Email Blunder Leads to Huge Success
By ALISON LYNN | ABC News – 9 hours ago- ABC News - Email Blunder Leads to Huge Success (ABC News)
In the advertising world, producing a commercial that runs during the Super Bowl
is like, well, winning the Super Bowl. When creative director Bill
Cochran pitched an idea that Bridgestone Tires liked enough to air
during the 2010 game, it was a career-defining moment.
"It was huge," said Cochran. "To have something on the biggest stage for advertising meant the world to me."
Cochran was soon to have another career-defining moment. It involved
coming up with a new spot for Bridgestone's Super Bowl campaign the
following year. Bill's boss at the Dallas-based Richards Group sent out a
mass email to more than one hundred creative directors, art directors,
copy writers and producers at the agency, assigning them to teams that
would compete against one another to come up with a winning campaign.
"On something as juicy as a Super Bowl spot, it, it gets a little more
cutthroat around here," admitted Cochran. "I just saw that list and I
was like, 'Okay, we gotta get fired up.'"
Intending only to inspire his art director, Patrick Murray, Cochran sent
out an email rating their competition. In it he used language that can
only be described as colorful. "There are words you might say in a
locker room about another team," explained Cochran, "And there are words
you might say at a press conference. I used locker room words."
Watch more on "20/20: Workplace Confidential" TONIGHT at 10 p.m. ET.
After sending the email Cochran went about his day until he got a phone
call minutes later from a copywriter named Wendy Mayes."Oh, God, Bill!" a
horrified Mayes told Cochran. "You sent that to all! You replied to
all!"
"Within moments, "said Cochran, "you could hear some cackles and laughter."
Cochran's R-rated email had been sent to more than one hundred people,
many of whom were described unfavorably in it. Some of them felt
compelled to write back to Cochran.
"The most memorable," recalled Cochran, "Was just the one-word email that just said, 'Moron.'"
But the 17-year-veteran creative director had more than his reputation to worry about. He also had his career.
"I'm gonna get fired for this," a panicked Cochran thought at the time.
"I'm gonna lose my job, I'm gonna have to move, I'm gonna have to start
over. I have undone all of this in one stupid click."
Not so, said his boss, Richards Group founder Stan Richards.
"You don't get fired for making a mistake," said Richards of his agency.
"You accept mistakes, you accept going in a wrong direction, you accept
taking risk, and then living with the consequences of that."
Cochran's marching orders from Richards were simply to get to work.
After brainstorming a number of concepts for a Super Bowl spot, Cochran
had a light bulb moment. He went to the clients with a fresh idea: to
shoot a commercial about a guy who believes he mistakenly hit "reply all"
in an email response and then races around in his car -- which of
course, runs on Bridgestone tires -- trying to stop colleagues from
seeing the email.
"This is the funniest commercial I've ever done," says Cochran. "In
advertising, you always try to search for universal truths. If it hasn't
happened to you, on some measure, usually someone knows someone it has
happened to."
Bridgestone Tire executives liked the "Reply All" idea, so Cochran and
his team produced the spot. It ran during the 2011 Super Bowl.
Lesson learned, Cochran now says he reveals his innermost thoughts only one way: "In person."
Watch more on "20/20: Workplace Confidential" TONIGHT at 10 p.m. ET.
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