Lee Iacocca, Look What You Did

Until Lee Iacocca came along, corporate chief executives were content with their overpaid salaries, their overstuffed perks, their overgreedy stock options, and the oversize golden parachutes they left – sometimes tiptoeing through the corporate wreckage they had caused. They were shadowy figures, despite little exposes such as the whimsical movie “Roger and Me,” about one guy’s argument with the chairman of General Motors.

The only CEOs whose mugs we saw on television were the owners of car dealerships, stumbling over words on the TelePrompTer. They were just local entrepreneurs looking for recognition at their country clubs, so we could excuse the realization that today’s celebrity is a guy who can afford television time. We also had and have retailers such as Sy and Marcy Syms, whose stores are in just 16 states, so they’re sort of local. And they seem to be relatively harmless.

That Face Was Everywhere.

Iacocca’s massive ego changed all that. His face appeared everywhere. He was Chrysler. His ghastly clichA, “If you can find a better car, buy it,” became as much a part of Americana as “What the hell”…although “What the hell” has considerably more impact. He also made an embarrassing guest appearance on the TV show “Miami Vice” for reasons best known to God and Don Johnson. When he left, to the smaller-wheeled universe of bicycles or whatever, no one dared replace him.

But the notoriety attending ego has saturated corporate America, and now a strange variety of would-be’s are telling their advertising agencies: “Forget Arnold Palmer and Ed McMahon. [Good idea.] Bill Cosby is maxed out. I can’t deal with the women’s soccer team’s agent. I’ll do my own commercials.”

So here is tired Dave Thomas, hawking for Wendy’s. Is he really a potent follow-up for the still-remembered “Where’s the beef?”

I have no quarrel with Dave Thomas. He’s a sort-of neighbor, and his wife and mine are on the same save-the-arts committees. But really, aren’t the commercials tailored to glorify him instead of the restaurants? Hasn’t the rapport of the early days given way to a “Let’s get on with it” indifference?

The key question: Does his appearance in the television commercials increase market share? Ray Kroc built McDonald’s into a behemoth without even once appearing on camera. (I wonder what he would have thought of “Did somebody say McDonald’s?” Too many jesters scream “No!” when that strange slogan appears.)

Brokers All Over

I’ve quietly watched Charles Schwab quietly age in his quiet television commercials, over the years. This guy knows how to deliver a sincere pitch, without becoming strident or cute. I like him more than I ever liked Lee Iacocca, but his success has spawned a batch of would-be brokers.

For example, here comes one now.

I have a sizable chunk of Fidelity Mutual Funds. The broker sold me the idea based on stock market volatility (true) and Fidelity’s solid, no-nonsense management (now in question). I think Peter Lynch is the name of the white-haired chap who keeps his hands in his pockets and mumbles platitudes such as “You’ve got to make a plan and stick with it for the long term. Ten, 20, 30 years out.”

Whoever directed these spots should have provided a clipboard so this fellow could have something to do with his hands. Whoever approved the message – could it have been this same guy? – has a gnat’s-eye view of what the typical investor wants. Thirty years out? Tell it to my embalmer.

Then we have Ruth Fertel, of Ruth’s Chris Steak House. Isn’t there one word too many in that corporate name? OK, her first name is on the door, but so is Chris’, whoever he might be. I ask her, and her legions of restaurateur followers: Aren’t testimonials by diners more compelling than owner crowings?

I’ll qualify this next one as an opinion, but I have to add the hope that you share it: One of the most annoying self-subsidizing spokespeople is a man named Victor Kiam, who originally touted Remington razors with the line, “I liked it so much I bought the company.” The concept was sound; the delivery was in a “Nyaah, nyaah, look at me!” tone that would have made Dale Carnegie cringe.

These self-puffers aren’t parallel to the spate of political candidates whose mugs we’re beginning to see all over the tube and the Net. Political candidates owe it to us to let us see what their makeup experts, hairdressers and clothes designers have wrought. After all, the winning candidates are going to control our destiny. Like it or not, they’re our super-partners. An ugly thought.

They’re No. 1.

Hah! Isn’t that exactly what the Iacocca-pretenders also want? In their warped psyches, they become paramount over what they’re selling. How Caesarian! (The emperor, not the delivery.)

So all right. Let these people strut and preen and sell themselves instead of their products and services. Let them think they have the polish of a professional spokesman such as Arnold Palmer or what used to be Bill Cosby. Let their toadying advertising agencies feed their egos so the agency executives can feed their families.

But we should have a say, because we, their unwitting targets, are penalized by being forced to commit these faces to memory.

Yeah, we’re marketers. But we’re also consumers. You know what to do when they pop onto the screen: Shrug and say, “What the hell.”