• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, June 6, 2008

Wenda Harris Millard, "not only one of the best advertising executives in the history of interactive media, but one of the most provocative," according to Chris Schroeder in Media magazine, revealed to Over the Line that she doesn't even know what a pork belly is. In an exclusive interview, Ms. Millard told us:

"There I was at the IAB meeting staring out at hundreds of blank faces, each trying earnestly not to look like they were sneaking peeks at their BlackBerrys and iPhones, and I found myself in mid-sentence having said something about trading ad inventory, and I realized that I had no allegory up my sleeve. Comes from years of making ad sales presentations where you kinda go on auto-pilot and start thinking about the menu for the next dinner party rather than the deck. Anyhow, I start scrambling to come up with anything having to do with trading: trading cards... trading places... trading insults... then, you know like, out of nowhere comes 'pork bellies.'

"So, I flip off this line and figure, 'OK--there's another speech everyone will talk about for all of about five minutes--or until the bar opens'--and I put it out of my mind. Next thing I know it's like it went out over the AP wire or something. Everybody is quoting me using that line to support this position or that position as if I had really thought this thing out in advance. Now I'm gonna go down in history as the 'pork belly lady!'

"I tell you, I am sure that pigs have bellies and that eating all the garbage they're fed, they probably have a fair number of upset bellies, but somebody actually trades them? Are you kidding? Is that some kind of underground porker black market in body parts? Like you can buy a third-world heart for transplant if you don't want to wait on the list? Somebody told me they used to make footballs or something out of pork bellies, but beyond that, ya got me. Haven't a clue. Martha told me that's where bacon comes from--but I get mine at the Stop & Shop in Darien."

At first seized on by ad industry pundits to argue for or against ad networks, ad exchanges, ad weeks, ad ages--and it all ad(d)s-up-to-nothing--the term has transcended the marketing realm and has now entered the vernacular of the nation at every level. Last week in Ohio, a teenager was arrested for writing on a schoolmate's Facebook wall that she "looked like a pork belly." Yankees manager Joe Girardi, it is reported, threatened to trade Alex Rodriguez "faster than a pork belly" if his hitting didn't pick up.

In a recently released videotape, al-Qaida commander Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed tried to insult the U.S. by saying "The Great Satan eats the belly of the pork," but CIA analysts are pretty sure that he, like Wenda, had no idea what he was talking about.

Hormel reportedly paid $2.5 million to be the exclusive sponsor of the Olympic pork belly concession stands in Beijing. Canadian online pharmacies have begun selling the synthetic essence of pork bellies, for which they will provide fraudulent prescriptions. Jeff Einstein has warned that pork bellies can be addictive, and Cory Treffiletti is said to be offering clients advice and counsel on how to include pork bellies in a complete "cross-platform media mix."

The Laredo Group is offering a new class in "Unlocking the Full Value of Pork Bellies," and the IAB has appointed a subcommittee to establish Pork Belly Standards. Platform-A has purchased over 3,000 pig farms, but can't figure how to "integrate" pork bellies into their business, although Ron Grant told media analysts that AOL "is well positioned to take advantage of pork bellies, when the market for them matures."

Right Media says they'll trade pork bellies to anyone who wants them, since "we don't care what we trade anyway." But they added quickly that their pork bellies would only be from "premium" pigs. IMedia has announced a Pork Belly Summit for August in Tijuana, promising that attendees would be shoulder to shoulder with pigs from major agencies across the nation.

The National Pork Producers Council has named Ms. Millard its "Woman of the Year," and will honor her with the cherished Silver Pork Belly award at a gala during the 2008 World Pork Expo this weekend at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.

Congratulations, Wenda; well deserved.

The story you have just read is an attempt to blend fact and fiction in a manner that provokes thought, and on a good day, merriment. It would be ill-advised to take any of it literally. Take it, rather, with the same humor with which it is intended. Cut and paste or link to it at your own peril.