Manhattan Rib & Chicken Said No. President Reagan Said Yes.

● Allen Kay, ad executive: When Lois Korey and I started out on our own, The Wall Street Journal ran a column about us because nobody thought we would ever leave our jobs at Needham, Harper & Steers. Both of us were clearing $300,000, with all the perks. We had the Xerox account, and we went from that to zero in a borrowed office in the Empire State Building. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was more like a closet. We had these partner desks, so we kept knocking each other’s knees and fighting over the one phone. I sat by the door, she sat by the window, and to the side of the desk was a chair. If Lois wanted to get out of the office, we had to move the chair.

The day we opened, a Monday, we took an ad out in the paper. And on Tuesday, we got a call from the national Republican Party, who said they had been looking for an agency for seven months and had finally decided on somebody, but they saw our ad and they had a feeling. They said, “These guys have chutzpah.” They said, “Can we send an advance man down to your office to meet you?” We said sure, then we looked at each other like, What the fuck are we going to do now? We’re here in a closet, and the national Republican Party is going to come to see us? And Lois said, “Look, they’re here to see our work, not to buy furniture.”

We met with this guy and then we had to rush uptown for an appointment with a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Manhattan Rib & Chicken. They eventually decided to spend their money on an air conditioner for the restaurant rather than advertising. We get back to the office and Lois is going through her phone slips and sees the Republicans called. They say, “We would like you to pitch the whole committee on Thursday. Could you do that?” We went to their office in midtown, which was really slick. We do this presentation, and I just got a really bad feeling, like, We blew it. We should have toned it down. But then the head of the group, a woman named Nancy, gets up in front and says, “If we don’t hire these guys, we’re out of our minds.” On Friday, we’re in Washington shaking hands with the president in the White House.

This is Ronald Reagan. They showed him our reel; he laughed all the way through it. And he said to the head of TV, “You guys made a great choice.” He shook our hands, we got a tour of the White House offices, and we were treated like we were kings. They were our first account. Ten million dollars, paid up front in cash before every month. The Republicans are very good about paying their bills. The Democrats—it’s rumored Bill Clinton still owes money to everybody. But they pay. And we just shoved it in the bank. Shoved it in the bank.