When our god son Jack was about, I don’t know, maybe thirteen or fourteen he had a school assignment that required him to invent a new product, give it a marketable name, and present it to the class. We were visiting his family in Santa Monica that weekend and he said, “You made a living being creative. Can you help me on this?”
So we went upstairs to Jack’s bedroom, sat cross legged on the floor and I showed him how a copywriter and an art director team throw ideas back and forth until they develop a good one.
In Jack’s case, we came up with a dog leash that would allow a professional dog walker to walk ten dogs simultaneously. We created an eponymous spokesman named Max Walker. (Get it? Max Walker? Clever, huh?)
I hadn’t thought of that homework assignment until our taxi ride into Buenos Aires today. The streets are filled with dog walkers and none of them were walking single dogs. Not one. In fact, I count 13 dogs in the photo above.
We were fools, Jack. We should have trademarked Max Walker and patented the Max Dog Walker.
We’d be rich. Rich, I tell you.
Indeed, Max Walker lives!
What a great shot, and a great, great take on Buenos Aires.
Great stuff. Keep it going.
I don’t mean to kill your vibe (see, I’m reading more than just the posts about me), but there are some factual inaccuracies in this story. We came up with that when I was 8! If I was 13 or 14, we would have for sure filed for a patent and a trademark, precisely because my hubris at that age would have allowed me to convince myself that it was the greatest idea in the history of the world (even better than, say, the wheel, or fire). Unfortunately, we didn’t. At least someone is getting some utility out of it and we can say we thought of it first.
Time flies, young Jackie G. Hard to imagine that it’s been so many years.