Going the extra hour.

We sat in Amelia’s office. We felt good about the work for Wild Turkey we were about to present. There was no last-minute scrambling, we were totally prepared. There was a sense of calm. In a couple of hours, we’d be leaving the agency offices to make our way up to midtown Manhattan for our final client presentation.

Amelia, an experienced, well-known writer, looked across her desk at me. “Hey,” she said, “we have about an hour, let’s see if we can top what we have?” “Really, in an hour” I said. “Yeah,” she replied. Why would she throw our presentation into last-minute chaos, I thought. We began tossing around some ideas. The Wild Turkey tone of voice was educated, but spoke in plain, approachable language. And being a Bourbon, it was proud of its Kentucky heritage. As part of her research, Amelia had a children’s book about Kentucky history. She thumbed through it and paused on one page. “This is a surprising fact,” she said.

So, one children’s book and one hour later we had an ad in the One Show.