Spitballing, or brainstorming, is something like a group-therapy session in which the patient is the product and the doctors are the admen. Recently, TIME Correspondent Edgar Shook sat in on a brainstorming meeting at Chicago's North Advertising Inc. The patient: Flair, a new Paper Mate pen with a nylon tip. Among the doctors: North President Don Nathanson, Creative Director Alice Westbrook, Copy Chief Bob Natkin and Copywriters Steve Lehner and Ken Hutchison. The dialogue, somewhat condensed: Natkin: We have what I think must be the first graffiti advertising campaign, which we've been running in teen-age magazines. The reason I bring this up is that it could be translated into TV and could be very arresting.
Westbrook: I love graffiti.
Natkin (reading from graffiti ads): "Keep America beautiful. Bury a cheap, ugly pen today. Buy a Paper Mate." Some research has been done on this and it looks like it's working. "Draw a flower on your knee with a Paper Mate Flair." Westbrook: Why not "navel"?
Natkin: They wouldn't let us say it. We are going to compromise. It was going to be "Draw a flower around your genitals with a Paper Mate Flair." Then they'd say "knee" and we'd say "navel," and we'd meet in the middle.
Westbrook: Body paint is going to get hotter and hotter.
Nathanson: Did you read that memo I sent out about the bosoms? God, I think bosom makeup is going to be big.
Westbrook: I do too. I know just the color for it too.
Nathanson: You know, you can do a fantastic industrial campaign on the idea of a silent pen. Because just think of the noise level. I mean, nothing is noisier than these competitor's pens. Everybody quiet. Just listen. (He scratches first with the competitor's pen, then with a Flair.)
Westbrook: Boy, that really moves me. Lehner: Picture the kind of thing you would get if you were awarded the Legion of Honor. Real parchmenty, with a great big heraldry and wax and stamps. And on the certificate it says, "The American Anti-Noise League." And you hear the announcer say with great . . .
Hutchison: Flair. Lehner: . . ."From the American Anti-Noise League, for exceptionally smooth writing without scratching or squeaking." You hear a trumpet. Tah-Tah! We dissolve to another document. "To Flair from the United Cap Forgetters Council: for having a new kind of ink that won't dry out if you leave the cap off overnight." And a couple of trumpets. Bum-Bum! And on to a third document. "To Flair from the National
Pen Pounders Association: for having a smooth, tough, nylon point that won't push down." And you've got three trumpets going, and an announcer comes back in and says, "Flair even looks like a better way to write." We would play it very straight. Very pompous. Like Robert Morley's voice when he says these words. You get a kind of electricity between the silliness.
Westbrook: Let's face it. People just don't get emotionally involved with their pens. I think there's the danger of taking yourself too seriously when you're talking about a thing like that.
Lehner: We have other ideas that we think would be stronger at this point in time. For instance, one thing that we're playing with now is a guy sitting at his