He shrugged. "Well, I don't know about all of them. I wasn't involved in any of the meetings that they had or that Liz had with Mr. Strong, but my sense is that this particular idea comes from higher up."
"What do you think of this concept?"
He looked down into his food, readjusting the bread on his sandwich. "That's all right, I guess."
"No, be honest with me. What do you really think? I won't tell anybody what we've said here."
He looked up at me, but I could see reluctance in his eyes. "What do you think of it?"
"I think it stinks." Perhaps it wasn't the best thing to blurt out my opinion like that. But then again, Hunter knew what I thought of the campaign. And what did I care if I got fired except that I didn't want to lose the ability to show my work at the gallery. But I wasn't a person who was going to say something was good when it wasn't.
He looked down but I saw a small smile on his face as he picked up his sandwich. "So, what's your idea?" He asked as he took a bite of his sandwich.
“I was thinking something along the lines of maybe a sixties retro type thing. I mean if you think about what Americans like to buy, a lot of times when it comes from Europe, we want to have that European vibe, right?"
"Right." He took a sip of his soda.
"So, I imagine that people in Europe, if they're buying something from America, probably they want to have that American vibe."
"I can see that."
"I don't think Hunter does." I stabbed my leftover lo mein with my fork in frustration.
"I think you should go with that," Gavin said. "There’s something to that and I know that we could probably come up with some copy that would go with it.
"I don't know, Hunter seems pretty committed to this boring traditional thing going on."
"Hunter's really good at what he does. There's been a lot of times where we've questioned what he was doing and in the end, he turned out to be brilliant. With that said he is open to ideas. You know he doesn't micromanage. He hires people he believes can do the job and he steps out of the way to let us do it."
I stared at Gavin because that wasn't my experience of Hunter. At the same time, he hadn't come down a bunch of times yesterday to check on me, nor had he at the end of the day. I couldn't be sure if that was because he trusted me to do the job or if it was part of our deal to stay out of each other's way because we had that weird sort of chemistry going on.
After lunch I went back to my office and pushing the old ad campaign sketches aside, I began to work on something new. I wondered if there was a way I could merge the two ideas together. Opening my creative mind, I began to sketch and draw a variety of different ideas as something began to flesh together and solidify.
I then pulled out another piece of paper to try and synthesize the ideas that were coming to me. As usual I got lost in my artwork and was surprised when I heard someone clear their throat and I looked up to see Hunter standing in my office.
"I was curious to see what you'd been coming up with," he said. I stared at him for a moment. He looked really good in a suit, but there was sort of a ruggedness about him that made me wonder what he would look like in jeans and a T-shirt. In some ways he seemed like a round peg in a square world as well. But somehow, he'd softened the curves to fit in the world better than I did.
"Here's some of the ideas I’ve been working on today," I said as I stood and rounded the desk to show him the sketches I was working on. Just to make sure that he wouldn’t be too upset by the new direction I was going in, I also showed him some of the work I attempted on the campaign that they had already started. I hoped that seeing the two ideas together, he’d realize my vision was best.
He studied all the work that I had done with his brows furrowing tighter and tighter as he reviewed the work.
He straightened and let out a breath. "You seem to have put in the most effort into the thing that doesn't go at all with what we've already done. You wasted your time on something that is basically useless."
I was disappointed although not surprised. "I know this isn't exactly what you were thinking —"
"It's not even close."
My hackles rose but I worked to keep my anger in check. I reminded myself of the gallery showing he was going to set up for me. “It's not that far off. I've merged some of my ideas of the Southern California thing that I really think will appeal to people in Europe —"
"You think it will appeal? This isn't some sort of thesis or hypothesis, Natalie. We aren’t testing anything here. We need a campaign that's going to sell."
I took a breath to help steady my nerves again. "No one in Europe is going to buy the Mona Lisa from the United States because they already have a Mona Lisa," I argued. "This idea merges your idea and my idea together. It's not Roman holiday, it's more like Princess Grace in Monaco on the beach in the 50s. It's got the elegance and sophistication that you want merged with California beach that Europeans are going to be interested in." I leaned over my desk to point out the various elements that I had included to merge my idea and his together into something that wasn't boring.
"I've already talked to Gavin about this and he supports this idea," I said, hoping that Gavin'
s opinion would carry weight with Hunter.
Hunter growled and stiffened at my words which surprised me. "Gavin isn’t the lead on this campaign. I am, and I put you in charge of it. You should have run this by me for wasting your time."