ALSO READ:
It Was Thirty Years Ago . . .
by Chris Wiltz
| Those of you who don't like TV or who don't watch
it very much may not yet have caught our act. Maybe you could grab
a good book from Maple Street Book Shop or the library, plop down
in front of the TV with the sound turned down low, and read until
you hear the drawling and geographically fantastical (untrue) words:
"Far from Bourbon Street, in its own little corner of the Garden
District . . . " Immediately turn up the sound and you will see
a Visa commercial starring Maple Street Children's Book Shop. It has
been showing on all three big networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC) as well
as on cable, usually during prime time. The word "immediately"
is important because the commercial is only thirty seconds long. Since
MILLIONS (it's still hard to believe) of people have already seen
it, you might not want to be the only one to miss it. The entire text
of the commercial is in the form of a voiceover (a man, in this case,
talking while there's action on the screen) that says in a Southern
accent (maybe from Southern Mars): |
 |
|
Cindy Dike, Rhoda Faust,
and the film crew |
|
| "Far (faaa) from Bourbon Street, in its own little corner (cawna) of the Garden District (Welllllll . . . the University Section does have gardens in it) is the most fabled house in New Orleans--the Maple Street Children's Book Shop--where the folks who write the books also read them. So if you go, bring your wildest imagination and your Visa card because at Maple Street they'll take you on a truly magical journey, but they won't take American Express. Visa--it's everywhere you want to be." |
|
| The screen shows a three-second, whole screen,
zooming Visa bleed (in other words, a picture of part of the Visa
logo), then a cheerful carriage driver in a straw boater driving a
horse-drawn carriage, then a shot of the balcony of a gorgeous Garden
District mansion, then a very zippy family (mother, father, child)
going into Maple Street Children's Book Shop. The father carries a
shoulder bag rather daintily out in front of him. (The director told
them that they had about two and a half seconds to get down from the
carriage and up the book shop steps onto the porch. In their struggle
not to fall on their faces, they grabbed their stuff and ran.) |
 |
|
Maple Street Children's Book Shop during the filming
of the Visa commercial |
This story of our Visa commercial not only has a happy ending, which is that out-of-town and tourist sales have greatly increased at the Children's Book Shop, it also has a heroine. The person who pulled off this awesome coup is Cindy Dike, the managing partner of Maple Street Children's Book Shop. She got us free advertising that would normally cost more than $500,000.00 (just to produce the commercial, not counting the air time) and which would have put a serious dent in her shop's annual advertising budget of $300.
The excitement started more than a year ago in May of 1991 when Adina Watchtel of BBDO, an advertising agency in New York, called Jane Stickney, who works at Maple Street Book Shop next door to Cindy. Offering to pay for all of out Federal Express bills, Adina asked that we sent her a batch of photographs and any promotional material we had on the two shops on Maple Street. She explained that Visa wanted to do a bookshop commercial and that she had noticed in a tourist guide that we did not take American Express (Hurdle No. 1). Figuring it was a very long shot since Adina said there were other shops under consideration and having plenty of other work to do, Jane still offered to dig through our "archives" (cardboard boxes, old newspapers, scattered photos, lots of roaches) and get the package off that afternoon. After a few days, Adina called Cindy to say that the Children's Book Shop was still in the running but she needed more photos, inside and out, IMMEDIATELY, Federal Express, charge it to their account. Cindy hustled down to the Camera Shop, got film and help from them, and sent off the new photos, only to hear a few days later from Jane that Adina had called to say that "they were not going ahead with the project at this time."
The process picks up a year later when Adina called Cindy to say that she couldn't find the batch of stuff we sent, although it was probably there somewhere, and maybe it'd be easier if we just Maple Street Children's Book Shop during the filming of the Visa commercial took another whole bunch of photos and IMMEDIATELY Federal Express them to her. Adina also wanted anything else we could find that would illustrate to her why Maple Street Children's Book Shop is special (like, what could we find?), and she wanted almost all the books we had related to Cajuns, New Orleans, and streetcars. So Cindy sprang back to action by borrowing a Polaroid from those nice folks at the Camera Shop, taking another 50 or 60 pictures of everything photographable inside and outside the shop. A few days later, Cindy was single-handedly dealing with a surge of customers (who, true to form, turned out to be very nice, understanding, patient people) when Adina called on a conference call with three plot-writers who wanted to "pick her brain" for a possible commercial. This migraine phone call yielded the idea to use a story-telling or author-reading scene, and a request that Cindy IMMEDIATELY measure every room, every door, and every window and to include which direction the windows faced (not an easy task for those of us who think in terms of: "Well, it would look out at the river if about ten blocks weren't there."). To the rescue came John Dike, Cindy's husband and manager of Maple Street's Lakeside Book Shop, and always a very busy person, who nevertheless IMMEDIATELY produced an impressive, drawn-to-scale rendering of the whole building on official-looking paper which included official-sounding words like "East" and "West."
Finally, before any living flesh from BBDO Agency actually came here, a two-page contract arrived that looked deceptively simple, but Cindy, of course, consulted at least one lawyer to make sure we weren't getting fiendishly duped. In an informal ceremony with coffee flowing lavishly, the contract was signed. Cindy then quietly checked herself into Mandeville while the rest of us had fun going around saying "the shoot" this and "the shoot" that.
The simplest (laziest) way to describe
the scene is to say that it looked exactly like movie-making scenes you
see in the movies. First thing Wednesday morning, our whole block was
closed to traffic, although two big signs and NOPD officers on each end
made it clear to pedestrians that all businesses were open except the
Children's Book Shop and the Vera Cruz Restaurant, which had been leased
as headquarters. Giant trucks full of cameras, thick wires, and lighting
equipment vied for street space with trailers and campers reserved for
the power people. The sidewalks were turned chaotic by more equipment
and throngs of bustling people, crew, and bystanders. Snack tables overflowed
with gorgeous fresh fruit, cheeses, crackers, chips, nuts, candy, coffee
dispensers, and tubs of juices and soft drinks. Massive trash bags filled
the yard of the main book shop next door to the shoot. The neat freaks
on our staff broke out in hives.
By Friday at noon, the commercial was done,
everybody and everything had gone, and we were left to go on with what
seemed like a very bleak existence. Two weeks later, Adina called Cindy
with the thrilling news that "we" would debut on NBC the Sunday
night of the commencement for the Summer Olympics. To add to our glitz,
Jim Welsh, a reporter from the Times-Picayune, wrote a wonderful article
about our commercial for the business section, which appeared on the Saturday
before the big Sunday. Despite our fears that an untimely breakout of
World War III or a distracting invasion from outer space would prevent
everybody from watching, seven o'clock on the big night finally rolled
around. And there we were! And there we still are on our VCR copies, which
we'll be happy to lend you if you'd rather not risk getting brain-rot
from TV.