X10 trifold, he decided to strike out on his own and set the marketing, advertising and branding world on fire.
Today, he works out of a shed in his backyard in Pensacola. His once six-pack abs expanded into a full keg, auburn locks streaked with silver and with more chins than the Shanghai phone book - today he's SHEDMAN. With his trusty and arthritic 13-year old boarder collie chow mix Bear, he continues to solve problems and help clients meet their objectives.
What about the dames? Oh yeah. Every month there's a knock on the shed door. Doris, the yard lady looking for her check. Hey, a dames a dame even if she's carrying pruning sheers. |
