Room 1208 by Sophia Renny Read Free Book Online Page B

session for the Jagz
campaign.
    Maggie recalled shaking in her shoes at her first
such meeting at Pelham and Mason. The sensitive, eager-to-please girl inside of
her hadn’t expected her brilliant—or so she thought—ideas to be ridiculed. But
it’d taken just a few minutes to realize that teasing and laughter played a
major part in Tim and Rob’s creative process. All ideas, good and bad, were
noted on the whiteboard, but, unless the pitch was spot on, which was rare, no
one was safe from mockery.
    Kayla interrupted John. “I thought it was a good
idea. Who doesn’t love James Bond?”
    “That suave Daniel Craig look will definitely
have some appeal with both men and women,” Tim conceded. “I just think it’s
been done already.”
    “It’s practically a cliché for a vodka ad,” Dan
agreed. “Shaken and not stirred and all that. We need something fresh.”
    Kayla pursed her lips with annoyance. “Yeah? So,
what’s your big idea?”
    Samantha shared a look with Maggie and Dan before
clearing her throat. “Looking at the current Jagz campaign, it’s easy to see
why they’re appealing to that young celebrity and celebrity wannabe demographic.”
She slid a ripped out magazine page to the center of the table. “We see a bunch
of twenty somethings partying in what appears to be a Vegas nightclub, VIP
velvet ropes, lots of tits and ass, flash and bling.”
    “Cool,” Emily said from where she stood at the
whiteboard working on the mind map.
    “Exactly,” Dan agreed. “But say you’re a business
man or woman, tired from a long day on the road or a slew of meetings, just
wanting to sit in a quiet, classy bar and have a drink—that one drink that’s
going to soothe your weary soul, mellow out your day, remind you that you
worked hard and deserve something special, maybe something unexpected.”
    While he’d been speaking, Maggie had risen from
her chair to stand next to the covered easel the three of them had placed there
a few minutes before the meeting. Now she uncovered the first series of
sketches Dan and his design team had hurriedly put together earlier that
morning. She waited until everyone had a chance to view the storyboard then
said, “Jagz Vodka...Expect the Unexpected.”
    The room was silent for what seemed to Maggie
like several minutes before Rob and Tim nodded at each other and Rob said,
“Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner.”
    “I’ve heard that slogan somewhere before,” Kayla
said, giving Rob a sweetly puzzled look.
    “There’s no copyright on it,” Dan argued. “It’s a
quote that goes back to around five hundred years before Christ.”
    “Herodotus?” John asked.
    “Heraclitus.”
    “Geez, who knew you were so wicked smart?”
Samantha gave Dan a teasing punch on the arm.
    “It doesn’t matter how many times it may have
been used before or for what purpose,” Tim said, his mellow voice pulling everyone’s
attention to him as usual. “It’s the concept as a whole that works. It’s sexy
and sophisticated. I want to see the same story from the female perspective.
Give me two more storyboards around this and have it on my desk by noon.”
     
    The next few days were a
whirlwind as the teams worked together to flesh out both the print and
television ads needed for the pitch. Maggie spent hours sifting through
headshots, searching for the man and the woman who were so pivotal to the ad’s
success or failure. He had to have dark hair and blue eyes. Ideally, she would have been a redhead, but Maggie settled on a brunette who had very expressive
and appealing features. Both actors ended up being perfect.
    Maggie had just returned from the production
studio when Tim called her into his office. “Shut the door.”
    She raised her eyebrows at his tone. It was
unusual for him to sound so agitated. “What’s up?”
    He began pacing between his desk and the window,
hands on his hips. Finally he heaved a sigh. “There’s just no good way to say
this.