Deconstruction on Madison Avenue

Book Review: "Think Small."

2011-10-23T23:55:00.009-05:00

There have been books singling out advertising agencies (“Chiat Day: The First 25 Years,” “25 Years of Fallon”), advertising eras (“When Advertising Tried Harder,” “Advertising’s Ten Best of the Decade, 1980-1990”) and even advertising campaigns (“The Absolut Book,” “The Got Milk Book”), but this is likely the first book to focus on a single ad.

Given that, it would have been easy for this book to fall prey to hyperbole and hero worship. After all, not only is this the story behind what the book calls “the greatest ad ever written” – Volkswagen’s “Think Small” ad – it also intersects with the ad agency and the people who were the primary drivers of advertising’s creative revolution of the 1960s.

Instead, “Think Small: The Story Of The World’s Greatest Ad“ by Dominik Imseng, is written in the same kind of crisp, low-key style as the body copy in a Volkswagen ad (every page is laid out like a Volkswagen ad copy block, too ). It makes an easy, enjoyable read, building to the seminal moment when the paths of Bill Bernbach and his agency, the Volkswagen brand, and a rejection of the Madison Avenue hard-sell all combined to set the stage for the ground-breaking campaign.

Like Steve Jobs, another innovator who commanded great loyalty from his employees, Bill Bernbach is recalled as both visionary and brutally demanding. “You really did not want to have him turn something down…because sometimes, he would get nasty about it,” former DDB copywriter Bob Levinson tells Imseng.

Bernbach was the son of immigrant from Eastern Europe, but the clichéd beginning of a success story ends here. Though Bernbach downplayed his early life in the Bronx, his father was actually a successful designer of women’s clothes, and Bill himself graduated from New York University in 1933. His self-confidence and ambition had carried him through a couple of early promotional jobs, but it was humility brought on by a year’s unemployment that seemed to get him his first job in advertising. When asked why he should be hired over the other applicants, Bernbach replied, “I don’t know why I should have it. I don’t even know if I’m equipped.”

But as George Lois, an early DDB art director (and an advertising legend in his own right) tells Imseng, “the seed for the Creative Revolution was planted” at that agency when Bernbach met graphic designer Paul Rand. Working closely with Rand, a brilliant conceptual artist, spurred Bernbach’s passion to break out of the typical ad agency structure of the time. Instead of the copywriter conceptualizing the ad alone and then handing off the copy to a commercial artist to be laid out, Bernbach realized the creative process could be much stronger if the writer and artist actually worked together, sharing ideas and feeding off each other’s inspirations.

At the same time, spurred by the clever, sophisticated ads he was creating for clients like Ohrbach’s department store, Bernbach was pioneering an approach that rejected dependence on the pseudo-scientific principals of modern marketing, like the mind-numbing repetitiveness of Unique Selling Proposition as advocated by the Ted Bates Agency’s Rosser Reeves.

These philosophies would form the basis of Bernbach’s “manifesto of the Creative Revolution” as Imseng calls it – actually a letter to his then-bosses at Grey advertising, in which he exhorts, “Let us blaze new trails, let us prove to the world that good taste, good art, good writing can be good selling.”

The stage was set for his agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach, and this is where the book truly surprises, drawing on Imseng’s interviews from several of the surviving players.

Like the Volkswagen Beetle – first imported to America the same year Doyle Dane Bernbach opened its doors – DDB was out of sync with the industry around it. Volkswagen was a holdover of Hitler’s Germany, small and oddly shaped, at a time when Detroit’s autos were big and sleek, a reflection of American dominance and prosperity after WWII. Similarly, DDB, with two of its three principals being Jewish (including Bernbach), stood in stark contrast to the dominant WASPish, Ivy League-staffed agencies.

But unable to crack the big leagues of automobile and packaged goods accounts, DDB was left with second-tier clients like Ohrbach’s department store and Levy’s Jewish Rye bread. The fresh, playful ads that resulted were both a rejection of Madison Avenue conformity and the client toadyism that went hand-in-hand with it, and brought this upstart young agency to the attention of Volkswagen.

Yet far from being a fait accompli, the “Think Small” ad – like so many innovations – was a happy accident, its inspiration originally buried in one of the final paragraphs of another ad prepared by writer Julian Koenig and art director Helmut Krone:

“Maybe we got so big because we think small,” the sentence read.

Given how it set the tone not just for the Volkswagen campaign, but for DDB and the whole creative revolution that followed, you’ll be surprised to learn how ambiguous Krone felt about it. He initially rejected the line as too abstract. In fact, he hated it, as well as the whole approach of selling the VW as an “honest” car (Krone wanted to “Americanize” the car along the lines of “See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet.”) – but was finally persuaded to lay it out. (Bernbach, by all accounts, was only tangentially involved in the Volkswagen creative.)

Imseng tracks the ad’s evolution through several versions of copy and layouts. Krone, ever the perfectionist, used every opportunity to re-proportion the headline and the car, in subtle ways that the average reader surely never noticed. “If Krone were still alive, he would still be working on that ad,” one former colleague observes. (Imseng helpfully provides every version in an appendix so the today’s reader can compare all the differences.)

With that ad as a template, the VW campaign found both its voice and its visual style -- honest, simple and sincere, standing out among the glamorized, bigger-is-better advertising of Detroit.

As Imseng dryly observes, “by using self-deprecation and irony – traditional elements of Yiddish humor, DDB sold Hitler’s car by making it Jewish.”

In the final chapter, Imseng presents an interview with Alex Bogusky of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, whose own brand of rule-breaking, envelope-pushing thinking makes him, in Imseng’s view, “the new Bill Bernbach.” But for all Bogusky’s successes, it’s hard to put the edgy irrelevance of the “Subservient Chicken” Internet sensation into the same league as the understated yet powerful “Think Small” ad that was “just facts and wit and charm, giving the Beetle the personality of a lovable underdog.”

“Think Small:

The Story Of The World’s Greatest Ad”

by Dominik Imseng

Full Stop Press

http://www.think-small-the-book.net/

Double Advertendres

2011-09-26T07:00:00.023-05:00

Yes, I know what you’re thinking.

Go ahead – snicker. Because this campaign theme from the National Pork Board exemplifies an interesting characteristic I've observed in advertising's most memorable slogans: A lot of 'em seem to have a bit of sexual double entendre to them.

Freud probably would have something to say about that. But instead, let’s turn to David Ogilvy:

"The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible."*

Of course, he probably didn’t intend for a bunch of adolescent innuendo to end up in print. And to be fair, maybe nobody at the ad agencies in question saw a more…suggestive interpretation…in the following slogans. Still…

Well, maybe it’s just me.

Perhaps even more interesting is how you can categorize the different ways these slogans, um, titillate the consumer’s fancy.

Some seem a bit impatient:
Just Do It. (Nike)
Have it your way. (Burger King)

Some seem like pick-up lines at a bar:
Do you...Yahoo!? (Yahoo!)
Got Milk? (California Milk Processor Board)
What would you do for a Klondike bar? (Klondike bar)
Put a tiger in your tank. (Esso/Exxon)

Some are rather braggy:
Home of the Whopper. (Burger King)
Good to the last drop. (Maxwell House coffee)
A little dab'll do ya! (Brylcreem)

Some make a promise of endurance:
It takes a licking and keeps on ticking. (Timex Corporation)
Melts in your mouth, not in your hands. (M&Ms)
It keeps going and going and going. (Energizer batteries)

Some are, well, more responsive than others:
I'm lovin' it. (McDonald's)
Oh, what a feeling! (Toyota)

Some are quite reassuring:
We do it all for you. (McDonald's again)
You're in good hands with Allstate. (Allstate)
We try harder. (Avis)

Some seem very process-driven:
Taking Care of Business. (Office Depot)
So easy a caveman can do it. (GEICO)

Some are a more straightforward statement of fact:
Connecting People. (Nokia)
Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. (State Farm Insurance)
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. (Almond Joy/Mounds candy bars)

And finally, there’s this one from Purdue Chicken. Viva la difference:

(*Admittedly, that's the most un-Ogilvy-like quote I've ever heard. But it's sourced to this biography, so I'll chalk it up to another of the surprising attitudes often found under his straight-laced personna.)

Read the list! See the movie poster!

2011-09-23T21:00:00.000-05:00

A few months back, I noticed there were lists making the way around the web that purported to be "The Greatest Movie Themelines Ever Written" -- actually, it seems to be more or less the same list everywhere. This list is pretty representative of the thinking.

I'm not going to go through the choices movie by movie. But if you do, you'll see that most of the themelines chosen are are, at best, just clever wordplays, and at worst, too-clever-by-half puns. They may bring a smile to your face and they might even give you some idea of the subject matter. But by and large, most of these evoke no real desire to see the movie. And shouldn't that be the real yardstick by which you should judge the "greatest" themeline?

It's not surprising that truly great themelines are few and far between. After all, it's not every day that someone comes up with "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water" or "In space, no one can hear you scream" (rightly revered as the Gold Standards of movie themelines).

That's why we remember those so well. But here's a very select few off that list that I think do a pretty good job of reaching that high standard:

"THE MONSTER DEMANDS A MATE!" It isn't just the creepy idea of what kind of woman would submit to Frankenstein's creation -- it's urgency of the wording itself. The creature doesn't just want a mate (with the suggestion of procreation that term implies) -- it DEMANDS one!

A perfect themeline for the movie that, perhaps, more than any other, exemplified the rule-breaking influence of the counterculture on "The New Hollywood" of the '70s. "THEY'RE YOUNG, THEY'RE IN LOVE" the line begins, promising us the kind of starry-eyed romances that Tinsel Town specialized in. "...AND THEY KILL PEOPLE" the line ends in a shocking deadpan, much like the image at top of a laughing Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, spidery bullet holes, moving across the windshield ever closer to them."

For everyone who remembers the chilling "They're here." spoken by little Carol-Ann after making contact with the vengeful spirits haunting their tract home, this simple themeline both references that quote and promises more of the same (whether it delivered on the promise is another matter). You can't read "THEY'RE BACK." without giving it the same ominous sing-song inflection of the original ("They'rrre baaa-aa-ck.").

Never mind the overheated hyperbole of "It explodes like twelve sticks of dynamite!" The main two phrases -- "LIFE IS IN THEIR HANDS - DEATH IS ON THEIR MINDS!" -- doesn't just set up the stakes, it creates a dramatic tension between life and death, mind and body, compassion and retribution.

Back in 1978, "YOU'LL BELIEVE A MAN CAN FLY" wasn't just promising a new achievement in special effects (though, at the time, it was leaps and bounds ahead of any "flying" previously visualized), it tapped into the yearning in our collective hearts for a hero we could believe in, in this post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, economically depressed era.

The sun-baked, hazy color palette has an appropriately post-apocalyptic feel, but really, post-apocalyptic stories are a dime a dozen these days. No, it's the inherent contradiction of the themeline which intrigues us: "THE LAST MAN ON EARTH IS NOT ALONE." A wonderful way of making the protagonist seem tough and resourceful, but isolated and vulnerable to...WHAT?

"Rocky" wasn't a boxing movie, it was a character movie about a loser who turned his life around while (ironically) losing. This poster worked beautifully to broaden the audience beyond sports fans, by picturing him not throwing a punch, not raising his gloves in triumph, but by walking away from us, humbly, hand in hand with a woman. For anyone who likes an underdog story, the come-on was irresistible: "HIS WHOLE LIFE WAS A MILLION-TO-ONE SHOT."

"Close Encounters" may have directed by Steven Spielberg coming off his "Jaws" success, but the movie had a couple strikes against it right off the bat. Few people knew what the title meant (necessitating all the exposition at top); and though the cast included such recognizable faces as Richard Dreyfus and Teri Garr, the only stars pictured were in the night sky, above a desolate highway and a mysterious flash beyond the horizon. "WE ARE NOT ALONE." was on the surface, a simple, declarative statement, but in an era when speculation about "little green men" was running rampant through popular culture, the themeline promised you that the matter would be settled here.

When violent crime was all the talk in the media, Stallone was there to tap into the (exaggerated) fears of urbanites. "CRIME IS A DISEASE. MEET THE CURE."

"AND REMEMBER, THE NEXT SCREAM YOU HEAR MAY BE YOUR OWN." Working the same side of the street as the "Alien" themeline ("In space, no one can hear you scream.") and just as cleverly understated, Hitchcock's quote leaves you with the sense that, even if you're not screaming, everyone around you will be.

With its unsettling implications of...something...some thing...having invaded your body (and calling to mind the gestating creature of "Alien"), "MAN IS THE WARMEST PLACE TO HIDE." makes you feel the tension and dread that suffused this movie throughout.

This last one is less a themeline than a precis, and its worth reading in its entirety, below. But the last sentence does stand on its own to draw you into a story of one man's fall from grace:

"THIS IS J.J.'s STORY...BUT NOT THE WAY HE WOULD HAVE LIKED IT TOLD."

The Man In The Chair

2011-09-20T20:00:00.011-05:00

A deceptively simple layout -- minimalist, really -- is one of the things that gives this 1958 ad it's power. Even stripping away the desk that this skeptical business would normally be sitting behind was brilliant. Instead of making seem more vulnerable, it closes the distance between him and viewer, and adds to the reader's feeling of discomfort.

And the litany of clipped statements, one after the other, gives us a first-person experience of the stern dressing-down an unprepared salesman would receive from this man...

I don't know who you are.
I don’t know your company.
I don’t know your company’s product.
I don’t know what your company stands for.
I don’t know your company’s customers.
I don’t know your company’s record.
I don’t know your company’s reputation.

And then comes the final knife, set in an italic font that makes his summation seem even more intimidating.

Now--what was it you wanted to sell me?

I'm guessing "The Man In The Chair" helped sell a lot of advertising in McGraw Hill publications.

Embracing (but not squeezing) Mr. Whipple

2011-09-19T21:00:00.003-05:00

"It was that easy.

In an hour and a half,

America's most universally

despised advertising

campaign was created."

That's how Benton & Bowles writer John Chervokas described the process of creating Mr. Whipple and the "Please Don't Squeeze the Charmin!" ad campaign in 1964. Mr. Chervokas died not too long ago, leaving as his legacy an ad campaign that was rated by Advertising Age as the 51st best campaign of the last century.

By 1978, Mr. Whipple was named the third-best-known American—just behind former President Nixon and Billy Graham. “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin!” became one of most recognizable advertising slogans ever, identified by eight out of 10 people that same year.

And yet, far from celebrating Mr. Whipple, the advertising community frequently derided Mr. Chervokas' brainchild as emblematic of the crass, lowest-common denominator pandering for which the industry was often denounced. (And judging by the title of a popular manual on copywriting, that animosity has yet to dissipate.)

(Never mind that the Mr. Whipple commercials first started running in an era when programming they would interrupt included such high-brow fare as "My Favorite Martian," "The Munsters," and "Gilligan's Island.")

Yes, Mr. Whipple (no first name ever given) was a bizarre character, even among company that included a nosy Mrs. Olson who kept showing up uninvited at people houses, coffee crystals in hand, and a too-chummy fellow who live on the other side of the bathroom cabinet and always wanted to share deodorant. Still, there was something...repressed...about Mr. Whipple, who, after scolding shoppers for squeezing the Charmin...

...would inevitably be caught compressing the toilet tissue himself; guiltily, compulsively, like a pervert caught in the act.

Still, he sold a lot of toilet tissue.

In a 1972 essay in Advertising Age, Mr. Chervokas gave his account of the birth (and subsequent vilification) of Mr. Whipple. It's fascinating, both as look into the creative process that goes on everyday in advertising, along with the maneuvering to define a selling proposition based on the slimmest of attributes.

Charmin bathroom tissue had been around since 1928 (named by an employee of the original manufacturer who described the product as "charming") and during the intervening 36 years, had found success with ad campaigns that were based on an elegant, feminine appeal ("Lady Charmin") and later, with baby imagery to symbolize the products gentleness (“Charmin Babies Your Skin”).

However, a "new and improved" Charmin tissue, introduced in the mid-60s, demanded a "new and improved" selling proposition. As Mr. Chervokas explained,

People who looked at the commercials made a snap judgement in the first five seconds that yes, it's a Charmin commercial, but tune out. They wouldn't pay any more attention to the rest of the commercial, which looked like every Charmin commercial they had ever seen."

So, gentleness was out. Softness was in.

Here, Mr. Chervokas gives us a takes us into their brainstorming:

...how about a funny demonstration of softness? Just what are the standards of softness?

Soft as a feather? No, it makes you think of tickling.

Soft as a baby's behind? Not bad, but too restrictive.

Soft as silk. Overpromise.

Then comes the quite-logical question that leads to new imagery:

Now how do you go about measuring something like softness?

Fall on a pillow.

Hug a pillow.

Squeeze a...

Squeeze a what?

That question leads to the germ of the big idea:

...what does mom do in the supermarket?

She squeezes the melons. And the tomatoes. And the bread.

To see if they're soft.

Then... Then... Why not use the same test for Charmin?

Boom! Squeeze the Charmin. Sheer genius. Or is it?

Supermarket managers will flip their corks.

An obvious problem. You can't be encouraging consumers to damage the merchandise. Which leads to the true brilliance of the concept, the insight that got around the issue and more importantly, gave the campaign a stickiness that lasted for the next 20 years and beyond:

Okay, then, let's tell them not to squeeze the Charmin.

Rest in peace, Mr. Chervokas. And Mr. Whipple as well (though the character was retired in 1985, the actor who played him -- Dick Wilson -- passed on in 2007).

What a friend we have who squeezes

I've seen this movie [poster] before...

2011-09-15T23:00:00.004-05:00

Yes, every summer now brings us a spate of formula movies that we all feel like we've already seen at least one time before. But now it seem that even the movie posters themselves are interchangeable.

I've covered one of the more common motifs before here and here. But here are some of the more current poster layouts:

The main action-hero character in front of an exploding fireball...

The big X...

The fragmented, David Hockneyesque photo collage...

The mysterious movie-title-only-on-a-dramatic-black-background...

The big intriguing closeup with the title stamped over it...

The weird two-half-faces joined to make a single face...

The action-hero looking battered but unbowed, weapon in hand...

A guy slouching in a chair, legs splayed...

The shoulder-to-shoulder heroes, with the bigger star out front...

The sideways poster with black silhouette and steely blue sky...

And finally, the whole gang, striding purposefully at camera...

And that's just from a couple recent internet searches. Chances are, there's already some additional entries for each.

Keeping informed and carrying on

2011-08-14T23:00:00.001-05:00

I am fascinated by this simple piece of communication from the British government:

Today, the message seems almost like a parody of the British "stiff upper lip" -- probably the reason that reproductions of the poster have become so popular since it resurfaced in 2000 -- but there's a surprising sense of urgency and resolve behind that basic sans-serif typeface and its iconic crown image.

To put it in true context, you need only to realize that it this poster was created by the Ministry of Information in 1939 at the beginning of World War II with the intent of strengthening the morale of the British public in the event of an invasion by Germany.

Try to imagine, if you can, the uncertainty and panic you'd feel when faced with the possibility that your country, your city -- very neighborhood -- could soon be under control of a foreign military. What would you do? Who could you trust? How would you stay safe?

These are the kind of life-or-death questions this poster had to begin to answer in just a few words, while reassuring the public that they hadn't been abandoned by their government.

Suddenly, that simple imperative on the royal red background doesn't seem so frivolous, doesn't it?

Wikipedia reports that, though 2,500,000 copies of the poster were printed, only limited numbers were ever distributed. "Keep Calm" was the third in a series of three posters produced; the first two, below, were distributed as "a statement of the duty of the individual citizen" and "a rallying war-cry that will bring out the best in everyone of us and put us in an offensive mood at once."

Perhaps not surprisingly, the first two posters haven't achieved the sort of pop-cultural ubiquity of the third. "Keep Calm" has a more universal sentiment that lends itself to many modern situations (chances are, you've seen it somewhere around the workplace).

Viewed from a communications standpoint, "Keep Calm and Carry On" has an economy, a directness, and a quiet power that modern advertising rarely seems to achieve. But there is an example that comes quickly to mind -- an ad campaign that, though its purpose is commerce, not civil order, has a similar style meant to strengthen resolve and spur action (plus a red background, too!).

And appropriately enough, it comes to us from across the pond as well:

(More examples of the long-running Economist ad campaign here.)

Separated At Birth - Very '80s Edition

2011-06-27T08:00:00.007-05:00

From 1985, here's fashion designer Kenzo Takada...times three. Confident, relaxed, and, with with the d.i.y. ties and pocket squares, very much in the style of the '80s.

And yet...

When I look at the Kenzo ad, all it makes me think of is this eccentric fellow (times four) indulging his own brand of individuality three years later:

But maybe it's just me. Or is it?

Let's try swapping the images and see what we get:

See what I mean?

Humphrey Bogus

2011-06-23T07:00:00.003-05:00

From 1983, an ad for a video tape that's out to make itself famous for its inaccurate, garbled reproduction...

Am I being too harsh on Maxell? After all, they're just having a little fun with an iconic movie and quote from Humphrey Bogart, right?

Actually, it doesn't matter how many times you play that Maxell tape -- you're never going to hear Bogie say "Play it again, Sam," not even once. From Wikipedia:

One of the lines most closely associated with the film ["Casablanca"] — "Play it again, Sam" — is a misquotation. When Ilsa first enters the Café Americain, she spots Sam and asks him to "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake." When he feigns ignorance, she responds, "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'." Later that night, alone with Sam, Rick says, "You played it for her and you can play it for me," and "If she can stand it, I can! Play it!"

Did the ad's writer know that? Or would he or she just claim, (a la Bogart's Rick Blaine), "I was misinformed."

Captain Renault: What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.

The inevitable Charlie Sheen-inspired post (but it's not what you think!)

2011-03-09T08:00:00.004-06:00

Running alongside an article on Mr. Sheen and his recent...happenings, I noticed this promotional image for his CBS sitcom. Look familiar:

Yes, it's another example of that popular comedic image we were discussing just a couple weeks back, Bickering-Parties-On-Either-Side-Of-A-Door. I also stumbled on this other example recently...

More proof that what the exposed brick wall is to comedians, the multi-paneled door is to comedies.

The (near) naked truth

2011-03-07T08:00:00.034-06:00

You combine with the loosening sexual mores of 1972 with the mainstreaming of the "male centerfold" (following movie star/sex symbol Burt Reynolds appearing au natural in Cosmopolitan that same year) and this -- unfortunately -- is what you get:

Real socks appeal, fellas.

Yes, what better way to show off your socks than by removing all those other distracting clothes? Or, more to the point, what better way to draw attention to your ad than by highlighting it in context of one of the most provocative images allowed in mainstream media of the era? (Showing women nude or with implied nudity had been fairly common in advertising since at least the '50s.)

But back to the Cosmo influence: After some 80 years as a family magazine, then-new editor Helen Gurley Brown reoriented the magazine in the early 1970s, to a focus on the interests of sexually liberated young women.

Women finally get equal rights to

objectify the opposite sex.

Probably nothing epitomized the magazine's change -- and cemented its image for outspokenness and sexually charged content -- than its appropriation of that longtime staple (sort-of pun intended) for young men, the Playboy centerfold.

(You can go find the whole image elsewhere on the web, but thanks

to Burt's carefully placed left hand, you still won't see everything...)

It was controversial at the time, but using the decade's biggest movie star (and roguish "bad boy") probably softened the outrage, and helped pave the way for Playgirl a year later:

At least, it was intended as a magazine for women...

Despite its reputation, advertising has always been less of a leader in cultural change than at best, an early adapter of trends. So when the male nudity made its first tentative exposure in advertising, it was more satirical and -- well, neutered -- than the outright sensuality of the Cosmo/Playgirl offerings:

This studious fellow actually preceded the

Cosmo centerfold by a year.

By the end of the '70s, the Interwoven campaign was still running, although thankfully, male hairstyles, preferences for facial hair and tinted eyewear, and even sock patterns had improved.

This woman needs to rethink her priorities.

In next decade, unabashed male sensuality in advertising would finally be on full display -- ironically, the men would actually be wearing more (okay, slightly more) clothes:

And this will be one of the tamer Calvin Klein ads

we'll be subjected to over the coming decades.

He is the very model of the modern advertising man (2011 version)

2011-02-28T08:00:00.009-06:00

Hawkeye Pierce is so last millennium.

Back in 2008, I posited that Alan Alda's portrayal on the M*A*S*H series was the idealized image of how creative people in advertising view themselves: witty, irreverent, iconoclastic, hedonistic, slovenly and eccentric, but also capable and confident, dedicated and dependable, principled, tenacious, and when the chips were down, absolutely brilliant.

But really, that was an image taken from an earlier era, when even flawed characters were always primarily defined by their inherent decency. The richer, more complex characters of television today provides an ever better template for those anguished souls battling for creative integrity in ad agencies:

Meet Dr. House:

Yes, another doctor (because don't we all view the creative process as a matter of life and death?) -- but while Hugh Laurie's Dr. House is as undeniably brilliant, intuitive and typically unshaven as Dr. Pierce, the similarities end there.

Dr. Gregory House is impatient, caustic, judgmental, lacking in empathy, argumentative, self-obsessed, and tortured by by his inner demons as well as his outer weaknesses. Yes, he has a brusque charm and moments of humanity, but for the most part, he's unapologetic narcissism and relentless snark. And the best part is, that all of this is excused (usually with difficulty, but always ultimately excused) because of his superior talents. He's a misanthrope who's not just tolerated, but respected, despite his unchecked character flaws -- indeed, everyone around him willingly accepts (again, usually with difficulty) that the price of his greatness is having to put up with his eccentricities and anti-social behavior.

No, not the most flattering portrait of how we see ourselves -- but let's face it, we're all too self-obsessed to notice.

Going the distance and looking backwards

2011-02-21T08:00:00.011-06:00

When the Drew Barrymore/Justin Long movie, "Going The Distance" came out last year, it seems the studio couldn't quite make up their mind on the right poster. Was it going to be Drew and Justin getting cozy against a brick wall, hugging under the Brooklyn Bridge, or a combination of the first two options?

Well, it's safe to say that none of the options above did much to sell the picture, since it only grossed an anemic $40 million worldwide (versus a $32 million production budget and probably at least half that in marketing costs) during its run -- which is probably why the DVD sports a whole new image that seems to sell it as a more wacky comedy using one of the modern tropes of movie poster imagery...

Yes, it's "the bickering people separated by a door" scenario, a setup that promises conflict, frustration, and lots and lots o' laughs (in theory, anyway). It's possible the studio remembered the graphics for 1996's Jamie Lee Curtis/Kevin Pollack (alleged) yuk-fest, "House Arrest"...

Or maybe the much funnier "Mrs. Doubtfire" from 1993...

But it's more likely that all those films were inspired by this memorable one-sheet from the 1989 John Hughes movie, "Uncle Buck"...

But before we wrap up today's subject, let's not forget the granddaddy of all "Bickering People Kept Apart In A Bisected Frame" cinema...

(Yes, that's Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in one of the best remembered scenes 0f "It Happened One Night.")

Sundown and shadows

2011-02-14T08:00:00.009-06:00

Yes, hard liquor is most respectably consumed in the evening hours, but is there something more behind this 1972 Smirnoff ad's imploring headline?

Is it a reference to the 1967 racially charged drama, "Hurry Sundown"? Or perhaps the spiritual made popular by folkies Peter, Paul and Mary in 1966?

Actually, I'm guessing it's neither, and instead was just a clever intro into the ad's recipe for the "Vampire Gimlet," so dubbed, I suppose, for its eerie green hue and black olive.

But that raises a new question, doesn't it? Why a vampire? This was, after all, decades before the romantic vampire imagery of '80s and '90s cinema and television. In fact,

Ah, but the clue is in the ad's photo, the modern-but-still-vaguely-gothic appearance of the woman in the window.

The drink, as well as the ad, seems calculated to appeal to the youth-adult audience that had helped catapult this unique ABC soap opera -- and its vampiric leading man, Barnabus Collins, to popularity in the years between 1966 and 1971:

Yes, by mid-1971, the Dark Shadows phenomenon had waned to the point where it succumbed to the stake of cancellation, but by then, it had so deeply sunk its teeth into the vein of pop culture that -- well, you see what I'm getting at....

Steel yourself for the answer...

2011-02-06T13:00:00.003-06:00

If a hamburger ad said,

It's ground beef and it's delicious.

...would anyone pay attention? If an ad for patio furniture proclaimed,

It's plastic and it's wonderful."

...would anyone remember it afterwards? So what's the thinking behind this braggy headline for garage cabinetry:

Okay, it's a trick question -- a sort of test of pop-cultural literacy for members of the boomer generation (whom I assume are the audience for these upscale workbench accessories). Or perhaps -- or more likely -- it's just the kind of jokey headline writers and art directors giggle over that somehow found its way into print.

So if you didn't experience a spark of familiarity upon reading the ad's headline, then you're probably not a "Seinfeld" afficionado and didn't recognize it as a twisting of the exit line of Jerry's girlfriend, Sidra (yes, played by Teri Hatcher) -- finally answering that episode's overriding question about the nature of Sidra's, um, endowments...

"They're real and they're spectacular!"

There. Now doesn't that put you in a mind for buying garage equipment?

Those crazy teenagers...

2011-01-24T08:00:00.002-06:00

This seems to be the default pose to use when picturing Those Crazy Teens in the '50s...

I guess her pose is supposed to symbolize the playfulness and nonconformity of youth, and perhaps the rejection of the staid societal norms of the previous generations. Then again, maybe she's just wearing antigravity socks.

Actually, in the 1956 ad above, her inverted body actually serves the product in that it shows how comfortable it is to lie directly on a carpeted floor. The same pose is also found in this 1951 ad, coupled with some hip teen lingo to show how "with it" Post Toasties are, Daddio:

The pose probably reached its apotheosis in 1963, when uber-teen Ann Margaret lolled on her back for all of America to publicize the movie version of "Bye Bye Birdie."

What's really behind the smoke?

2011-01-16T17:30:00.004-06:00

Here's an early-1970s ad that seems to have sparked a lot of "outrageously outrageous outrage" on some sites around the web:

"It's rude/it's sexist/it's unhealthy" goes the shocked, shocked criticism of this ad -- which, seen in the context of the times, seems as about as pointless as sneering at it for its pro-smoking advocacy.

What I found interesting was reference point for the headline. "Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere" wasn't just referring to the fruit-flavored tobacco (which, the ad presumes, she'll find aromatic). It's a paraphrasing of a catchy come-on -- "Blow in my ear and I'll follow you anywhere" -- that was popularized by 1969's and 1970's #1 TV show, "Laugh-In." Used as both a pickup line and a punchline, I seem to recall even Dick Martin using it in his routines with partner Dan Rowan.

Finally, before we leave this Tipalet ad behind, in its defense, may I point out that the man in question isn't really blowing the smoke directly into the woman's face, but more considerately, slightly to her left (towards her ear actually, bringing it back to the original phrase). Anyway, I think the woman may have a greater worry about where that cigarette ash lands when it finally breaks off.

Picking a fight over female boxers

2011-01-06T19:30:00.003-06:00

It's a thin thread on which to hang this presumption, but is there something more behind this 1979 ad than just a pugilistic image to represent tougher nails?

Now, I admit that the idea of casting an ad model as a boxer wasn't new, and pre-dated even the post-women's lib era, as seen in this 1961 Maidenform ad:

But is it merely a coincidence that 1979 was also when this Barbra Streisand movie was released, and became one of the year's top grossing movies?

(And yes, the only time Streisand's character got in the ring was to verbally spar with the fighter she "owned," played by Ryan O'Neil -- but as the poster above makes clear, the movie's publicity all about putting Ms. Streisand into boxing imagery.)

Where's Gladys?

2011-01-03T08:00:00.003-06:00

This one's too easy. A 1974 ad from paper manufacturer Crown Zellerbach:

"Promise her anything," the ad begins, assuring the reader that "behind every promise made with a credit card...there's a modern system of paper forms to make sure the promise is a guarantee." (This is pre-analog and pre-digital transmission of data.) All well and good, I suppose, but what, you're wondering, is the point with the photo and headline?

Actually, if you were watching TV back in the early '70s, you already know what the point is. The photo is a clumsily staged knock-off of a popular "Laugh-In" skit featuring series regulars Ruth Buzzi and Arte Johnson:

Here's how Wikipedia explains it:

...dowdy spinster Gladys Ormphby, clad in drab brown with her bun hairdo covered by a visible hairnet knotted in the middle of her forehead. In most sketches, she used her lethal purse, with which she would flail away vigorously at anyone who incurred her wrath. On Laugh-In, Gladys most often appeared as the unwilling object of the advances of Arte Johnson's "dirty old man" character Tyrone F. Horneigh.

In a typical exchange, Tyrone accosts Gladys and asks, "Do you believe in the hereafter?" "Of course I do!", Gladys retorts defensively. Delighted, Tyrone shoots back: "Then you know what I'm here after!"

(This is actually the second ad from the era we've found that seems to trade on Ms. Buzzi's Gladys character; here's the other.)

That mystery solved, here are two others: I don't know why the woman above, who may or may not be actress Stockard Channing, has replaced Gladys. And I'm a little fuzzy on the headline, except to speculate that it's meant to sound like one of Tyrone's leering come-ons; maybe it was a recurring phrase he used.

And if you're thinking that this is all an awfully round-about way of getting to selling paper forms, I think you're right.

Things go better with Santa

2010-12-30T08:00:00.003-06:00

Recognize this jolly gent?

If so, you can thank (in part) the Coca-Cola company, whose 1930s holiday ads illustrated by Haddon Sundblom helped popularize the image of Santa as a rotund, ruddy elf dressed in red from head to toe.

Thanks for your visits in 2010. The deconstructing will continue in 2011. Happy New Year!

Koss, the Owl & the Pussycat

2010-12-19T18:30:00.000-06:00

What's going on in this 1971 ad from Koss? Is it a couple of middle-agers dabbling in the '60s sexual revolution, and ending up indulging other passions instead (his, high-brow music, hers low-brow TV and bon-bons)?

"No two people really enjoy all the same things," the ad begins. "What turns one on may very well turn the other off." And so we get that staple of the '60s movie and TV relationships, the sexed-up woman and the oblivious man.

The innuendo aside, it's an interesting choice for portraying domestic differences. Assuming it even is a domestic scene. Who's to say it isn't some misguided post-coital scene of a, shall we say, more professional transaction?

It's up the reader to decide, but I'm pretty sure the ad creators were inspired by this hit movie from the year before:

"The Owl and the Pussycat" was based on a Broadway play (and not the 1871 children's poem by Edward Lear) and adapted to a film starring George Segal as an intellectual writer (the "owl") who gets involved with the coarse actress/part-time hooker next door. Though the play presented it as an inter-racial romance, in the transformation to film, it became more of a mainstream "odd couple" romantic comedy -- at least as mainstream as a film with a comedically foul-mouthed prostitute as a romantic lead could be.

Incidentally, I owe making this connection to Mad Magazine, whose movie satires in the 1970s gave me some awareness of the movies that I was much too young to see. In fact, I still remember one of the gags in the September 1971 parody, "The Foul and the Prissy Cat." It showed Barbra Streisand's expletive-spouting character modeling that racy lingerie before George Segal...

...and Segal's character stammering, "I...I think the hands are in the wrong place. They should be covering your mouth!"

Off by 30+ years (but who's counting?)

2010-12-16T08:00:00.006-06:00

Automatic highways. Computerized kitchens. Person to person television. Food from under the sea. And all in just ten years! Or not.

We're getting closer to the realities predicted in this 1969 ad -- some 30 years behind schedule -- but we're still not all the way there yet.

(click for a better view of the future we're still waiting for)

Check back in another decade or so.

Nice legs...but whose?

2010-12-13T08:00:00.002-06:00

I haven't seen this recent movie, but based on the poster, I'm thinking that the "other drugs" must be steroids of some type.

I mean, take a closer look at Anne Hathaway's legs. One of them is not only much beefier, but she's apparently ran out of shaving cream after doing only one leg:

Yes, yes, I know, there's Ms. Hathaway's right leg neatly tucked beneath her. But I'm not kidding when I say that every time I see this poster, I do a double-take.

Perhaps the disrupting imagery is every bit as intentional as it was in this ad from 1977:

(And yes, that's exactly who you think it is...)

AH and the LBD

2010-12-10T08:00:00.005-06:00

A bit of wishful thinking -- or perhaps desperate wishing -- in this 1962 ad from this acrylic fiber maker:

"What ever become of the little black dress?" the headline muses, apparently unaware that it never really went out of style.

The so-called little black dress (also known as LBD), whose simple elegance enables it to be accessorized for both day wear and evening wear, has been a woman's wardrobe essential since it was first popularized in 1926 by Coco Chanel in the pages of Vogue magazine. Its ubiquity continued through the years of the Great Depression and even World War II, and was given new life in the 1960s, most notably by Audrey Hepburn's wearing of the LBD in "Breakfast At Tiffany's"...

...a film which, probably not coincidentally, was released the year before the ad above.

Makes you wonder why, if the manufacturer's goal is to expand the acceptance of acrylic fiber, the ad chose to position itself against the little black dress instead of leveraging its popularity to get women to try it in washable acrylic -- although if you read into the copy, it eventually, and grudgingly, mentions you can get the dresses in black, too.

Revlon goes barbaric

2010-12-06T08:00:00.001-06:00

Maybe it's just me, but I when I look at this 1969 Revlon ad -- with its apocalyptic sky, blasted landscape and the woman's vaguely futuristic barbarian getup -- I can't help thinking this:

That's Barbarella, the Jane Fonda sexploitation movie that came out the year before.

Though it was as critical and box office flop, it seems plausible that, given the need to draw attention to Revlon's "action-now" skincare product, the ad designers would turn to cinematic images of "action heroines" -- though, frankly, the culture at the time didn't offer all that much choose from. It was either Jane Fonda in a space bikini...

...or maybe Raquel Welch in a fur bikini, circa 1966:

Am I hallucinating? Do a side-by-side comparison and you decide:

The moon shot heard round the 'world...

2010-12-02T08:00:00.006-06:00

What's the thinking behind this fanciful ad for True Temper golf clubs? Is it the allure of the moon, pock-marked with craters, as a kind of ready-made planetary golf course?

In the second column, the copy makes a more grounded connection:

...the True Temper aluminum shafts, used by the leading club makers, are fabricated of an aluminum alloy recently developed for aviation and aerospace projects.

But wait. Did I call this ad fanciful? Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard, walking on the moon, actually did swing a club at two golf balls. Talking by radio to NASA at the time, Shepard said, "you might recognize what I have in my hand as the handle for the contingency sample return; it just so happens to have a genuine six iron on the bottom of it ... Unfortunately, the suit is so stiff, I can't do this with two hands, but I'm going to try a little sand-trap shot here."

Though he initially said that the second shot went "miles and miles and miles" in the moon's lower gravity (who was there to check?), it apparently was really in the 200 to 400 yard range.

And you think you have trouble getting a tee time.

Interestingly, if you think it was the event that inspired the ad, think again: Shepard took his "moon shot" in 1971; True Temper's ad ran in 1969.

Way-out fashion

2010-11-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

Here's a futuristic hair product ad from 1969. And how do we know it's futuristic?

Obviously, from the silvery apparel the model is wearing, based on the aluminum-coated nylon spacesuits of the Mercury U.S. Space Program (which was put the first human in orbit around the earth).

Even though the Mercury Program (and its distinctive Mark IV space suits) had ended 6 years earlier, the look was just too iconic to be simply cast aside for the bulkier more utilitarian-looking suits of the Gemini and Apollo programs. In fact, the Mercury look" was perfect for mid-'60s TV shows that wanted to seem other-worldly or futuristic.

(That's "My Favorite Martian" and "Lost In Space," for you non-boomers.)

Braniff takes flight here again

2010-11-29T08:00:00.000-06:00

Back in 2008, I did a post looking back at the surprising Braniff campaign spearheaded by Mary Wells Lawrence (who would later go on to found ad agency Wells Rich Greene) featuring the "Air Strip" and "End of the Plain Plane" and TV commercials.

Recently, I stumbled on the 1966 print versions of those concepts, which, in many ways, seem just as fresh and innovative for airline advertising today as they did 45 years ago.

(Yes, yes, I know, if planes were ever flying that close together, you'd have a disaster on your hands, but still...)

What's the REAL story, morning glory?

2010-11-26T12:30:00.004-06:00

Although the movie itself looks like a rehash of a couple other flicks ("The Devil Wears Broadcast News") and has a title that sounds more like a muffin than a movie, I'll at least give "Morning Glory" credit for a more original poster:

In the world of movie marketing, I'm sure it was a "daring" decision to obscure Rachel McAdams' face with both a coffee cup and the superimposed type, but I suppose some of the risk is offset by a layout that fills the poster with as much of her body as possible.

But despite Ms. McAdams' obvious appeal, I'm more interested here in the floating copy that seems intended less as a typical slogan than a catchy phrase to help compensate for the somewhat baffling movie title.

And I'm sure that, to many in the movie's prime demographic, the phrase is nothing more than a lift from the title of the 1995 album by this popular U.K. band,

...and for the scribe who placed that copy on the poster, it might be. (Probably not coincidentally, the album featured a song named "Morning Glory" as well). But you can actually trace that expression back to at least this 1960 Broadway musical,

...based on the Elvis Presley phenomenon and teenage-girl hysteria. Act one introduced a group of gossipy girlfriends in an overlapping series of musical telephone conversations, that included the phrase in question:

-Hi, Nancy!
-Hi, Helen!
-What's the story, morning glory?
-What's tale, nightingale?
-Tell me quick about Hugo and Kim!
-Hi, Margie!
-Hi, Alice!
-What's the story, morning glory?
-What's the word, humming bird?
-Have you heard about Hugo and Kim?

(Incidentally, the song was delivered in a cleverly designed set that stages the scene in perfect symbolism:)

Confusing hair day

2010-11-15T08:00:00.000-06:00

This 1969 ad isn't first to observe that, "Once upon a time, it was easy to tell the girls from the boys." In fact, in the years since the Beatles popularized the shag cut (and long hair became the hippie style of choice), that had long since become a stock punchline among the Bob Hope/Johnny Carson set.

But this ad seems even more confused than most:

We get it, we get it. Seen from behind, boys in long hair look like girls. But the copy goes on,

Once upon a time, all you had to do was look.
Today, it's not so easy.
So today, more than ever, a feminine fragrance is all but essential...

Wait a second. Is the problem long hair on men or does it have something to do with males having androgynous features?

And is this a fear that women of that era were supposed to relate to? That men weren't approaching them because of the mistaken assumption that they were men, too?

On the other hand, maybe that fragrance was to help the both of them identify who was who in the relationship. Oh, those crazy, anything-goes late '60s...

Another all-too-typical '60s airline ad...

2010-11-10T09:00:00.002-06:00

Smiling and dapper business traveler, check.

Sleek and luxurious symbol of the modern world of travel, check.

So what's missing? Oh, right, this:

No doubt he's just considering her "speed, splendor and spectacular performance."

Who's under the trench coat?

2010-11-08T08:00:00.005-06:00

Back in the glamorous heyday of airline travel, airlines often tried to sell you tickets based the idea of exotic travel as a way of resuscitating your relationships, and more frequently, by subtly (and no so subtly) dangling the fantasy of a romantic liaison with one of their young and shapely (but with a girl-next-door appeal, naturally) fight attendants.

This 1963 ad from Germany's Lufthansa Airlines cleverly manages to do both:

Are they husband and wife, or passenger and stewardess? Don't look to the ad copy to give you any clues:

Happens often in Bavaria. You'll notice it in the most surprising places...in the most surprising ways. Something in Germany's air, no doubt, has a wonderfully stimulating effect on the feelings and spirits of visitors.

Make of it what (and who) you will. But given the airline-branded bag the woman's carrying, the coy ingenue-like turning in of her feet as she's (presumably) being kissed, and the business attire of the man, and I'm thinking, well...obvious, isn't it?

Blondes have more puns

2010-11-05T08:00:00.004-05:00

Hmmmm. Do I detect a bit of innuendo here?

Of course, what else would you expect from the company that introduced the first one-step home hair-color formula five years earlier with this memorable teaser:

The 1969 ad at top, for a coloring formula with deceptive but irresistible name, "Born Blonde," foregoes that coy innuendo of an earlier era for a more leering come-on befitting the late-'60s sexual revolution (complete with the faux-psychedelic typeface of the free-love generation). As Wikipedia explains,

"In contemporary popular culture, it is often stereotyped that men find blonde women more attractive... Anita Loos popularized this idea in her 1925 novel, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."

(And of course, it helps when the film adaptation of said novel starred Marilyn Monroe.)

Clairol took that idea of the special appeal, and really ran with it, with headlines like "If I have only one life, let me live it as a blonde." and this one, which, later switched to a declarative sentence, remains embedded in our popular culture: "Is it true blondes have more fun?"

(By the way, that's '60s supermodel and '70s TV actress, Susan Blakely, in the paisley scarf -- a natural blonde apparently, but never mind. You can see a video retrospective of her modeling career and other ads she appeared in here.)

It happened one ad...

2010-11-03T08:00:00.002-05:00

Here's a pretty innocuous, run-of-the-mill 1950 ad from Jockey, with the typical over-inflated claim. But there's something intriguing of about the illustrated model with the weathered but still handsome looks and that insouciant smile. Could it be--?

You decide. Here's a side by side comparison between the man from the Jockey ad and silver screen legend Clark Gable:

Coincidence? Maybe, but it sure seems an intentional homage, doesn't it? If so, then the question that naturally follows is, why?

I'm guessing it was a bit of an in-joke between the illustrator and client, referencing Gable in 1934's "It Happened One Night." According to pop culture lore, when Gable took off his shirt in that film and revealed a bare chest, undershirt sales supposedly plummeted by 75%. Could be the ad-makers, needing a face for their model, found it funny to show a Clark Gablesque fellow in both undershirt and underwear -- poetic justice, I suppose for his inadvertent effect on the foundation garments industry.

(By the way, though the Gable undershirt story has endured for 7 decades, it's been more recently called into question, if not outright debunked, at Snopes.com.)

Talking back to "The Man"

2010-11-01T08:00:00.001-05:00

Several months back, this blog looked at a couple of ads from the 1960s that grappled with the social upheaval of the period by trying to see things (if occasionally awkwardly) from the "black perspective." Today, let's see how the media addressed similar topics when speaking more to their "white" audience.

And right off the bat, we see a more confrontational attitude designed to put the reader on the defensive:

The above 1963 New York Herald Tribune ad begins with the statement that "Whites do a lot of talking about Negros, but hardly ever listen to them. The copy continues its aggressive tone by telling us what not to expect:

You don't get comfortable, White cliches about Negro life. Instead, you get what Negros themselves think, and get it in their own words.

(Don't be offended by racial labels; those were the terms of the times.)

Almost a decade later, society's continuing struggle with racial issues (along with family and sexuality issues) resulted in this ad for CBS public affairs programming:

Although it looks almost comical now (almost like some forgotten Norman Lear sitcom), you can imagine how it probably shocked and offended the traditionalists of the day. Interestingly, the copy makes clear that the scenario represents interracial adoption, leading one to believe that the issue of interracial marriage was too hot for even this ad.

Got deja vu?

2010-10-27T21:30:00.003-05:00

Here's a visually clever outdoor board from back in 1963. Remind you of anything?

(As if I really had to tell you. )

Here's one of that campaign's more recent examples, fuzzy upper lip and all:

But wait, we're not through with our confluence of coincidences yet. Because this parodic ad appeared in the late '90s, bringing the concept more or less full circle after about 25 years:

Incs think pink

2010-10-26T10:30:00.001-05:00

Great minds may think alike, as the saying goes -- but they can certainly execute those ideas very differently.

Let's start with this vintage ad, touting the latest in porcelain enameled cookware. Guess what 1955's big selling point was:

It's "the year's most fashionable cookware color," the ad assures us, and I suppose, in its time, it was a welcome splash of color amidst the monochromatic choices of white enameled pots or black-with-white-flecks. Still, the creativity seemed to end on the manufacturing line. It's a rather drab ad for a color that's supposed generate new excitement in the housewares aisle. Gray is, in fact, a more prominent color here than pink.

As an unfair comparison, let's take a look at another pink-themed ad from roughly the same era (1961):

Pink air? Is Fina serious? Sort of.

Based on a news item that predicted service stations would one day offer tinted air for tires (as a competitive differentiator similar to adding additives to gasoline), Fina announced its intentions to be first on the bandwagon by offering Pink Air within 5 years -- half the time it was projected to be adopted by the industry at large.

It was the brainstorm of the advertising giant who's surprisingly little known today -- at least compared to David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach and the like -- Howard Gossage of San Francisco's Howard Luck Gossage agency. As he explains in "The Book of Gossage,"

"Pink Air was one of those ideas that one simply accepts, knowing it will work but not knowing why. When we presented the campaign to our client, he looked at the big pink headline and said, "Good Lord!" I asked him, "Don't you want to run it?" He replied, "Sure I want to run it." "Why?" I asked. He thought for a moment, shook his head and said, "Beats me."

Every bit as fanciful as pink cookware (though far less functional), pink air was a parody of the "new, improved" school of marketing and, with a limited ad budget, created the identity and higher profile the company needed as it expanded its territory from Texas upwards to Minnesota.

(And in case you're wondering, apparently, pink air finally did arrive at FINA stations in 1966 -- right on schedule.)

You can see a few more "pink air" ads and hear Howard Gossage explain his reasoning for the campaign here.

Art appreciation (from an unlikely source)

2010-08-23T19:00:00.009-05:00

Abstract expressionism has all too frequently been the butt of jokes in popular culture. Garnering only a portion of the respect it holds in the art world, abstract works have inspired endless "my kid could've painted that for free" quips in television and movies -- and in all likihood, advertising as well.

But not here:

This 1963 ad from the chemical manufacturer Celanese isn't interested in the typical "it looks like the artist exploded" style of one-liners. Instead, they use an example of abstract expressionism to symbolize "modernism" and it would appear that their intentions are straightforward. Any suggestion that the art style was less than legitimate would undermine the ad's entire argument.

"Celanese happens to be a young company. Much more important, it's a modern company." the ad assures us rather defensively. It seems to be in response to more established competitors (or perhaps less established upstarts); at any rate, by this time, Celanese was nearly 45 years old, hardly the paragon of youth.

As for the artwork in the ad, it's would seem to be inspired by the work of American painter Jackson Pollock, a major figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement. A pioneer of the "drip" technique using liquid paint on a canvas lying on the floor, Pollack's drip paintings were polarizing to both critics and the public. But thanks to a glowing profile in a 1949 Life Magazine, his were probably the best known examples of the controversial post-World War II art movement. Obviously the designer of the ad above was an admirer of Pollack's work.

Here's a couple of Pollack actual drip paintings. See how easily they could be substituted in the ad above:

Red is...what?

2010-08-18T21:27:00.008-05:00

Here's an interesting late-1960s CBS programming ad by the celebrated designer, Lou Dorfsman:

Hmm. Odd bit of hyperbole there. At the height of his popularity, the comedian Red Skelton could be described as clever...a gifted mime...or even, as the ad says, "screamingly funny" (I said he could be, I didn't say everyone would agree)...but beautiful?

Actually, it makes a bit more sense when you consider the era in which the ad was created and ran. "Black is Beautiful" was the theme if you will, of the late 1960s U.S. cultural movement that countered traditional "Caucasian-centric" views of desirability, and the phrase was on was more likely to come up on the news or talk shows than in entertainment programs (such as, not surprisingly, the show in question).

So was CBS being insensitive in the co-opting of the phrase? Maybe, but they weren't the only ones to do it.

(The above ad, I suppose, at least has the virtue of being sincere about it.)

Hartog barely there

2010-08-17T21:00:00.001-05:00

That Maidenform woman... you never know where she's going to turn up. Even in these ads from another clothier entirely...

"People barely vote for anything but hartog." or so the headline of this 1957 ad quips. According to this site, Hartog of California was "the leader of cool surfer style in the '60s," but frankly, it's hard to tell from this ad what they specialized in except labored puns about political cynicism and nudity. If you read to the bottom, you'll see the word shirts, but I doubt most readers of the era ever took their eyes off the shapely woman doing the Voting Dance of the Single Veil.

This other ad in the series doesn't make things much clearer, except now the strained attempt at cleverness seems to reference ogling topless ingenues while simultaneously warning against sexually transmitted diseases.

To put it another way, while the models who are showing lots of skin, it's really Hartog who's barely there.

Deja Vertigo?

2010-08-09T00:00:00.001-05:00

Just noticed this poster for this upcoming movie...

Very simply and dramatically suggests the terror and disorientation of someone apparently buried alive. But even more, it shows the obvious influence of the movie poster work of seminal graphic designer, Saul Bass -- this one in particular:

Flushed away...

2010-08-03T06:30:00.004-05:00

The Ty-D-Bol Man returned to cultural prominence -- albeit briefly -- today, when it was reported that the actor who played him passed away.

Stage and screen actor Dan Resin, who portrayed the dapper Ty-D-Bol man in television commercials for the toilet bowl cleaner, has died. He was 79...

As the Ty-D-Bol man, Resin wore a captain's uniform and sailed off in a motorboat across the sparkling blue waters of a toilet tank after his product pitch: "Helps clean and deodorize your bowl automatically every time you flush."

Like Charmin's "Mr. Whipple" campaign, the diminutive Ty-D-Bol Man was seen as another example of the inanity and vulgarism of modern advertising as television grew ever more ubiquitous in American life.

"Inane? Vulgar? Me?"

I don't have much else to add here, though I do think it's funny that Mr. Resin's Broadway resume includes "Don't Drink The Water."

Innuendo -- It's the American way

2010-08-02T21:00:00.004-05:00

I've discussed American Airline's "Fly Me" campaign previously, but this ad deserves special mention. It seems to be created for those for whom the "stewardesses" with the come-hither come-ons ("I'm Cheryl. Fly Me.") was a bit too subtle:

The "giving a party" headline, the knowing eyes, the tongue definitely not in cheek -- you'd be forgiven for mistaking this for an ad for some kind of in-flight escort service. The copy isn't going to give you much help, either:

"At first I was bashful. But then people began thanking me for an enjoyable flight. I liked that. And I realized how much I wanted everything to go just right. That I had fun when they did."

And like a good procurer, American Airlines ends by promising

We'll keep combing America for girls like Sandy. And as soon as we meet them, we promise to introduce them to you.

And you wonder how that "Swinging Stewardess" image became so embedded in popular culture.

Ogilvy Vs. Bernbach (or are they really in opposition?)

2010-02-12T21:00:00.000-06:00

As industry insiders (and now, regular viewers of “Mad Men”) know, the business of modern advertising is a ongoing tug-of-war, with creativity on one end of the rope and account service on the other.

When creativity pulls too hard, the demands of selling are often compromised; when account service is too strong, the ad’s impact suffers.

Within the industry there are two creative legends who are known for each resolving the tug-of-war within their agencies, albeit with quite different results. David Ogilvy believed the ultimate success of advertising depended on fastidious research. For Bill Bernbach, creative intuition was the underlying force.

Here's a quick rundown on each:

Certainly, both men (and their agencies) were successful. But who was more creative? Let’s let their own oft-quoted words fight it out a bit:

Ogilvy: “A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.”

Bernbach: “If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic.”

Ogilvy: “The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace.”

Bernbach: “Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.”

Ogilvy: “I do not regard the advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.”

Bernbach: “We don’t ask research to do what it was never meant to do, and that is to get an idea.”

Ogilvy: “Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.”

Bernbach: “I consider research the major culprit in the advertising picture. It has done more to perpetuate creative mediocrity than any other factor.”

Ogilvy: “What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.”

Bernbach: “Because an appeal makes logical sense is no guarantee that it will work.”

And so on. Comparing their most famous ad campaigns makes it seem even more one-sided. Sure, Ogilvy’s “The Man In The Hathaway Shirt” sold millions, but so did Bernbach’s “Lemon” campaign for Volkswagon – and which one do you think was more contemporary and appealing to aspiring copywriters and art directors?

Each of their deaths would bring their respective legacies back into the public eye, but for Bernbach, the industry accolades seemed to come with greater ease.

Ogilvy’s reputation suffered, ironically, upon the publication of “Ogilvy on Advertising” in 1983. With this book, Ogilvy’s “fuddy-duddiness” became legendary among creative people, his wisdom and many creative accomplishments buried under the endless guidelines he laid down that, to modern creatives, were like nails on a chalkboard. “No reverse type.” “Include the brand name in the headline.” “No headlines at the bottoms of ads.” “Never use an illustration without a caption.” And yet...

“I hate rules,” Ogilvy asserted in his introduction. “All I do is report on how consumers react to different stimuli.” Still, to people who came into ad agencies dreaming of the creative freedom they admired in agencies like Bernbach’s, any hint of rules was greeted with scorn. (Not surprisingly, the book was found more often on the shelves of account people than those of creative people.)

But another, less heralded side of Ogilvy was revealed in a 1986 book, “The Unpublished David Ogilvy.” In a July 18, 1977 memo entitled, “Confusion?” he writes:

"For many years you heard me inveigh against “entertainment” in TV commercials and “cleverness” in print advertising. When the advertising world went on a “creative” binge in the late 1960s, I denounced award winners as lunatics...

“Then, two years ago, you began to receive memos from me, complaining that too much of our output was stodgy and dull...

“I woke up to the fact that the majority of our campaigns, while impeccable as to positioning and promise, contained no big idea. They were too dull to penetrate the filter which consumers erect to protect themselves against the daily deluge of advertising. Too dull to be remembered. Too dull to build a brand image. Too dull to sell. (“You cannot bore people into buying your product.”)

“I want all our offices to create campaigns that are second to none in positioning, promise – and brilliant ideas...”

Yes, you can argue that there’s still a world of difference between what Ogilvy and Bernbach each saw as a “brilliant idea.“

But to me, this memo alone upends all the calcified notions of Ogilvy’s creative philosophy as somehow inferior and should recast (and to many, redeem) his reputation in creative circles.

For my generation (and the subsequent generation) of creative people, it’s been too easy to pass off David as more account man than creative person -- too rational, too rigid, too formulaic, especially versus the more intuitive, more daring creative decisions of Bill Bernbach.

But creativity takes many forms. And given the tight constraints he forced himself and his agency to work within, Ogilvy’s successes are just as admirable as those of the envelope-pushing Bernbach.

Which is why, as your self-appointed referee, I’m calling this match...a draw.

A brief history of TV Spokesmannequins

2010-02-09T16:00:00.000-06:00

You've seen 'em by now -- those ubiquitous, annoyingly "Supermodelequinns" spots for Old Navy, which simultaneously portray both store mannequins and "Old Navy" shoppers as vapid, soulless, hunks of sculpted plastic:

Of course, the SpokesInaminateObject concept isn't particularly new. In fact, for several years now, we've had to endure the pointlessly disconnectedness of the Travelocity Gnome:

And of course, before that, we had the disturbingly cherubic Buddy Lee non-action figure in this Lee Jean campaign starting in 1998:

Oh, and let's not forget the skin-crawlingly plasticized expressions of the Burger King starting 2003:

...which in itself, seemed to be a minimalist version of not to mention those creepy "Putterman" family members in this Duracell campaign of the early 1990s:

And around the same time, the frozen-faced icon of the 1990s "Jack In The Box" campaign:

But I think you can trace the lineage of all these spots back to this inanimate celebrity and Boomer icon (and naturally, contemporary pitchman):

The artist approves...

2010-01-25T14:30:00.005-06:00

Panty hose may be sold to women, but they're really made for men -- or so this 1951 ad campaign seems to be admitting:

"Cannon nylons do something for my legs" gushes the headline -- but despite the first-person voice, the real testimonial comes from the artist who illustrated those shapely gams:

I can't decipher the artist's signature (or recognize his photo), but based on other ads in the series, I'm pretty sure he was one of the popular "pin-up girl" illustrators of the era. And as such, a pop-cultural authority, I guess, on how a well-turned leg should appear.

An interesting idea, and well executed. Despite adapting an art form that was created pretty much exclusively for men, the artist's style -- here, equal parts sensual and "girl next door" -- seems non-threatening to women while showing them an idealized version of the appearance they want.

Other ads in the series feature more easily identifiable pin-up artists, including Frederick J. Smith...

...Robert Patterson...

..and Jon Whitcombe.

If the idea of letting notable artists interpret your product seems more contemporary than this, that may be because this liquor-maker employed a similar campaign through the '80s and '90s:

(Cameron, by the way, is fashion designer David Cameron; the model is Rachel Williams.)

Nerd Appeal

2010-01-22T08:00:00.007-06:00

Interesting celebrity endorsement:

That's actor Wally Cox, a character actor of the '50s/'60s known for playing milquetoasts in sitcoms and variety shows, starting with his 1952 show, "Mr. Peepers." Given the aspirational nature of most adult beverage advertising (then as well as now), it's a bit surprising to see Cox in this ad. After all, his fame notwithstanding, he's not exactly the type of person most liquors would want to associate their products with. Was Lee Marvin busy?

Wally Cox? Why not just get Woody Allen to pitch Smirnoff?

Oh, wait a minute:

Well, Smirnoff, since you've gone this far, you might as well complete the 1950s Nerd Triumvirate and get Tony Randall, too:

Take it from the top

2009-12-01T08:00:00.005-06:00

Here's a zeitgeist-y ad from 1970 that reflects not one, but I'd guess, two elements of the era's popular culture:

I suppose, after a few shots of rum, some women can be talked into anything, but actually, it was fashion designer Rudi Gernreich who was the inventor of the scandalous but popular -- (though rarely worn in public) "monokini" in 1964. And by inventor, I mean he just followed through on the same thought all bikini-ogling males of the era probably had when eyeing women in their two-piece swimsuits.

What's more interesting to me, however, is the look of the woman "Ron Rico" is about to expose. Despite modeling a swimsuit, she looks mousey, prim, mortified -- and with that limp pixie-cut, she looks a lot like she was intended to suggest a younger version of the prim, mousey "Gladys" portrayed by Ruth Buzzi on the late-'60s hit TV show, "Laugh-In."

Dress for the trip

2009-11-24T08:00:00.001-06:00

This 1969 ad for a line of jeans doesn't just speak the visual language of its intended audience,

along with the Vaughn Bode-like graphics and griffiti-inspired typefaces, those hipsters at LB lay it on the line with this barely-veiled reference:

Indeed.

The few. The proud. The mistresses.

2009-11-20T08:00:00.007-06:00

I had no idea that being somebody's mistress was so demanding. I thought you just had to put up with sporadic, last-minute trysts and holidays and birthdays spent alone. But apparently, you've got to have a passion for Fibber McGee and own an ocelot, among other things.

This whole 1974 ad bears reading. I guess its somebody's idealized image of a mistress, but even with tongue-in-cheek (I assume), the insecurity and cruelty of the situation for women is perhaps unintentionally touched on with the line about her "seeing a psychiatrist by your giggling at her striptease." It's almost like a "scared straight" thing for The Other Woman. Click on it to enlarge:

Do it like Ditko

2009-11-18T08:00:00.001-06:00

Nothing too interesting about the message of this 1959 ad (except that the need to push wood floors as a decorating option seems to be in response to the post-World War II growth of "wall to wall" carpet, plastics and laminate furniture), except for the surreal, deconstructed representation of a home...

...which could well have inspired (or been inspired by) the surreal, deconstructed images of 1950s/60s comic book artist (and later Spider-Man co-creator) Steve Ditko:

They don't make ads like this anymore...

2009-11-16T08:00:00.000-06:00

...because they can't -- not with today's cookie-cutter car models. From 1957:

Racial sensitivity in 1969

2009-11-13T08:00:00.008-06:00

In 1969, this is what passed for racial sensitivity at ABC:

Meanwhile, over at the Tiffany Network, CBS took a more sobering, more provocative approach in their 1968 ad on their coverage of similar cultural issues:

(The CBS ad, by the way, is the work of legendary designer, Lou Dorfsman.)

"Bureau, Wool Bureau."

2009-11-11T08:00:00.005-06:00

I know I should just chalk this up to a coincidence, or a parallelism that only I see, but come on! The veddy British fashion, the converging lines of the background, and the year of this advertisement, 1964...

...isn't it possible, just possible that the designer was inspired by the opening credits of this movie franchise, in its third installment by that same year:

Weird about beards

2009-11-08T12:00:00.004-06:00

The wording is a bit confusing (is Dad talking about himself?), but that's the least of the curiosities in this 1969 ad for Oneida:

Once again, Madison Avenue attempts to engage the counterculture, with the awkwardness typical of the time. Here, the beau with the neatly trimmed beard seems neither beatnik nor hippie. In fact, his facial hair seems almost professorial; it's the Beatlesque mop atop his head that would seem more likely to raise Dad's hackles.

But while the copy insists "what a groovy guy he is," the kid seems more like a budding member of The Establishment than a Timothy Leary devotee, considering

That he was captain of the soccer team for three years straight and worked on the Cultural Center Committee.

So in the end, it's not a plea for understanding of the younger generation, it's just another reinforcement of the values of the older generation, dressed up in a "can't judge a book by its cover" homily.

And if Dad is such a traditionalist that he was put off by young men who didn't shave, you can imagine how he felt about seeing a young woman who did, four years earlier:

Going for the juggler

2009-10-15T08:00:00.002-05:00

Think all the fretting over TV shows pushing the envelope in sex and violence is a modern concern? Here's an ad from 1961:

"We own Sylvania TV.

We're worried about some of

the shows you see on our sets."

begins the ad, under a depiction of programming types of the era that Sylvania apparently finds objectionable, violent westerns and cop and detective shows prominently featured, along with other programs waiting to implant violent and impure thoughts into the minds of the American viewing public, like medical shows, historical dramas and beauty pageants.

And of course, shows that feature jugglers:

More real people, unscrubbed

2009-10-13T08:00:00.002-05:00

Back in my first post in January 2008, I showed this ad, as an example of the recognition (and celebration) of "real people" that's been absent in modern advertising (except as a source of humor, over-romanticism and post-modern irony). Here's another ad I recently discovered from that same campaign:

Contrast that with this spot two decades later. Similar laundromat setting, a similar depiction of an overweight laundromat lady (around :46) -- but here, she -- and the others -- are just used as visual shorthand for the prim, traditional sensibilities our counter-cultural jeans-washer offends:

A darn good question

2009-10-08T08:00:00.003-05:00

This headline from this 1969 ad is surprisingly effective in stopping the reader, even after all these years.

Usually, when advertising poses a question, the answer is obvious. Not this one:

An intriguing question, with no clear answer. When you're talking cranium protection for pro football players, we know the stakes are high. And likening the construction of football helmet to a that of a hair dryer is a dramatic comparison.

But what answer are they hinting at? There are two possibilities:

1) That competitive helmets are made of a plastic material more suitable for hair dryers and that the one being advertised here is much stronger; or

2) That the helmet being sold here is amazingly impact-resistant, given that it's made from the same material as women's hair dryers.

Here's the entire ad:

Even if your eye jumps down to the "Deacon does." subhead, I'll bet most readers took a few seconds to scan the copy for details like these:

...all the NFL teams trust the same material...CYCOLAC Brand ABS, a tough, hard rigid thermoplastic...the same plastic specified by major appliance manufacturers...it can take the brutal punishment of head butts, cleat kicks and earth slams...

...and that's just at the beauty parlor! (RIMSHOT!)

Time, for a lesson in headline writing

2009-09-22T08:00:00.002-05:00

John T. Elson passed away recently. As Time Magazine's religion editor in 1966, he wrote the cover story for the April 8th issue of that year, the edition that would give Time its biggest newsstand sales in more than 20 years and provoke 3,500 letters to the editor. As the New York Times notes:

For more than a year, Mr. Elson had labored over an article examining radical new approaches to thinking about God that were gaining currency in seminaries and universities and spilling over to the public at large.

When finally completed, it became the cover story for the issue of April 8, as Easter and Passover approached. The cover itself was eye-catching, the first one in Time’s 43-year history to appear without a photograph or an illustration. Giant blood-red letters against a black background spelled out...

Okay, that's not the cover. That's actually the title of the article as it appeared on the inside. For the cover, the editors instead chose the first sentence of the article:

Shorter, punchier, and most importantly, much more provocative, while still being true to the content of the story. Makes you want to open the magazine, if only to see which way they go on the answer.

The Stepford Ads

2009-09-15T09:30:00.002-05:00

Another entry in the "Where Do They Get Their Crazy Ideas?" Department, and this one is relatively easy to explain. I saw this poster over the weekend, advertising an upcoming movie:

As images go, this one is cleverly arresting. Your eyes immediately to the woman's Angelina Jolie/Megan Fox-type features, while mostly registering the rest of her typically modelesque pose peripherally. Then the position of the hands draws your eyes toward the inevitable bared tattoo and that's when the stripped midsection with its metallic spinal column hits you. And although the merger of fleshy and blood with steely machinery should be abhorrent, the woman's physical perfection and cold demeanor seem almost robotic anyway.

And in fact, pretty much the same commentary* fits this ad that appeared just a year and a half ago:

(*Yes, after glimpsing the face, your eyes drift down to something else besides a tattoo, but it has the same effect.)

Of course, the whole Sexy Female Robot in popular culture idea goes back to at least 1975...

And maybe even further:

Mouse Power

2009-09-01T08:00:00.004-05:00

So the Walt Disney Company has purchased Marvel Entertainment. What can we expect? As usual, visionary comic book creator Jack Kirby speculated an answer (albeit unknowingly) some 17 years ago:

(from "The Art of Mickey Mouse," 1992)

Dead Spokesman Pitching

2009-08-28T08:00:00.008-05:00

Probably seemed like a slam-dunk to the creative team. Resurrect a popular countercultural celebrity, put her in close proximity to the product and let the amused double-takes begin:

So how come so many people seemed a bit put-off by the faux-Gilda Radner ad in Armstrong's It Only Looks Like The Real Thing campaign.

It's not the clumsy wording, which seems to refer to a beloved entertainer as an "it;" there's something more going on here, a reaction unprovoked by their other ads which paired laminated flooring with celebrity impersonators like Lucille Ball and James Dean:

Then, probably because the client realized that they'd fallen into a rut using SpokesImpersonators stuck in the 1950s, at attempt was made the "freshen" the campaign with a more modern icon -- at least as modern as a late-1970s icon could be.

Gilda Radner (of Saturday Night Live's original cast, for those who don't know) probably came to mind as a complement to Lucy's anarchic spirit. (Interestingly, the men seem all chosen for their "cool"demeanor; the women for their screwball personnas.) And everyone loved Gilda, right?

Yet, if you Google "Armstrong ad, Gilda Radner," you'll see that this ad garnered reactions both strongly negative and vaguely uncomfortable; in fact, more than one woman I spoke to about the ad seemed a bit put-off by the use of someone who died so tragically from cancer.

But then, James Dean died in a near-head-on car crash, and Brando, though he lived to be 80, had a chaotic life marked by personal tragedies; yet nobody seems worked up about their inclusion in this campaign. So it's doubtful that it's just the circumstances of Gilda's death. (And it can't really be because her death is relatively recent. It's been more than 20 years since she passed away. )

So what is it then, really? What makes Gilda Radner so untouchable for commercial purposes? The reality is that everything -- every icon -- is for sale these days. If you doubt that, check the ad's fine print that states "Likeness and rights of Gilda Radner licensed through the Gilda Radner estate."

Here's what I think: Gilda is more of a "pure" Baby Boomer icon (being a Boomer herself) than Dean, Brando, et al, and despite even the Beatles now licensing their images for commercial purposes, deep down in our little narcissistic hearts, Boomers still want to believe that some of their seminal entertainers and cultural memories are still off-limits to advertising. The more jaded we become, the more desperately we want to believe that some beloved icons are just too cherished to be shoved into posthumous pseudo-endorsements.

Just like our parents probably believed...before we we shoved their beloved icons into posthumous pseudo-endorsement like, oh, Fred Astaire selling Dirt Devil vacuums:

(See spots #5 and #8 on this reel from 1997)

Noted former ad copywriter passes

2009-08-07T17:00:00.011-05:00

I join Ferris Bueller, Sloan Peterson and Cameron, along with Farmer Ted the Geek, Uncle Buck, Kevin McCallister and others in mourning the sudden passing of John Hughes yesterday.

Obviously best known as the writer and sometimes director of such hits as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Home Alone" and others, he began (as many Hollywood writers have) working in advertising. As a copywriter in a Chicago agency, Hughes is said to have created the memorable "credit card test" commercial for Edge shaving cream (i.e., the softer sound of credit card scraping the stubble on the side of your face shaved with Edge demonstrated a closer, smoother shave).

By all accounts, Hughes was a very fast and intuitive writer, and it tended to show in his work. He had an uncanny ability to connect with this teen/young adult audiences both emotionally and in their interests and vernacular -- but with the exceptions of "Breakfast Club," "Ferris Bueller" and "Home Alone," it was always obvious his drafts could use some additional work and structuring. (Apparently, he hated being rewritten, perhaps another remnant of his days in advertising.)

Yet despite (or maybe because of) this, he managed to crank out an amazingly strong, and enduring body of work in less than 10 years.*

In addition to the excellent movies above, I'd say the strengths of "Sixteen Candles" and "Uncle Buck" vastly outweigh their faults (and they do have faults). And I can wholeheartedly recommend his more "mature" (for him) films, "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" and his (at least somewhat autobiographical) "She's Having A Baby."

You've probably already read one of his obituaries by now. An interesting profile of Hughes, circa 1988 that ran in Premiere magazine is here.

*This in spite of his seemingly endless (and sometimes annoying) willingness to recycle plots and characters, i.e., "Sixteen Candles" = "Pretty In Pink" = "Some Kind of Wonderful"; "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" = "The Great Outdoors"; "Uncle Buck" = "Dutch,"; and all the movies he did featuring bumbling crooks and slapsticky violence, including "Home Alone" (and its sequels), "Dennis The Menace," "Baby's Day Out," and "101 Dalmatians"; and the movies too numerous to mention that turned on class warfare with snobby suburban teens and adults.

Monkey see, monkey do

2009-08-03T14:00:00.001-05:00

I couldn't care less about this NY Times story on some rock festival or something, or what band this singer is from, but I did see an interesting if unintentional parallelism between that photo and this one:

To Heinz and back

2009-07-27T16:00:00.000-05:00

In a post on May 19 of last year, I traced the apparent inspiration for this 1970 At&T ad back to the look of The Beatle's 1968 "Yellow Submarine," movie.

The art director behind that movie's graphics, Heinz Edelmann, passed away recently. Interestingly, as the NY Times reports,

Despite the huge influence of “Yellow Submarine” on the culture of the time, Mr. Edelmann admitted that he could never quite connect with the 1960s aesthetic. Once the film was complete, he altered his approach to avoid being pigeonholed as a psychedelic artist, becoming considerably less ethereal and decorative...

Some examples of Edelmann's (non-psychedelic) poster work can be seen here.

What you really need to know about branding is right here:

2009-07-24T08:00:00.002-05:00

In its obit for John S. Barry, the exec who's credited with making WD-40 the lubricant found in 80% of American homes, the NY Times says

Mr. Barry acknowledged in interviews with Forbes magazine in 1980 and 1988 that other companies, including giants like 3M and DuPont, made products that closely resembled WD-40.

“What they don’t have,” he said, “is the name.”

It's not over till the fat lady eats cereal

2009-07-15T13:45:00.005-05:00

If you're forced to watch a lot of the Cartoon Network as I am, you've probably seen this opera-inspired spot for Cocoa Puffs:

Kinda funny, and you have to give the ad agency credit for still being able to dream up new scenarios after 40 years of the same basic premise. However, even given that, it's still a bit of a curious choice. Since opera is far out of mainstream culture right now (at least since "Fraiser" left the air waves), I'd have to assume that the agency was trying their spin on this classic late-1960s commercial for rival Kellogg:

Being a full 30 seconds longer than the Cocoa Puffs spot (as the standard commercial was back then), the spot was able to build a more interesting story beyond just the usual product pitch. Nothing like friction with the mother-in-law to generate comedy (at least back in the '60s).

Still, I can't help wondering if both these kids' cereal spots owe their existence to high-brow/low-brow mash-up of this 1957 classic, "What's Opera, Doc?":

Squeeze Teases

2009-06-29T11:30:00.000-05:00

Even back in the '70s, we used to make fun of Charmin's Mr. Whipple and uncontrollable compulsion to squeeze bathroom tissue...

But apparently, the problem was more prevalent in grocery stores back then than previously recognized:

And yet, just when you think you know the rules, along comes...

"Squeeze me." "Don't squeeze me." "Please don't." "Everybody squeeze." Just one more case of American culture sending out confusing mixed messages.

Wishful thinking?

2009-06-12T16:30:00.005-05:00

Well, they tried, I'll give them that. But you have to wonder how successful Gillette was in selling young adults a shaving kit back in 1967, the era of the hirsute beatniks and hippies, popularized several years earlier by Maynard G. Krebs:

(And who just may have been the inspiration for the Gillette lad above.)

The movie is new, but as for the poster...

2009-06-09T08:30:00.002-05:00

Notebook-doodle style art direction has been around in general advertising for some time now (see here, for instance), and lately, it's showing up in movie advertising as well.

The poster for the just-opened movie, "Away We Go," uses rotoscoped figures and a collage of hand-drawn images and typefaces to suggest a low-budget film free of Hollywood slickness, as well as impart a more "authentic," New Bohemian feel to its characters...

I'm tempted to say the look was inspired by this 1965 poster by Norman Hartweg for the Muir Beach Acid Test (the San Francisco-area LSD parties held by Ken Kesey, later covered in the book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test")...

...but I think it was really more a technique meant to ape the elements of the various posters (and the commercial success) of the low budget, "authentic" 2007 movie, "Juno":

(By the way, those little figures running in the bottom right of the poster above. We've seen those before, too.)

Where have I seen this before?

2009-05-27T16:00:00.001-05:00

From Monday's NY Times: California's new National Ignition Facility where 192 lasers will combine in an attempt to create the core of a tiny star and its thermonuclear energy...

...and the chamber of Cerebro, the mutant detecting technology of the X-Men movies.

The NIF facility cost $3.5 billion. They probably could have borrowed the set from 20th Century Fox for a lot less.

A five-million-dollar idea?

2009-05-20T13:30:00.000-05:00

Well, that's what it ended up costing American Apparel in a court settlement with Woody Allen over the unauthorized use of an image from his film, "Annie Hall" for a 2007 billboard. As reported yesterday in the NY Times:

Dov Charney, American Apparel’s chief executive, contended that the image, which depicted Mr. Allen dressed as a Hasidic Jew in a scene from the 1977 film, was fair game because it was intended as parody, which is protected by the First Amendment.

The Yiddish phrase accompanying the photo apparently translates to “the holy rebbe.” Is this putting you in a frame of mind go buy some clothes yet?

In addition, Mr. Charney argued that the lawsuit, which had sought $10 million, was excessive, as the billboards in question were taken down at Mr. Allen’s request after less than a week.

“I think this case was about the dignity of ideas,” said Mr. Charney, explaining that his insurance company had forced him to settle. “I’m not sorry for expressing myself.”

Okay, sir, but answer us this: Exactly what in God's name are you expressing here? Is this a billboard for an audience of one? And what is the rationale for posting this personal (if incomprehensible) statement under the guise of your clothing chain?

Mr. Charney has...been the subject of highly publicized charges about sexual conduct, including several sexual harassment lawsuits brought by former employees.

Mr. Charney said the charges, which he denies, left him feeling so misunderstood that he could strongly identify with Alvy Singer, Mr. Allen’s character in “Annie Hall.”

In the movie, Alvy appears as a Hasidic Jew when seen through the eyes of Grammy Hall, his girlfriend’s grandmother; he feels he is being looked down upon merely because he is Jewish.

The sense of kinship prompted Mr. Charney to plaster Mr. Allen’s character on billboards, according to a 1,560-word statement that Mr. Charney released on Monday.

Oh, it all makes sense now. Apparently, Mr. Allen didn't share the sense of kinship.

Newspapers And "Aditorial Content"

2009-04-30T16:30:00.002-05:00

My, my, the hand-wringing and rending of garments over the L.A. Times' recent running of an ad (thinly) disguised as news content on its front page. As reported by the NY Times:

The ad, for the new NBC show “Southland,” was written and designed to look like a news article, chronicling the “Southland” protagonist’s patrol in Los Angeles. The promotion ran on the lower half of the paper’s left column, with the headline, “Southland’s Rookie Hero.” Forming an L, a horizontal ad for the show ran across the bottom of the page. The top of the column was labeled “Advertisement,” and included NBC’s peacock logo.

It is the first time the newspaper has run a mock news column on its front page as an ad, although the paper has been running front-page ads since 2007.

First, let's get the obvious joke out of the way: Some would say the newspaper has been running mock news columns on its front page for years! (Rimshot!) But more seriously:

Maybe the real problem is that it made a little too explicit the relationship between editorial and the business community. After all, how many stories in any given edition of a newspaper are spurred by a press release or a "pitch" from some agent or lobbyist? You may not see them on the front page, but try the lifestyle, entertainment and other back-of-the-paper" sections.

If integrity and credibility are the issue, then I wish the newspaper people who are in a tizzy over this pretty blatant and innocuous "fake news" were as concerned about the bias too often displayed by their reporters.

Get a hold of yourself (on second thought...)

2009-04-23T14:30:00.001-05:00

Do the people writing the headlines at the NY Times ever consult with the layout artists? In today's edition, here's the headline for a story and the photo that ran directly underneath it:

Losing Its Cool At The Mall

(Or is it just me that sees the innuendo in this?)

NBC = Not Being Consistent?

2009-04-11T12:00:00.001-05:00

Hey NBC, get your guys on the same page, would you?

On Friday, the NY Times, ran a story on an upcoming live comedy show for their potential advertisers, featuring Jay Leno, along with other NBC late-night and prime time stars.

A big part of the idea is apparently to showcase Mr. Leno's comedic appeal in advance of his taking over NBC's third prime time hour each weeknight starting this fall. The need to showcase Mr. Leno at all is in itself a bit mystifying, given that he's hosted the #1 late-night talk show for well over a decade now. But okay, then.

What's truly curious in this article begins with this passage:

Ben Silverman, the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, said in a telephone interview that the network has high expectations for Mr. Leno’s performance in the fall. “This is going to be a comedy show,” Mr. Silverman said, suggesting that the prime-time program will be significantly more humorous than Mr. Leno’s current work on “The Tonight Show.”

Wow. So during all these years, from Leno's monologues to his "desk bits," to his "Jay-Walking" films-- through all that, it's NBC's position that Mr. Leno's "Tonight Show" hasn't been very funny?

No, no, no, I'm being too persnickety here. That couldn't be NBC's official position, right? Silverman must have meant that Leno was going to be less concerned with real interviews and just "go for the laughs."

Guess not:

A difference viewers may see, said Mike Pilot*, the president of advertising sales for NBC, will be “more newsmakers as guests” as opposed to the heavy quotient of entertainers who appear on the late-night shows.

Right, nothing says "rollickin' comedy" like interviews with politicians and other personalities from the news. Exactly how is Mr. Leno going to have a "more humorous" show with less humorous guests? (And if the plan is to make the guests the butt of Mr. Leno's jokes, that guest list could dry up quickly.)

Does NBC have any idea of what they're saying? Or more to the point, does NBC have any idea of what kind of show they're putting on?

(*By the way, with a name like Mike Pilot, that guy should be in program development, not ad sales.)

Right on, Target

2009-04-10T08:00:00.004-05:00

Over the years, Target has received lots of attention for their stylish (and stylized) advertising, but I haven't read much about the their "Brand New Day" campaign.

To catchy, upbeat music that I wasn't initially certain was a new composition or an adaptation of some pop tune by some hip but obscure musician (it's the latter, I've since discovered), Target has found a appealing way to push "back to the basics" as well as "beyond the basics" -- by framing the money spent with them as alternative to other family budget cutbacks.

No feeling of deprivation or the bland appeal of common-sense shopping here. Target makes the idea of economizing actually seem like an improvement in your life and relationships.

Putting a happy face on a recession. I don't know what its ultimate effect on sales will be, but that alone is an advertising feat worth recognizing.

Advertising the unmentionable

2009-04-09T12:00:00.002-05:00

As discussed in a previous post about the Maidenform's memorable campaign, ad agencies played armchair psychologists, exploiting women's supposed "exhibitionist tendencies" with ads that featured women unabashedly displaying their foundation garments in public.

Must have been a confusing time to be taking your social cues from advertising, what with other marketers playing up the fears of ridicule for having even the slightest hint of your "unmentionables" exposed before your peers:

(This worked for men, too, by the way.)

Then again, this 1956 ad wants to have it both ways: You may suffer an embarrassing display in public, but with the right girdle, at least you won't be displaying too much:

That ad, by the way, seems to owe at least some of its inspiration to this iconic wind-driven revelation:

(Of course, there's probably some degree of male voyeurism behind most of these images. I don't think we need a psychological study to know that, do we?)

The Anti-Spokesperson

2009-04-03T13:30:00.000-05:00

Last night, I happened on the new spot for Healthy Choice frozen entrees, in which Julie Louis-Dreyfus is approached to be the new spokeswoman for the product -- which she turns down with a sneer of disgust. You can watch the spot (plus some longer "director's cut" versions) here.

At the time, I didn't know this spot was created by director Christopher Guest, but all the hallmarks of his films (including "Waiting for Guffman" and "A Mighty Wind"): naturalistic acting, understated humor, and comedic actors who can improv with the best of them.

Despite the inevitable hyping of the product (done about as unobtrusively as possible), when the spot ended with Julia's flat-out dismissal of the offer, I thought maybe, just maybe, someone actually came up a new spin on old "anti-spokesperson" idea. Maybe this wasn't the first in an ongoing campaign, but a one-shot spot, that Ms. Louis-Dreyfus wouldn't be appearing again and again as she "doth protest too much" about pitching the product.

Now that would be different.

But no. According to the NY Times, this is just the first of a series of commercials, including this upcoming one, that falls back into the most unexpected of conclusions:

In one commercial, for example, Ms. Louis-Dreyfus is reluctant to try a meal but declares after a few bites, “This Healthy Choice stuff has changed."

Maybe Healthy Choice has changed, but it's just the same old "anti-spokesperson" spot.

I'd check those lyrics, Kyra...

2009-03-29T22:14:00.008-05:00

The other day I happened upon a new commercial for Trop50 orange juice. If my attention wasn't so focused on the carton -- which showed the redesigned graphics that Tropicana is abruptly dumping for its Pure Premium OJ -- I might have noticed that the woman in the commercial is Kyra Sedgwick. Then, again, maybe I wouldn't have -- she's the last person I'd expect to be in a commercial this...generic.

For the inaugural spot for their new pitchwoman, Tropicana and its ad agency fell back on one of the most shop-worn and unconvincing advertising scenarios. Kyra sips a glass of Trop50 and energized, she dances around her kitchen with wild abandon.

But even worse than the embarrassingly contrived excitement over a product that would NEVER come close to eliciting such a response, the spot compounds the dopiness factor with its choice of music: Tom Jones' 1971 hit, "She's a Lady."

As a theme for female empowerment, it's a bit...curious. Purely by coincidence, a couple of weeks ago, I annotated the lyrics (in parentheses) for a female friend recently:

Well she's all you'd ever want,
She's the kind they'd like to flaunt and take to dinner. (SHE'S A TROPHY, SOMETHING TO DISPLAY)
Well she always knows her place. ('NUFF SAID)
She's got style, she's got grace, She's a winner.
She's a Lady. Whoa whoa whoa, she's a Lady.
Talkin' about that little lady, and the lady is mine. (AGAIN, A PRIZED POSSESSION)

Well she's never in the way (SHE'S LIKE A WELL-BEHAVED PUPPY)
Something always nice to say, Oh what a blessing. (SHE DOESN'T BOTHER ME WITH HER LITTLE PROBLEMS)
I can leave her on her own
Knowing she's okay alone, and there's no messing. (I DON'T HAVE TO BUY A CHASTITY BELT FOR HER)
She's a lady. Whoa, whoa, whoa, she's a lady.
Talkin' about that little lady, and the lady is mine.

Of course, in the spot, all you hear is the opening chords and "She's a lady, whoa, whoa, whoa, she's a lady..." Still, it's a little like selling a pickup truck with the lyrics "I am strong, I am invincible..." and hoping no one realizes the song is Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman."

Unravelling The Snuggie

2009-03-24T13:45:00.000-05:00

Last week, in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, columnist Rob Walker tries to unravel (yes, that's a pun) the "Snuggie" phenomenon.

A quick refresher (as if you really needed one; The Snuggie has become as culturally ubiquitous as pet rocks of the 1970's):

Walker begins:

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Snuggie — you know, the blanket with sleeves. Or rather, a blanket with sleeves: the Slanket, the Freedom Blanket, the Book Blanket are all quite similar, and all predated the Snuggie. But why the Snuggie? Surely no one thought that the startling success of this oddity — sales topping $60 million — was a story of innovation, or an engineering or design breakthrough.

One theory is that the Snuggie has caught on because it’s comforting — as if, in these recessionary times, we have become a nation of Linuses...

A second theory holds, more prosaically, that when rates for television commercials fell as mainstream advertisers started pulling back, infomercial-style peddlers took up the slack...

This factor is hard to dispute, but it cannot, by itself, explain why this specific bit of “As Seen on TV” flotsam has attracted so much interest.

Two reasonable explanations, but as he noted, they seem a bit undercooked. So here's my take on why the Snuggie proved more popular than previous versions: Part of it may just be in the timing -- a blanket made for "cocooning" right when the economy is forcing people to become homebodies again -- but even more than that, I think the mystique is really all in the name.

"Slanket" sounds like a cover for your Slinky, combining "sleeve" and "blanket" was too clever by half.

"Freedom Blanket" sounds like another post 9/11 political message; wear while enjoying your Freedom Fries.

"The Book Blanket" sounds like a cloth book cover; at any rate, it specifies too limited a usage.

But "Snuggie" tells you everything you need to know -- it's something to snuggle up in; Plus its sounds warm, cuddly and emotionally satisfying, qualities no other name comes close to evoking.

(You can even wear one while typing at your computer -- not that I'm admitting anything...)

Old wine ad in a new bottle

2009-03-21T13:30:00.002-05:00

When an art form -- even an "illegitimate" one, like advertising -- has been around long enough, imitation and appropriation can happen unknowingly and probably, inevitably.

Case in point: This 1952 wine ad, employing an artistic illustration to impart sophistication and distinctiveness:

An approach surprisingly similar to the ads of Absolute Vodka some 30 years later:

Trust Me, you've seen this before.

2009-03-04T18:00:00.004-06:00

I've posted on my Twitter account about this, but with only 140 characters per post, I can't really do my point justice. So:

Cable network TNT has been touting their new series, "Trust Me" as a drama, but at most, it's a "dramedy," a drama/comedy hybrid. Actually it's more of a "comma" -- more emphasis on comedy than drama) -- but you can't really blame them.

Despite the prima donna attitudes and daily crises in the ad industry, it's tough to ratchet up enough tension to make the outsiders feel anything really important is at stake. (That's why most dramas tend to be about either murder investigations or legal trials). So it was probably a good decision for the show's creators (two former ad men themselves) to base the show more on the lead characters' interactions than on winning and keeping clients.

Where they failed was in the personalities of the two main characters, falling back on the standard sitcom pairing of the uptight straight man and the wacky loose cannon. Guess which is which (it's not hard):

Like I said, they're basically the same one-note characters you see in a lot of sitcoms, but oddly, they most suggest a duo not out of sitcoms, but a sitcom-ish 1982 movie. Written by former sitcom writers and directed by a former sitcom star, "Night Shift" seems remarkably prescient of TV "Trust Me:"

Eric McCormick = Henry Winkler. Ed Cavanaugh = Michael Keaton. Granted, "Trust Me" does take place in advertising and "Night Shift" is about two guys involved in prostitution, but -- well, you've heard the comparison before.

Putting the Squeeze On Tropicana

2009-03-02T12:45:00.000-06:00

Last Monday, the NY Times reported that Tropicana was reversing its decision on new packaging for its orange juice, dumping the new design that, with its large glass of orange juice and large expanses of white space, looked like as contemporary as the 1970's.

Redesigned packaging that was introduced in early January is being discontinued, executives plan to announce on Monday, and the previous version will be brought back in the next month.

Also returning will be the longtime Tropicana brand symbol, an orange from which a straw protrudes. The symbol, meant to evoke fresh taste, had been supplanted on the new packages by a glass of orange juice.

The about-face comes after consumers complained about the makeover in letters, e-mail messages and telephone calls and clamored for a return of the original look.

So what was behind the switch in the first place? Later in the article, explains:

“We underestimated the deep emotional bond” they had with the original packaging, he added. “Those consumers are very important to us, so we responded.”

Among those who underestimated that bond was Mr. Campbell himself. In an interview last month to discuss the new packaging, he said, “The straw and orange have been there for a long time, but people have not necessarily had a huge connection to them.”

Reminded of that on Friday, Mr. Campbell said: “What we didn’t get was the passion this very loyal small group of consumers have. That wasn’t something that came out in the research.”

A very curious mea culpa, given the efforts that Tropicana took over the years to cement that mnemonic device in consumers' minds, from still images like this:

To filmed footage, like this:

(Here's that last image again, if you missed it:)

For this discussion, let's not question the wisdom of changing your longtime packaging so radically that you've made it harder for shoppers to quickly identify you among other orange juices in a crowded refrigerated case.

Let's just consider that, in pursuit of "freshening" their packaging, Tropicana tossed out the one element that they truly "owned," an iconic image so simple, so memorable, and so elegantly expressive of their brand promise, on what appears to the whim of their ad agency. Other OJ makers would kill for a iconic image like this, and Tropicana was worried that consumers felt no bond with the orange-and-straw?

Did they ever consider that an emotional connection wasn't as important as its more "rational" connotation to buyers? Or even more to the point: What did they really think the new packaging offered that would compensate for the loss of the previous recognizability and communication?

How do you enhance your brand equity by dumping it?

The Small Business Computer, 1956

2009-02-27T17:15:00.001-06:00

Let's see that compact workstation close up:

Look! It no longer takes up a whole floor! Now that's progress!

Comparing Apples To Apples

2009-02-20T10:00:00.002-06:00

I frowned upon Pepsi's "Saturday Night Live" parody spot in an earlier post, but in the process of looking for something else, I stumbled upon another spot that put it the whole thing in some additional context. First the mediocre Pepsi spot, from this year's Super Bowl (if you remember it, do yourself a favor and don't bother watching it):

I didn't see anyone else remarking on this in the days after it ran, but apparently that spot has some kind of meta-textual component; it's not a joke on the old MacGyver show and celebrity-cameo Super Bowl spots. It seems to be meant as a parody of the old MacGyver show AS celebrity-cameo Super Bowl spot. Take a look at this MasterCard spot from the 2006 Super Bowl:

The difference, of course, is the MasterCard spot is clever, well-produced and actually amusing in its understated way.

It's not often you can make such apples-to-apples comparisons between different commercials. Too bad for Pepsi.

Moonvertising?

2009-02-12T14:30:00.001-06:00

Those who decry the encroachment of advertising on public spaces (and public surfaces), may have been particularly disheartened when this commercial began appearing last March:

Rolling Rock Moonvertising: Launch - Watch more Funny Videos

Not to worry, though. This time, it was all a gag -- unlike, sadly, the selling of naming rights of stadiums. However, as the New York Times later pointed out, "moonvertising" wasn't as far-fetched as it seemed:

According to Jim Garvin, the chief scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, moonvertising is possible, if impractical for a number of reasons. While scientists have bounced lasers off the moon, they illuminated an area only about the size of a tennis court. “In order for an advertisement to be seen by people on earth,” Garvin says, “the laser light would need to cover an area about half the land size of Africa,” a challenge because the moon’s surface is dark and fairly nonreflective.

So, all things considered, this 1989 ad may still be state-of-the-art in "geographic messaging":

Anyway, Superman did the moonvertising first, way back in 1962. And with a far more altruistic message:

Trust your doctor

2009-02-10T13:00:00.004-06:00

I wasn't going to bother talking about Super Bowl spots anymore, since I think we're all pretty much over those, but this one probably warrants a second look, if only for its high ratings in post-game recall.

As a cola spot, its pretty much a given these days that there's going to be absolutely no rational appeal to why you should choose their brand of brown sugar-water over another; and as a high-profile Super Bowl spot, it's also pretty much a given that its going to be built around some B- or C-level celebrity (or as in this case, one of each).

I'll say this. It certainly remains true to the "Saturday Night Live" brand the spot is leveraging, in that it's not as nearly as amusing as it thinks it is. Beyond that, the way Pepsi is worked into the spot is so flat-footed, it's not even funny as a parody. (And like most SNL skits, the harder they work the joke, the less funny it gets; go watch the second and third spots in this series, if you don't believe me.)

For an example of how well these kind of spots can actually be done, see the Dr. Pepper ad below. I don't believe it ran on the Super Bowl, but maybe it's too clever and crisply-written, and actually matches the high quality of the series that its leveraging. As a bonus, there's actually an attempt at a competitive position that is integral to the humor.

Picking on the NY Times again...

2009-02-04T11:00:00.001-06:00

Does anyone -- even the columnist -- ever read this stuff before going to press? From yesterday's ad column:

Madison Avenue may be rethinking a common belief about advertising on the Super Bowl — avoid buying spots that will run in the fourth quarter, for fear of blowouts — after the second championship in a row was decided in the final moments of play.

Never mind the fact that the article contains not a single fact or quote to back up this assertion. Let's put it to the test of common sense: If advertisers fear "blowouts" that diminish audience levels by the fourth quarter -- and given the price of airtime, why shouldn't they be wary of not getting the biggest bang for their bucks -- in what way are two consecutive close games at all predictive of future outcomes?

Or let me put it this way. If the "common belief" is to avoid buying fourth-quarter spots, does the columnist really mean to imply that the common belief may change to that of buying fourth-quarter spots because the audiences will be reliably as large? Does that really make sense?

Of course, if you're wasting your ad dollars on a venue as persuasion-free as the Super Bowl has become, maybe you don't care that much about money.

Craig McNamara Says...

2009-02-03T11:15:00.003-06:00

For spontaneous thoughts and opinions that are either non-advertising related or too inconsequential (or both) for this site, you can follow my Twitter feed here.

Every post is self-contained -- not random pieces of ongoing dialogues -- and no time-wasting "I'm getting out of my chair now"-type entries. A few examples of recent posts:

• For one day each year, Super Bowl Sunday, everyone looks forward to commercials -- until they actually see them and start griping again.

• Just watched "Mama Mia." Yes, it's infectious -- and like most infections, it makes you generally listless and occasionally queasy.

• The Segway really DID change the world: We now have a new symbol in movies and TV for self-important, annoying people.

And, my favorite observation thus far:

• Last night it hit me: Disjointed thoughts, bizarre digressions, snap judgements -- Twitter is like Larry King's old USA Today column.

About those Super Bowl spots...

2009-02-02T13:00:00.000-06:00

Again, from last Friday's NY Times:

...advertisers, which are spending up to $3 million for each 30-second commercial during Super Bowl XLIII, have a tricky task before them. They must figure out the right way to speak to consumers worried about the wretched economy while at the same time not ignore the long-standing appeal of Super Bowl Sunday as a night of escapist fare.

WHY? What obligation do beer and taco chip makers have to reference the economic climate? Were the players of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals supposed to express empathy with the plight of the common man? Did Dave Madden and Al Michaels apologize for their network's conspicuous consumption?

True, carmakers run the risk of appearing irrelevant, but if you're not reflecting the reality of your target market's income level, you're not going to sell many cars, no matter what the economy is like.

However, there was one category in evidence on the telecast last night that actually had a reason to "figure out a way to speak to consumers worried about the wretched economy." Yet what did Careerbuilder and Monster.com do? They ran spots that seemed years out of date, reflecting an era when unemployment was at historic lows and your only problem was finding a workplace that treated you better:

Talk about a missed opportunity. With millions of people, at all levels, finding themselves out of work (and watching the Super Bowl) wouldn't it have been smart to use the opportunity to give them hope, to make them feel employable, to offer a solution?

Instead of irreverent humor, this is just irrelevant humor.

Everything that's wrong with SuperBowl commercials is right in this passage...

2009-02-01T17:30:00.001-06:00

As usual it's from the New York Times ad column:

“We definitely wanted to do a commercial with a creative concept worthy of the Super Bowl,” said Steve Netzley, chief executive at Euro RSCG Edge in Carlsbad, Calif., part of the Euro RSCG Worldwide division of Havas. His agency worked on the spot with another Havas agency, Arnold Worldwide, and a director, Bryan Buckley, who has directed Super Bowl spots for advertisers like E*Trade and Monster.com.

The Cash4Gold commercial features Ed McMahon and the rapper MC Hammer...

John and Yul

2009-01-26T22:30:00.002-06:00

A survivor of lung cancer in 1964, John Wayne went on to record a series of spots in the next decade for the American Cancer Society...

Yul Brynner went him one better though, with an anti-smoking spot that ran posthumously:

3 Network TV Programming Observations

2009-01-23T17:15:00.000-06:00

1) The best sitcoms have a lifespan of about 7 years; for drama shows, it's about 5 years.

Representative examples: The Mary Tyler Moore Show (7 seasons exactly); The Bob Newhart Show (6 years); "Hill Street Blues" went downhill after season 5 and "M*A*S*H" had lost most of its edge by season 8.

2) At the start of a series, the actor becomes the character; during the latter days, the character conforms to the actor.

Representative examples: "M*A*S*H" again, with Hawkeye's character gradually taking on more and more of Alan Alda's personality; "Happy Days," which ended its too-long run (see #1) with most of the cast no longer bothering to conform to the fashions and hairstyles of the period.

3) Most TV show creators have one hit show in them.

Sherwood Schwartz ("Gilligan's Island," "The Brady Bunch") once said you need to have two hits -- the second one to pay for litigation for your share of the profits of the first. Unfortunately, most producers aren't that lucky.

For every Gary Marshall ("Happy Days," "Laverne & Shirley," "Mork & Mindy") and Steven Bochco ("Hill Street Blues," "L.A. Law," "NYPD Blue"), there are dozens of producers with really, one enduring show to the their name like Diane English ("Murphy Brown" and, um, "Double Rush," "Love & War" and "Ink") and David Kohan/Max Mutchnick ("Will & Grace" and uh, "Boston Common," "Four Kings" and "Good Morning Miami").

It's just not as easy as producers like Aaron Spelling (and you know his shows) make it look.

Talk about hedging your bets...

2009-01-22T12:00:00.000-06:00

An atheist-sponsored ad campaign that started running on British buses last fall:

"Probably?"

That bit of uncertainty kind of undercuts the message, doesn't it? If you disagree, (re)consider these famous ad campaigns:

Beer? Who'd Buy That?

2009-01-20T22:30:00.002-06:00

For oblivious, uncritical, PR-driven drivel, nothing beats the daily advertising column in the New York Times. Monday's article was no exception. It begins with this headline:

Is Star Power Enough to Sell Beer in Hard Times? Two Brewers Hope So

Aren't hard times and beer made for each other? What does star power have to do with it? The article tries to put that bizarre question into some context and fails:

Beer has long been thought to be less affected by downturns than other consumer purchases, but the severity of current conditions has called into question the most cherished of marketing assumptions.

Is the author speaking generally here, or is there some recent beer sales figures he's relying on? No context. If you keep reading, it becomes somewhat clearer that we aren't really talking about beer in general but so-called premium beers:

“Now more than ever, you need to give consumers a reason why you’re worth paying more for,” said Christian McMahan, chief marketing officer at Heineken USA in White Plains, a division of the Dutch brewer Heineken.

Now we're getting somewhere! This is about differentiating your brand with real value. So what do they have planned for their Superbowl competition.

For the flagship Heineken brand, Heineken USA is introducing a tongue-in-cheek campaign that presents the actor John Turturro as a guru whose words of wisdom are composed of more head than beer.

Some sayings offered by Mr. Turturro’s character seem sagacious (“Every man is the leader of his own expedition”). Others sound like double-talk (“But he who wanders with purpose has no purpose to wander”).

Did I miss something here? Did Heineken? Is this really going to give me a reason to pay more for a beer? Hold it -- further down the article, we get more details:

The Heineken campaign carries the theme “Give yourself a good name,” which replaces the theme of previous ads, “It’s all about the beer.”

The new theme “has two layers to it,” said Mark Fitzloff, executive creative director at the Portland office of Wieden & Kennedy. “One is about a name on the bottle; you literally give yourself the Heineken name when you order one.”

Yeah, obviously. Tell us about the second layer:

“On a second level, it’s about reputation, how you act in social situations,” he added. “Where beer is around, people are not always carrying themselves with dignity.”

Whoa-- now he's implying embarrassing drunken behavior and telling us we don't have "a good name?" And this is supposed to be convincing me to choose Heineken over some cheaper domestic brand?

There's got to me more to this spot than we're getting from this article. There must be. Never mind waiting for SuperBowl Sunday. Let's watch the whole commercial now:

Wow. Jon Turturro did a great job playing a clueless, pretentious guy with creepy drunken intensity -- but why Heineken would want him to represent their beer drinker is beyond me.

And I'm still waiting to hear why they're worth a few extra bucks.

Why say something when you can say nothing?

2009-01-15T09:30:00.001-06:00

In the typical newspaper run-up to the Super Bowl, the New York Times starts running articles teasing the upcoming advertisers and spots. (Sure, it's news, if you don't think about it too hard. Or at all.)

Yesterday's edition had a piece on Denny's upcoming Super Bowl debut. It included this quote:

“If you want to go on the Super Bowl, with that large audience, you better have something to say,” said Mark Chmiel, chief marketing officer at Denny’s in Spartanburg, S.C.

Wow, has this guy ever watched a Super Bowl commercial:

I applaud Mr. Chmiel's desire for substance and marketing savvy. But be warned, the above spot, sadly typical of the vapidness of Super Bowl advertising, comes to you from the same agency now working for Denny's.

Products that sell themselves

2009-01-12T09:30:00.002-06:00

There's a saying in advertising, "Great creative sells itself." It rarely does. Packaging overcompensates for the lack of a salesperson by overwhelming the consumer with copy points. It sometimes works.

But for pure emotional appeal and speaking to the consumer's mindset, you could say these brand names really do sell themselves:

Helloooo Ladies!

2009-01-08T00:23:00.003-06:00

In 2004, it was seen as a ground-breaking depiction of women in advertising that not only showed less-than-perfect bodies, but made the women seem desirable and happy nonetheless:

But it still has nothing on this ad of 32 years earlier:

When Hal met Adelle...

2008-12-16T13:15:00.005-06:00

Interesting parallel here, but in all likelihood, unintentional, and ultimately, meaningless. Still...

This photo, from today's NY Times article on the travails of computer maker, Dell:

Remind you of anything? Perhaps the shutting down of HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey:"

Or maybe photographer Erich Schlegal is just a fan of the movie.

"Nothing" goes on tour

2008-12-10T20:30:00.002-06:00

"Seinfeld," the famed "show about nothing," found itself with something of a marketing dilemma. After more than a decade has passed since its network run, the sitcom's distributor, Sony Pictures Television, sensed a need to court a new generation of viewers to keep its syndication ratings high. Key to this strategy, as detailed in a November 21st New York Times Sunday Magazine column was a 60-foot bus touring college campuses and other venues, hoping to interest "those who were too young to have participated in the show’s first-run popularity." So far, so good. Then we get to this paragraph:

The bus’s interior has been modified into a kind of rolling Smithsonian for “Seinfeld” freaks, displaying props like the Bro/Manzier, “Fusilli Jerry,” the Assman license plate, the doll that looks like George’s mom and a replica of “the puffy shirt.”

And if those references mean nothing to you, well, that's the unintentional point, isn't it? You've wandered into a closed club with enthusiasts talking only to each other. Optimistically, the columnist then states:

And whether on campuses or at malls or sporting events, what’s easiest to imagine is the fervent believer dragging along potential converts.

...who will probably roll their eyes at all the trivia that's meaningless to them and go back home to watch reruns of "Two and a Half Men." But in the next sentence, the columnist seems to sense that something is amiss:

The bus...simply makes tangible the devotion that already exists, presenting the show about nothing as a labyrinthine text, a fully immersive narrative that’s not about nothing but about itself: totems, references, rituals. It’s a walk-in catechism.

And we all know how the religious doctrine can appear to an outsider, don't we? Look, anybody who knows me, knows that there's no greater fan of the show. But this is just (to stay with the religion analogies) preaching to the converted.