06.13.2003

It’s with some sadness that my business partner Patrick and I recently heard of the passing away in late February of a friend and role model of ours, Roy Grace, whom we had the privilege of getting to know and learn from when we were first starting out as a company. Roy was a legendary art director in the advertising world: over the course of four decades, he worked on at least 25 of the 100 greatest TV commercials of all time as rated by Advertising Age, including the iconic Volkswagen “Funeral” ad and the Samsonite/American Tourister “Gorilla” spot. I still see the influence of his wit and style every time I open a magazine or watch TV - whenever you find a commercial more artful and entertaining than what surrounds it, you have Roy in big part to thank.

As two guys who started a company right out of college, and had to learn a lot of lessons about business on the job, Patrick and I sometimes envied those people who had a mentor in their early career, someone from whom to learn the ropes, and benefit from their guidance and experience. While I never had that kind of extended relationship with anyone, I’ve always felt fortunate in having had the chance to work with Roy Grace, as in many ways he was that person for me, despite how briefly and infrequently we got to work together.

I first got to know Roy on my first big break as a designer and art director: the official launch of Omnipoint, a wireless phone company that’s long since been swallowed up in mergers (it’s part of what is now T-Mobile). Roy’s agency, Grace & Rothschild, was responsible for Omnipoint’s TV and print advertising, while we had landed the job to develop Omnipoint’s web and interactive media, our first major client contract. At the time, we were so green that we’d written the proposal on our apartment floor (recently graduated college RAs, we owned no furniture), and didn’t have any experience pitching creative ideas or managing client projects on a corporate level. We were in over our heads at first (questions came up daily like, “What’s a Gantt chart?”), but as soon as we were introduced to Grace & Rothschild, we saw the model right away for what we hoped to accomplish as a company. Their work was top notch, and gave us the inspiration we needed to run with our own. In terms of their own image, everything they did, we tried to do, and we noticed every little touch, from the way their office looked to the way they listened when you spoke. And when Roy or one of his colleagues spoke in front of a client, we hung on every word. I sometimes wonder what things would have been like if we hadn’t worked with them starting out, as I feel that in doing so we learned more from the outset about how a professional firm conducts itself than a lot of our competitors did, and many of them don’t exist anymore.

Our relationship with Roy and his agency continued to develop over the next few years, during which we collaborated on projects and had chances to talk about where our industries had been and where they were going. It was always with some degree of awe on our part, but they always treated us like equals. Roy was the kindest and most talented person I met in those days, always articulate, thoughtful, and engaging. From what I could tell, his co-workers loved him, and he deferred to them, unassumingly sharing the spotlight with the young, ambitious people in the room who just wanted to do a good job. I’ve met some real jerks in this business, and sometimes it gets me down, but every time I see the creative director title on my card, one of the reasons it still means something to me is that it was a job he did so humbly and well, and it’s quite an example to try to live up to. He gave me one great bit of advice around that time, which I’ll try to paraphrase here: when you get a great idea, he told me, don’t rush to be the first to say it, but quietly write it down, take your time, and let other people speak their piece. Keep looking over what you’ve written and think it through completely. If it still seems like a good idea, and no one else has brought it up, then give it a try.

This helped me out a number of times when I was getting started: often that great idea, upon consideration, has flaws that will come out in a discussion. More often than not, by the time you’ve thought better of it and cast it aside, some other poor bastard has had the same flash of inspiration, and can’t wait to bring it out to dazzle the room. In the discussions that follow, you’ll have the advantage of being a few steps ahead, and may appear more insightful in a pinch than you’d imagine. On the other hand, if it turns out to have been a good idea, and by waiting, you let someone else arrive there first, Roy would say, who cares? It’s a lonely existence to be only as good as your last idea; what he understood was that going through life trying to impress others was a losing game, while building great work by advancing the team and putting the ego aside was a surer path to success for everyone involved.

The high point of those days for me was the time that Roy and his partners, Chip Sleeper and Diane Rothschild, got on a plane and came down to our little office in DC to talk about a formal partnership between our companies. It was, and continues to be, one of the most thrilling moments of my career: they’re coming here? Just to meet with us? They have no other meetings scheduled in DC? Not long after, they asked us to design and develop the Grace & Rothschild website, which was a huge honor; it felt like getting a master’s diploma handed to you by your favorite professor.

In 2000, Grace & Rothschild decided to close up shop after their largest client, Land Rover, was bought by Ford and the advertising business moved to Ford’s agency as part of the consolidation. To my regret, we lost touch with Roy after he retired, except for occasional notes when he received another honor, like taking two of the top three spots in TV Guide’s greatest TV commercials, for “Funeral” and “Spicy Meatball.” I wish I had heard back in February of Roy’s peaceful passing, at 66, to prostate cancer, so I could have paid more appropriate respects, but this is a belated tribute to a heck of a guy who meant a lot to me. I’ll leave with a quote from his New York Times notice, which ended, “he leaves his wife of 37 years, Marcia, his daughter Jessica of New York, his son Nicholas of Los Angeles, and countless others for whom, by his example both personal and professional, he remains a hero.” Here’s to you, Roy, from one of those countless others.

Gifts in Roy Grace’s memory may be directed to The Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering, 1233 York Avenue, Room B 101, New York 10021.

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