There was a time—long before skip buttons and ad blockers—when TV commercials were worth watching. Actual events. You’d grab a beer and stay for the ads. The Super Bowl. The Oscars. Apple. Pepsi. British Airways.
I was fortunate. I got to work on some of those big-budget campaigns, with legends like Bill Backer—the mind behind “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.” It was a golden era, and somehow, I had a seat at the table.
A Shot at the Crown (Jewel)In New York, I handled U.S. creative for British Airways. Mostly print and outdoor—stylish, polished, buttoned-up. But the TV spots? Those were sacred. Created by Saatchi & Saatchi London, and guarded like the Crown Jewels.
Then came a shocker: we--the Americans—were invited to pitch a global TV campaign for their business class. Imagine trying to direct the Royal Shakespeare Company... from Cleveland.
London was not pleased.
Our Big Idea: Magritte with a Boarding PassMy creative partner, Seth Fried, came up with a visual gem:
Business travelers, some with umbrellas open, gently floating from the skies across Europe. Think Magritte, but in pinstripes and polished shoes.
Each major city—London, Paris, Rome—would be a backdrop. The floating execs would land on balconies, rooftops, and sidewalks, fresh-faced and ready to conquer their 9AM meetings.
Elegant. Surreal. Iconic. Perfect for British Airways.
The Presentation That Froze TimeI flew to London, knowing the deck was stacked against me. The Saatchi team treated me like a distant cousin who overstayed his welcome. I sat in a side room for hours with cold tea and colder stares.
When I finally presented, it took under 30 minutes. The British Airways clients were lit up. The Saatchi execs? Their faces said it all. We’d just stolen Christmas.
A few days later: we sold the spot.
Even better? Joe Pytka, the most famous commercial director alive, agreed to shoot it. We were off and running—budgets, city permits, casting, effects.
We were ready.
The Flight That Changed EverythingRight before locking production, I flew back to London—this time, for love, not business. My future wife Maria lived in Barcelona, and London was our easiest meeting point.
Since this wasn’t work-related, I couldn’t fly BA for free. I used Pan Am miles instead. Returned to New York on Tuesday, December 20, 1988.
The next day, Pan Am Flight 103—the exact flight, one day later—was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland. A terrorist bomb. 270 people gone, including 35 Syracuse students and 11 Scottish locals.
The British press headline:
“It Was Raining Businessmen Over the Scottish Hillside.”
Our commercial—of business people gently raining down across Europe—was dead before it was born.
Goodbye, Glory. Hello, Perspective.The client called the next morning. Cancel the spot.
Of course they did. And how could I complain? I’d narrowly missed being on that flight. That kind of twist leaves you quiet. And humbled.
Still, I’ll admit: I imagine Saatchi may have popped a bottle or two. It was the last time we ever got to pitch a BA commercial. That window shut tight—and stayed that way.
But deep down, I still believe:
That spot would’ve been a classic.

✍️ Final Boarding CallEver had a project that almost changed your life—or almost ended it?
Drop a comment below or share this post with someone who knows what it's like to almost have their masterpiece see the light of day.​

I discovered today that Chuck Kuhn, a good friend of
mine, had passed away. To say Chuck was the greatest
photographer that I had ever worked with would be an
understatement. I remember the last time I talked to 
Chuck I was upset that another photographer with his
same name was SEO optimizing his work so much that
the "original" Chuck Kuhn photography couldn't be found.

Chuck just laughed and said he hoped having the same 
name gave the guy some work. He wasn't bothered at all
that you couldn't find him on the internet, he was retired
and enjoying life on Bainbridge Island off Seattle.

Chuck, along with Tony Scott (Director of Top Gun), was
the most down to earth and nicest guy I had ever worked
​with. That is Chuck on the left next to Lee Van Cleef.
When I first worked with Chuck I was in St. Louis working 
on Budweiser, and based on Chuck's work for NIKE (he
shot the famous Air Jordan shown above), I hired
him to shoot a series of images to be used on a new 
billboard campaign. That was the start of a life-long 
friendship, multiple shoots around the world, and fresh
​salmon from Washington every Christmas.

His poster series for NIKE is famous now, the Air Jordan
logo was created from his photograph and his reputation
will live on as long as people have heard of Michael Jordan.
The campaign that he shot for me is now listed as one of 
the greatest outdoor billboards of all time and can be found
in several books including The American Billboard 100 Years.

For the campaign we traveled to Maui, and on the day we
were scheduled to shoot the waves were small. These 
were the days before photoshop where to make this image
you had to cut the film, paste them together and paint/
airbrush on top of the dye to blend the images together. The surfer image was five separate photographs cut together.

For the water skier image, the guy we were supposed to
shoot didn't show up. Luckily the surfer had a roommate 
that he said could water ski, so we went to his house and woke his hungover roommate up, put him on a boat and shot the image. If you looked closely enough at his face you could see he was feeling miserable. I'll never 
forget the look on Chuck's face when the guy came walking out of the house that morning, he had an amazing chuckle and would end every question with "huh". "What you think about that, huh?"

In advertising your work fades away, brands come and go, famous people become someone that
no-one has ever heard of. Or like Chuck, someone with the same name comes along and SEOs the heck out of his name and website and you are pushed to page six of Google searches.

No one buying Air Jordan gear today has probably heard of Chuck Kuhn, but they love the image he created, and I'm sure Chuck is just fine with that... huh?

I grew up a Cub fan, with Jack Brickhouse as the announcer and Ron Santo on third base, Ferguson Jenkins pitching, Ernie Banks at shortstop and Billy Williams in left field. So when I had the chance to create a commercial with Harry Caray, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

My idea was to have Harry rapping in a Blues Brother's outfit. My partner Ben Counts wrote the song that became known as Cub Fan Rap. In order to sell the idea, my Budweiser client requested that I travel to Chicago to present it to Harry. I was in Los Angeles at the time and took the redeye to meet Harry for breakfast at the Ambassador East where he was living. We met in the Pump Room, a famous restaurant inside the hotel, around 8 am, Harry had a game that day and we were going to be joining him in the announcers box.

As a Cub fan who enjoyed listening to Harry announce the games, I had always suspected that Harry started drinking in the first inning and that by the time you got to the seventh inning he was feeling no pain, as he would ever so slightly start slurring his words. I always thought that was part of his charm. Now I was finally going to meet the man and I had to sell him the idea, I even brought a Blues Brother's hat as a prop.

As we were looking at the menus, the waiter brought a champaign bucket on a pedestal and set it down between Harry and myself; in it were three Budweisers. Not wanting Harry to drink alone, I ordered a Budweiser for my self too. At the table with us were also the regional Budweiser manager and the agency account manager.

As I presented the idea, I could tell Harry wasn't too keen on the Blues Brother's wardrobe idea and the dancing made him nervous. I told him we could get an extra to do the dance moves, but I couldn't convince him about the look. "I don't know," was Harry's reply. Then the hostess came over. It was clear Harry had breakfast everyday he was in town at this restaurant and that she and Harry were good friends. Harry put on the hat and asked her what she thought. "Harry, you are so cute in that hat, I love it." she said!  

​Sold!

If that hostess had said she didn't like it, my career would have taken a different path. I am forever indebted to her. I finished breakfast after matching Harry beer for beer. It was 9:30 am, I had sold the campaign, but I still had more than five hours until the game started at Wrigley and I was drunk already. Harry was just warming up. So began my relationship with Cub Fan and Bud Man.

To be continued...

My focus in art school was building my portfolio to get a job. It never crossed my mind whether I was being prepared to manage people who may work for me one day. This blog is stories from my forty years in advertising and leading/administrating creative groups at some of the world's largest agencies.

Disclaimer: If people are still alive I have changed their names, if they have passed away, then I have just used their first name. I was personally involved in these stories and have one degree of separation from others (I was involved in working with or managing the people but wasn't there when it happened).

Remember while reading this blog that I have had no training ever in HR or business management, yet as the Executive Creative Director, it was my responsibility to handle these situations. Other than running an insane asylum, I can't think of what could possibly be a stranger group to manage than agency creatives.

New York, New York.

After working in St. Louis at Darcy on Budweiser, I moved to New York and began working at Backer Spielvogel. Bill Backer was the creator of the Coke spot that Mad Men depicted Don Draper creating. Bill Backer was as amazing writer, a real Southern Gentleman and a wildly successful agency owner. My fondest memory of Bill is walking through the Milwaukee airport after having held on to the Miller Lite business. As we were passing a bar, Bill said to me, "you know Jim, that was such a good day, I'm gonna get me some popcorn." So I waited outside the bar and Bill emerged without any popcorn. I asked him if they were out of popcorn and he said, "no, but four dollars was way too much for popcorn."

Bill later told me he started wearing bowties in college because you didn't need to dry-clean them as much as ties, and that he saved a bundle! I later designed a creative award called the "Billy Award" which was a gold bow tie, and was honored to be the first recipient of the Billy Award. 

Before joining  Backer I had previously been to New York several times for work but had never spent  much time there. I grew up in a small town in Michigan and had lived in the Midwest and South all my life. I found a small one bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side and moved in with my St. Bernard and sheepdog.

Growing up in Michigan if you passed someone on the street you would always say "hi," whether you knew them or not. This was a practice that I maintained everywhere else that I had lived. After working in New York for maybe three weeks - I was just starting to get used to old people pushing me out of the way as the subway approached - my secretary came up to me and said, "Mr. White, you have to stop saying hi to people in the hallways at work, they think you're weird, we don't do that in New York." I definitely wasn't in Kansas anymore.

Three months after that, that same secretary stopped coming in to work. Eventually we found out that she had caught AIDS from sharing heroin needles and had killed herself. In typical New York dark humor, one of the creatives said that since a third of the guys in the creative department had slept with her, they had better go be tested for AIDS.

Living in New York during the AIDS epidemic was a traumatic experience. Howard, a gay guy I worked with, had on his office wall a picture of himself with a large group of guys vacationing in Egypt. An X was drawn on the faces of over half of them because they had died from AIDS. Howard passed away from the same disease about six months after I had joined the agency. By that time two-thirds of the faces had an X.

They say if you can make it New York, you can make it anywhere. But I would change it to "if you can take it here, you can take it anywhere."