Craig McNamara writes

In his book,  The Last Great Ride , Brandon Tartikoff , NBC programming wunderkind in the 1980s, noted the secret ingredient in many successful TV series was what he termed an S.U.P. – and no, that isn’t a cousin to ALF. S.U.P. stands for  Satisfying Underlying Premise ; in Tartikoff’s words, “a secret ingredient that makes [viewers] feel good about their lives ... something in the basic premise of the show that validates some reassuring notion that the audience would like to believe is real.” Such as the idea that, as senior citizens, we can have fulfilling lives of friendships and romance ( The Golden Girls ). Or our desire for a place where you can escape your troubles and just hang out “where everybody knows your name” ( Cheers ). And … I guess … how great it would be to have a crack team of lovable mercenaries you can count on to help you out of a jam ( The A-Team ). But this goes beyond NBC’s hits of the ‘80s. You’ll find the S.U.P. in  Friends ,  Frasier ,...

At this (late) stage of my career, I'm fascinated by stories of creative people who've reinvented themselves in their professional lives. About ten years ago, I created a presentation on one such person. Most people know him only as a children's book author  –  ah, but he was so much more than that.  (I added my narration onto each slide, so the presentation should be easy to follow.)

Back in the early ‘80s (that’s the decade, not my age) when I was majoring in advertising in the School of Journalism at the University of Minnesota, the J-School was better at teaching theory and practical skills for writing and art direction. Developing your creative problem-solving skills was, in retrospect, left more up to a student’s own initiative.   So it was in the midst of a group project for a media planning class – creating a campaign for Kentucky Fried Chicken – that I decided, as long as we were specifying billboards, why not show a billboard idea, too?    I came up with a message that was short, clever, simple – and looked like the typical “creative” advertising billboard of the period. In other words, it was a pun: (This isn’t my original sketch, but it’s pretty much what it looked like back then.) "Cluck Stop," as in truck stop – get it? Okay, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s no real creative triumph. But at the time, it was a leap forward in my creativ...

At one of my earliest ad agency jobs, in the mid 1980s, I was assigned to the B. Dalton Bookseller account. Before this regional retailer was swallowed up by Barnes & Noble, our agency was tasked with creating the chain’s co-op ads. These promoted one or more new books, with the book publisher sharing the cost of the ad.   Each week, I would get a stack of job orders for writing the latest co-op ads. That involved reading a photocopy of the book jacket and using what it said to summarize the book in a few sentences – and most importantly, and write a short, punchy headline to run next to a photo of the book cover.   I used to call it doing “ad sprints,” after the “wind sprints” I hated running in phy-ed class. But they were a great learning experience for a young writer, teaching you to think and write fast.   Two examples: For the published script of the David Mamet’s play,  Glengarry Glen Ross , I wrote, “Pulitzer Prize won by con men.” (Okay, the actual headli...

Interesting, insightful, and entertaining stories that touch on the business of advertising and creativity  –  part of a series of mailers I sent out promoting my freelance writing back in the 1990s.   ADecdotes_SLIDESHARE VERSION 2022.pdf from Craig McNamara

"Greetings to all you shameless hucksters and flim-flam men!" So began the opening remarks by host of the 1987 awards show for Minneapolis advertising. As the writer for the ceremony, I was responsible for his script, as well as the introduction for his surprise appearance: We asked ourselves … what person exemplifies the prestige and high standard of excellence for which this show is renowned? What person was secure enough in his or her own fame to share the spotlight with a series of commercials and print ads? Finally, what person possesses both a sense of humor and a sophistication to make the presentation vibrant and entertaining, yet respectful of the advertising it honors? These were the questions we asked ourselves. Unfortunately, we couldn’t come up with any answers, so we asked a couple more questions: Who was available? And who could we afford? Ladies and gentlemen, join us now in welcoming our host for the evening … national celebrity … television star … and the an...

They say hindsight is 20/20 and that was proven again with the following short essay which I wrote five years before the runaway success of the first Iron Man film made possible the Marvel platform strong enough to launch both familiar and unfamiliar characters – including the Netflix Daredevil series, which fared better than the movie version which would underwhelm critics, moviegoers, and most importantly, studio executives. So despite how events have invalidated many of the opinions below, it's still an interesting look into the state of superhero movies circa 2003. (Of course, 19 years later, we’re still waiting for a Sub-Mariner movie to surface, so I may have been onto something there.)   Hollywood has discovered comic books. Again.   In the ‘60s, it was the big-screen version of the Batman TV show. In the 70s, we had Superman: The Movie Picture . The less said about Howard the Duck in the ‘80s, the better. And in ‘90s, Batman was back and hanging around for too many ...