Your Ad Here

We have to choose from one of three headlines: "What's Victoria's Secret?" is self-explanatory. "What You Can Learn About Advertising at the Hibiscus Lodge" is meant to promote the Miami Ad School (which is housed in a building known as the Hibiscus Lodge). The third is an ad for Wee-Wee Pads, a product that lets dogs take care of their business indoors. The headline: "Who Wants to Walk a Dog Anyway?"

Students fan out into classrooms or onto the tangerine-colored couches in the school's lobby. I flip open my notebook: "It's February in Minneapolis. Twenty below, two feet of new snow. The mailman has just sped off when Champ starts his routine -- scratching the paint off the front door. Empower Champ to answer nature's call on his own." Then I hit on the product's benefits: It's sanitary, it's disposable, and training pets to use it is easy. "Who says you have to walk a dog anyway?" I ask. "Man's best friend shouldn't be a beast of burden."

After reading the ad, I turn to Spivak. She pays me a compliment: "It's not too ad-y, which is nice." Then comes the criticism: My scene setting dragged on, and I could have given Wee-Wee Pads a better tag line. Her idea: "It absorbs what you don't want to."

Elegant. Obvious. I'll stick to journalism.