Lap Top Publishing
by Philip Siddons

Like people with bladder problems who intuitively know the
location of public rest room facilities, finding a grounded
electrical outlet for my plug-in portable computer has become
second nature.

With my usual luck, I've managed to find a table not only next
to an outlet, but beside the two story picture window
overlooking 57th and 40th.

It's ten AM and beneath me flows a river of taxies, limos,
buses, and upscale cars through the canyons of skyscrapers.
People were walking on the traffic's banks with stern
determination, seemingly confident they will reach their
offices. Cautious enough to wear jogging shoes in contrast to
their suits. Athletic wear to catch up to a bus? Outrun
another taxi hunter? Perhaps to run away from a would be
mugger? Everyone in New York has a story. It's a jungle out
there.

I had counted my odds when passing the tall and bedranggled
looking bag man on the street outside the Hyatt. Was he
exposing himself to the picture window? No, just talking in
argumentative tones to the manikin in the store window. Would
he turn his rage on me?

"VISITING ADVERTISING DIRECTOR BRUTALLY SLAIN OUTSIDE HOTEL."

More probably:

"UNKNOWN MAN SLAIN BY CRAISED FORMER STOCK EXCHANGE
EXECUTIVE."

There's something unique about eating breakfast while
overlooking 57th and 40th. The restaurant is deserted. The
late morning hour has dictated that lodgers must be at their
points of interest or company conferences. They're out in the
canyons of metropolis, trying to get their vacation money's
worth, or their company's money's worth.

I've already taken an early morning stroll down the street and
purchased a T-shirt for my daughter. Great graphic of a
collection of people riding on a bus. Most of their faces look
bewildered. The caption below is "New York City, only the
strong survive." Only a Manhatten native could have written
that copy. Not something I've seen on posters produced by the
chamber of commerce for travel agencies.

And when you order an eighteen dollar breakfast, the cheapest
on the menu, while overlooking this sea of humanity in
transport through the architecture, your breakfast companion is
guilt. Will the company really believe that this breakfast cost
eighteen dollars? How come I'm not out there in the flow of
humanity, on my way to being productive in society, instead of
sitting in this luxurious restaurant?

The tall black gangly bag man I quickly passed on my way back
into the fortress of the Hyatt has appeared on the far corner.
Now he's talking to the Citycorp building on the adjacent
corner. I thought that if I had any breakfast left over, I
would take give it to the fellow. How can he survive in this
stainless steel and concrete forest when it must take fifty
thousand for the rest of these people to live in at least a
studio?

An ad. I might as well be productive and work on our company's
next ad. That's it. I'll create an ad with my lap top and be
productive sitting where I am. I don't have to chase a taxi
out there. Grow where you're planted.

First things first. The product. We want to advertise Epson
printers and computers.

The problem with computers is they're ugly. No matter what
brand you advertise, all computer hardware is ugly. You can
temporarily distract your audience with the former cast of
MASH, or Charleton Heston, but sooner or later they'll notice.
They look like the result of an unsuccessful marriage of a
typewriter and a television. Anything for a picture of people
having something to do with the computer.

Perhaps a picture of the bag man across the street. "The
computer that changed my life" he might say as he gaily looked
up from his keyboard. Unfortunately he's is sitting down on
the sidewalk against the building, unavailable for a photo
session. Must have grown tired of Citycorp's lack of response.
He's still talking to an invisible listener, feet stretched out
haphazardly. People walk around him without complaint.

"How would you like to be photographed for a newspaper ad for
an Epson computer?" I'd might ask him. "You'd be on the second
page of the financial section of the Buffalo paper. I'd need
you to sit by this machine, smiling at the results of your
laser printer's output. You need to look productive,
stimulated, satisfied, delighted that you are privileged to be
using this technology."

Back to the ad. Art really makes an ad. Where am I going to
get something with people in it. No matter what anyone says,
if you haven't got something visual, you haven't got an ad.
We've grown up with Fred Roger's puppets and the gala folks on
Sesame Street. We demand to be visually stimulated. I wonder
what Fred Rogers would have said to this bag man if he showed
up in The Land of Make Believe?

And then there are the people riding on the bus of the new
T-shirt over on the corner of the breakfast table. That's it.
Weary travelers in hopes of being successful for another day.
Why not use them? When I get back to the office,I'll photocopy
the T-shirt, run the image through the scanner, and pull it
into the ad. Even in New York I can get the creative juices
going.

I wonder if the bag man has ever heard of Epson Computers? Now
he's on his feet rummaging through a nearby trash receptacle.
He is opening bags eating left over food. Drinking out of a
discarded pop can. He probably isn't worried about diseases
because he has built up tremendous immunity. But whatever he's
had for breakfast, he didn't pay $ 2.95 for the orange juice.

OK, now the ad has a picture of the bus passengers. The
headline. It's got to be short, catchy. It's got to offer
something. The people in the drawing look like they need to be
home in an air-conditioned room with their feet up on the
chair. Nothing Epson computers has is going to change their
bus ride.

How about going from the angle of catching these people off
guard? Candid camera playing Trivial Pursuit. No relief is in
sight for these travelers, so I'll offer them a quiz game to
pass the time.

-----

QUICK QUIZ:
WHO IS THE LARGEST EPSON BUSINESS CENTER
IN WESTERN NEW YORK
And the most fun to deal with?

Now if the bag man across the street were buying a computer and
printer, he'd have to know something about Epson hardware. He
would also want some assurance that the people he's dealing
with are OK sort of folks. People who wouldn't turn him out or
question his credit because of his smelly clothing. People who
wouldn't come to the conclusion that he may have been released
from a mental institution with a month's supply of Thorzine and
the name of his social worker.

Below the picture I'll put some clues. The T-shirt commuters
look haggard. They don't even have the energy to respond "Who
cares!" They just want to be entertained. And readers of the
ad would trust the fatigue on the faces of the drawing and say
to themselves: "OK, a quiz! Gimme some clues." So I give some.

CLUES:

1. They (the full line Epson Computer & Printer Dealer")
carry the fabulous Epson Equity line computers.
2. They sell all of the fine quality Epson dot matrix and
laser printers.
3. They have a technical support crew who are second to
none.
4. They offer training courses and advanced consulting for
most industry standard software applications.
5. They have the friendly, competent, and accessible kind of
people you've always wanted to deal with on a
day-to-day basis.

Surely for all of the people hooked on detective novels which
demand that they recall clues, and those who thrive on
remembering facts for the Jeopardy game, or those who enjoy the
detail picking trivial games, a sense of suspense must be
mounting. Obviously the people on the bus riding across my
T-shirt don't care who is the largest Epson computer and
printer dealer in their area, but the bus ride is so boring
that they're willing to find out just to take their mind off
the monotonous ride.

Across the street there is a woman giving something to her
daughter beside her. Money. The little girl walks over to the
bag man, handing him the change. He doesn't attack. He just
puts the money in his pocket. The flow of pedestrians
continues.

Perhaps the bag man's headline and graphic is his own body
slouched on the sidewalk against Citicorp. His visual captures
the paradox of the towering height of corporate architecture
and wealth with the plummeting poverty of a street derelict
without a home, a master card, or breakfast.

Which has arrived for me. It gets put on the far side of the
table. Computer warranties don't cover damage caused by spilt
coffee, Eggs Benedict, or Manhatten souffle'.

Playing on the driving need for an answer to a quiz question, I
next appropriately include:

ANSWER

Now answers to crossword puzzles and cereal box quizzes are
usually printed upside down at the bottom. Tradition should
not be overlooked.

So I make a note to myself that when I return to my office, I
am going to scan our company logo upside down and place it at
the bottom of the ad. I'll draw an arrow from the word
"ANSWER" to the inverted logo. How many people will really
turn the ad in their paper upside down to find out the answer
to the quiz question? Everyone, of course. Anyone who has
identified with the people on the bus enough to read through
the clues to the quick quiz will have to know how this question
comes out.

This time a portly balding man comes over to the bag man and
hands him a few dollars. Was the donor a former bag man? Did
he work his way up from being a street person to chief
executive officer? This street person's campaign seems to be
working. He knows people are basically good. They respond to
human need. They'll help him guy on the street.

Perhaps his audience will take thirty seconds of their life and
read my ad about Epson printers. They'll buy them too. No one
else has bothered to stretch their imagination across their
reading material to communicate about Epson computers and
printers. But then there will be the bank ad, perhaps placed
above mine, with the cartoon figures of little people being
treated like big people at that bank. But has anyone ever gone
into a bank and felt like a big person? Certainly not the bag
man who is now urinating against the trash can which provided
his breakfast.

Why can't I have a page to myself, like this man has the
Citycorp building without competition from other derelicts?

My seminar starts in an hour and its up near Central Park.
Undoubtedly I'll pass by even more impoverished begging
campaigns. I wonder where I can get myself a good pair of
jogging shoes?

--------------------------
Author's note: Philip Siddons is the director of advertising and
marketing for a Buffalo computer firm, and is the author of
"Speaking Our For Women" (Judson) as well as various magazine
articles.