“Y

| THIRTEEN |

Chiat\Day

ou’re the leader.” Click. Click. Click. “Strong, powerful.”
Click. Click. “Think of your mission.” Click. Click. Click.
Click.
The famous portrait photographer Martin Schoeller was softly
whispering directions to Elizabeth in his thick German accent to elicit
a range of emotions from her as he snapped her picture. She was
wearing a thin black turtleneck and red lipstick, her hair brushed back
in a loose bun that covered her ears. Two vertical lamps were set on
either side of the chair she was sitting in to flatly illuminate her narrow
face and create the white lights in her pupils that were a trademark of
Schoeller’s photographs.

Hiring Schoeller had been the idea of Patrick O’Neill, the creative
director of advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day’s Los Angeles office.
Chiat\Day was working on a secret marketing campaign for Theranos.
The assignment ranged from creating a brand identity to building a
new website and a smartphone app for the company ahead of the
commercial launch of its blood-testing services in Walgreens and
Safeway stores.

Elizabeth had chosen Chiat\Day because it was the agency that
represented Apple for many years, creating its iconic 1984 Macintosh
ad and later its “Think Different” campaign in the late 1990s. She’d
even tried to convince Lee Clow, the creative genius behind those ads,
to come out of retirement to work for her. Clow had politely referred
her back to the agency, where she had immediately connected with