Lamar Owens

Ad-Ducers: A Ryan O'Rourke Ad - Venture Lamar Owens

Ryan O'Rourke was on his third glass of Glenfiddich and told himself to slow down. I would hate to stumble and fall down drunk while receiving my first CLIO award. After all it was the world's most recognized advertising award. Ryan was sitting at a table with a few BMW executives rather than with his old agency Goodby-Silverstein Partners. He had created the CLIO winning BMW campaign while with Goodby-Silverstein and the Mini Cooper campaign in his own company which he later sold. I switched to Perrier water and watched as FCB and McCann - Interpublic, BBDO, DDB and TBWA - Omnicom creative directors received their awards. It always frosted me that the agency creative directors or principals accepted the awards on behalf of the sweat hog creative writers, designers and producers who actually did the creative. I had plenty of time to think back through my career since I was listed as the 33rd recipient on the CLIO schedule. It had been a weird and winding road that brought me to this point. While at USC I met Matteo Bianchi - Matt. He was a year ahead of me in the Cinematic Arts program and a member of the Sigma Nu Fraternity. Matt was a tall, handsom Italian who's loves were women, booze and partying. Matt convinced me to join Sigma Nu and after suffering through the ridiculous harassment of my pledge year Matt and I were roommates at the frat house. The parties were exciting and the help I got with tutoring gave me an advantage in keeping a high grade point average. Matt was from Phoenix Arizona and his family knew the Spielbergs. He attended Arcadia High School along with Steven Spielberg until his senior year when the Spielbergs moved to Saratoga California. They maintained a friendship and got together when Matt was at USC. That's how I met Spielberg while he was working at Universal Studios. During my junior year Matt told me Spielberg had been given a long term directing contract at Universal and he was planning on working with him. My real education started. The first person Matt introduced me to was the CEO Jeff Smart. He was a bean counter and a real prick. But I smiled and did my 'I'm so thrilled to be here' routine. He laughed in my face.