Page 86 of Breaking All The Rules
Bea blinked. Now that she hadn’t been expecting. It was a smart move—viral sensations had a pretty short shelf life—but…Bea had cut that string a few months ago. “When you say all, you mean traditional media?”
“Yep. TV. Radio. Newspapers. Billboards. Obviously, our budget is modest, but I think if we’re smart and strategic and keep using social media impressions to drive response to the traditional stuff, we can do it. And there’s nobody in the business better than you for flair, creativity, and cross-media strategy.”
Bea tried not to let Kim’s flattery go to her head, but it was true. She had several awards to her name for just those things. Which was why missing out on that much-coveted promotion this year had been particularly cutting. “Look, Kim…I’m flattered. Truly. But I’m not in the business anymore.”
Even as she said it, though, Bea felt that old buzz in her blood, the tingle in her fingertips, the flash of images on her inward eye. The beautiful potential of a new campaign that she got to craft and manage from the ground up. She’d worked collaboratively on many projects over the years, creating advertisements to very specific briefs from clients, working within those parameters and with multiple people in multiple departments, and she’d always delivered.
But the thrill of running the show herself was tempting. The awards and accolades she’d earned over the years had always come from campaigns where the client had given her free rein. Which was exactly what Kim was doing.
“It’s not about getting back into the business,” Kim dismissed. “It’s just a one-off campaign that you can do from Credence and fit in around your Cranky Bea designs. We’ll support you with everything you’ll need on this end, including a team to work with, but it’ll be your baby. You’ll be in charge. Everything from the copy through to the hiring of the actors for the TV ads—it’ll be all yours.”
Bea couldn’t believe how tempted she was—she’d loved doing TV ads the most. Prior to her career coming to a rather ignoble end, she would have said that advertising had given her the best years of her life. But it had also dealt her the biggest blow, and living here, becoming part of Credence—the polar opposite of LA—had made her realize that best was subjective.
That there were multiple versions of best.
Thoughts churned and clashed inside her head, about a zillion questions swirling in with the mix. Could she do this? Did she want to? A national campaign under her control, introducing and selling Cranky Bea—essentially her product—to the market. It was an advertising wet dream and would get her back into doing what she was good at—selling product.
Not creating it.
Because selling was what she knew. Selling was what she’d lived and breathed. It was what she excelled at. These doodlings had given her something to do and had opened up this opportunity, but they weren’t who she was. She was an ad woman. Not a…creative. And this was a massive chance to prove to the LA advertising scene, to her father, to herself, that she was still the same person. She was just doing it in her own way this time. On her own terms.
“What time frame are you thinking?” Bea asked.
“We’d like to have a plan mapped out in, say, about a month?”
A month…that wasn’t much time to come up with a national strategy, but Greet Cute was hardly Coca-Cola, and Bea had always done her best work under pressure.
“The aim is to have the campaign up and running by the end of the summer,” Kim added.
The end of the summer. Even as part of Bea rejected the idea, the other part of her was already becoming invested. Cranky Bea was her. And if anyone could sell the crap out it, she could.
“Look,” Kim said, “don’t give me your answer now. Let me email you a bunch of information and you can have a think and get back to me in the next couple of days.”
Bea shook her head. “I don’t need a couple of days. I’ll do it.”
There was a slight pause on the other end, like Kim had been expecting a no and was trying to regroup. “Really?”
“Really.” Bea laughed. “Send me what you’ve got and let’s talk some more.”
Suddenly Bea had never been more sure of anything. She hadn’t known what she wanted and she’d never pictured this—going back to the industry that had used and discarded her. But it was a one-off campaign. Which she could orchestrate from her little apartment here in Credence.
Sure, it might take up a bit of her time for a few months, but then it’d be over and things would get back to normal and everything would be rosy.
So, as Austin was fond of saying, why not?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The footsteps Bea had come to know so well clomping up her stairs made her smile at just after four o’clock. She’d been on and off the phone with Kim all day and was already underway with some preliminary work for Cranky Bea’s advertising strategy, and she couldn’t wait to tell Austin.
The key turned in the lock, and Bea glanced up from where she was sitting on the couch, the laptop placed in front of her on the coffee table as Austin pushed the door open and stepped inside. His big grin of greeting died a quick death as he looked around him.
“What the hell happened in here?” he asked, removing his hat, clearly taken aback.
Bea laughed at his shocked expression. “I tidied.”
“Tidied?” He glanced around again at the spotless floors and the gleaming, uncluttered surfaces of the kitchen. At the cleared coffee table and couch that had been relieved of layers of junk and the beautifully made bed. Even Princess sitting regally square in the middle looked like she’d been spruced up. “I could have my tonsils out in here.”
Smiling, Bea stood and crossed to him—a process much simpler now that she didn’t have to dodge the wastebasket in the middle of the floor and the paper that hadn’t quite made it or the discarded clothes.
