Gino Bona was the big winner of last year's Super Bowl - ad contest, that is.
For those who have forgotten, Bona beat out 1,700 hopefuls in the National Football League's contest for amateurs to create an ad to air during last year's Super Bowl. The commercial, about football fans who get depressed when the season ends, was produced by veteran ad director Joe Pytka and got high marks in USA Today's annual Ad Meter rankings.
The contest transformed the Buffalo native's life into a whirlwind of interviews and travel. Agencies from all over the country tried to woo him away from The Garrand Agency, a small Portland, Maine, ad business where he was director of business development. By June, he had four written job offers. In the end, Bona became a vice president at Camden, Maine-based Camden National Corp., a bank holding company he'd gotten to know while at Garrand.
"I was pretty selective because it was the one time in my life when I could be," said Bona, 34, who lived in Portsmouth, N.H., before moving to Maine. In addition to working in Camden's marketing department, Bona writes a blog called "Diary of an Ad Man" at mainebusiness.maine today.com/blogs/gbona.
When Bona first received the call that he'd won the American Idol-like NFL contest, he was sitting in an accounting class, 36 hours into a master's program in business administration at Syracuse University. He went to the dean's office, introduced himself as a new student - and quit school.
"I just decided things were going to get crazier than I could imagine," he said.
He was right.
For a few nutty weeks after he won, Bona was famous - not just for the advertisement itself, but for his chutzpah, the smoothness with which he pitched - and sang - his idea to the NFL jury.
"We still talk about Gino's initial pitch at Giants Stadium last year," said Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesman.
This year, instead of a contest for fans, the NFL had players come up with ideas. NFL Films captured film of 240 players pitching ad concepts. Ephraim Salaam of the Houston Texans won. Chester Pitts, another Texans player, will end up in the spot as well. McCarthy said Patriots linebacker Larry Izzo came close to winning with "an inspired pitch."
"We liked the idea of engaging players this year and helping to tell their stories," McCarthy said. "Ninety-five percent of commercials are made by ad agencies. We're turning the camera around onto our fans and our players."
Bona has been on both sides of the camera - and he's not shy about being in the spotlight. There was the time, for example, when he lost his two jobs - as a copywriter for a Boston ad agency and a columnist for ESPN - within 48 hours. He called the Portsmouth Herald and offered the paper a story about his misfortune. He posed for the newspaper photo wearing a sandwich board that said, "Will work to stay in Portsmouth." That stunt won him a job offer.
"He's nuts," said his wife, Stephanie Parry. "But I've learned a lot from him - that you don't get anywhere unless you stick your neck out a little bit. He's not afraid to fail."
To Bona, sticking his neck out is all about winning.
"I want to win," he said. "You can't be fearful if you want to win."
For now, life for the Super Bowl ad winner and his family has calmed down a bit.
"Since the new year started, things seem quiet," Parry said.
But, she added, "Who knows what 2008 could bring?"
