‘Betting everything on the Sweepstakes’

Poor Bruce Dern. His character didn’t win the sweepstakes in Alexander Payne’s movie ‘Nebraska’. And he — Bruce — didn’t win the Oscar for playing him either. I forget now who did. (Don’t we always forget? No matter how exciting it gets around Oscar time?) But that’s not the point of this post.

I’m posting to tell you about my own experience with a sweepstakes. It was almost as sad as Bruce’s. (That Payne movie is dark, people. Really dark. And I don’t just mean the black and white footage.)

Anyway, back to my sweepstakes story. This was during my Ogilvy Days. As you may know, I worked on a lot of interesting accounts: Hershey, who made yummy chocolates. Kimberly-Clark, who made useful paper products. General Foods, who made, basically, powders (Shake ‘n Bake, Country Time). And then there was the Sweepstakes Company, who made a lot of money selling magazine subscriptions — er — dreams.

I will not name the Sweepstakes Company. Though my blog is new and probably has, like, 13 subscribers, if I name this Company it would be just my luck that Continue reading