As Johnson and her team got to work, Richards took a back seat. At the end of the process, the team presented the client a treatment for the "Hail to the V" commercial. It resembled an old-school Hollywood epic, like The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur. The campaign also featured a pair of websites on which a cat puppet complains about all the slang words for vagina and argues that the phrase that's vaginal should be a compliment. In another video, the product was touted by a talking hand puppet meant to resemble a vagina.
Bryant loved it. "We wanted to shake things up," she says. In focus groups for the campaign, women responded with both shock and delight. When one group noted that the talking hand puppet was Caucasian, Johnson and her team filmed two more versions aimed at African Americans and Hispanics.
The campaign launched on July 17. "Hail to the V" ran as a trailer before the latest Harry Potter movie in hundreds of movie theaters nationwide; the talking hands ran online. The blogosphere's rage flared almost immediately. Commentators decried the talking hands as insensitive caricatures. "Sorry, but 'Hail to the V' shows that Madison Avenue has not evolved much from its Mad Men roots," wrote one typically scathing blogger. "The Summer's Eve campaign deserves to be labeled with a few choice C-Words: Culturally Clueless Crap." Others decried the multicultural spots as rife with ethnic stereotypes.
A week later, Summer's Eve decided to pull the multicultural talking-hand ads, although it stands by the rest of the campaign. "It did what it set out to achieve," Bryant says. "It had people talking about the brand that had not talked in years." Richards makes no apologies. The campaign did what it was supposed to do—highlight the product's advantages in an attention-getting way. "We told the client at the outset to expect a strong reaction," he says. He says he had never been told about the multicultural spots. But even so, he admits he might not have anticipated any controversy around them. "I hope that I would have caught it, but I don't know for sure," he says.
Almost all of Richards's life revolves around the agency, and he enjoys being the patriarch. The weekend I visited, one of his sons was in town to see his mother. But Richards headed to his vacation home on South Padre Island for a fishing trip with a few members of his staff—which he does most weekends during the summer. In the winter, he brings small groups of employees to his house in Park City, Utah, to ski. The trips are meant to be fun, but of course, there are rules. Everybody gets up at 7 a.m. for Richards's oatmeal. They generally ski as a group (newbies are permitted to take a lesson).
Over the years, those rules have sent plenty of folks running. But for those who manage them, Richards's outsize dedication to his craft makes them worth tolerating. Creative people, in advertising as in other fields, have a primary goal: to make something great. To do that, it helps to have a leader who cares even more deeply about making your work great than you do. And with Richards, that's what you get, says Bryan Jessee, the former art director who showed up for work that day in the 1980s wearing the offending fish tie.
"I hated the rules. I bucked every one of 'em I could," says Jessee. "But it was a great place to go and learn the craft. He has an expectation that everything should be great."
Jessee runs his own agency now. He doesn't mandate dress codes or start times. But his time with The Richards Group has left its mark. Jessee considers himself a perfectionist and encourages similar dedication among his employees. He has also adopted a profit-sharing plan similar to that of his former employer. And it doesn't end there. During our phone call, as he recalls Richards's fixation on things like blinds and cubicles, Jessee stops himself: "I just realized I'm straightening chairs in our conference room as I'm talking to you."
The Outlier
The Richards Group doesn't look much like most ad agencies. Here's what it does differently and why.
Departments
TYPICAL AGENCY: Most agencies are divided into three main groups: the creatives, who design the ads; the planners, who do research to inform clients' marketing strategies; and the account execs, who manage client relationships.
THE RICHARDS GROUP: The Richards Group's employees have similar job functions, but no two employees in the same department are permitted to sit next to each other. When people with different jobs sit side by side, Richards believes, they collaborate more and resent one another less.
Equity
TYPICAL AGENCY: Most privately held shops are set up like law firms, in which senior execs are rewarded with partnerships, allowing them to buy into the company.
THE RICHARDS GROUP: In place of equity, Richards rewards employees with profit-sharing funds—a bonus on top of their usual bonus, usually about 15 percent of annual compensation. Richards retains all equity and sole control.
Hierarchy
TYPICAL AGENCY: Most agencies mimic the chain of command of their corporate clients, in which directors report to vice presidents, who answer to senior vice presidents and executive vice presidents, and so forth.
THE RICHARDS GROUP: Just one layer of managers separates Richards from the rank and file. That means Richards has 44 direct reports—but a much closer vantage point on his agency's day-to-day operations.
