How copywriters and art directors saved Christmas

What became the quintessential American Santa was first seen quaffing a Coke.

I must confess. 

Copywriters and art directors didn’t save Christmas.  I needed a C.A.G.D. (Cheap Attention Getting Device) and “saved” is  more dramatic than ‘helped create.”

So “helped create” it should be.  And it’s true.

It’s common knowledge that Clement C. Moore’s poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (“Night Before Christmas”) and Thomas Nast’s drawings, both of which appeared in newspapers across the country in the mid 19th century, established the essential legend and image of the American Santa Claus.  (There’s a writer and art director, after a fashion, right there.)

Not as well known are the 20^th century contributions to Christmas lore from Archie Lee, Haddon Sundblum and Robert L. May, all of whom were advertising creatives.

Archie Lee, working for D’Arcy Advertising on the Coca-Cola account, wanted to portray a wholesome Santa being himself for Coke’s holiday campaign in 1931.  Lee commissioned a Michigan illustrator, Haddon Sundblom, to realize his vision.

Sundblom (who 26 years later painted the Quaker guy we see on all Quaker Oats cartons today) characterized Santa as the jolly, playful, red suited, big belted regular guy in the form we know and love.  He continued to create memorable scenes of Santa for Coke’s holiday ads until 1964.

Copywriter R.L. May added one more to C.C. Moore's original set of eight.

Six years after Lee
and Sundblom recast Claus, a new Christmas legend sprang full-blown from the fertile mind of an advertising copywriter, Robert L. May.  His legacy is “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and is based on May’s real life experiences as a misfit child.  He wrote “Rudolph” as a children’s storybook for his employer Montgomery Ward when he was a staff copywriter for the big department store.  Ward’s management first distributed ”Rudolph” as a holiday gift to their customers.  Eventually, May was granted rights to the story and, in 1948, he asked his brother-in-law Johnny Marks to set it to music.  Several top artists of the day, including Bing Crosby, passed on the song until Gene Autry took it into the studio for Columbia Records in 1949.  The rest is recording – and holiday – history.

Still another Christmas chestnut was the creation of Bill Backer, a copywriter and creative director at McCann Erickson who created the “Real Thing” Coke campaign.  Backer co-wrote the “Real Thing”  jingle and needed a way to tie it into a holiday TV spot.  The result was the first singing Christmas tree, which had its debut in 1971.

Happy holidays.  Limited time only.  Hurry.  Act now!

For more on Bob Devol Communications:  www.bobdevol.com

10,000 monkeys: is crowdsourcing the next big thing?

Imagine advertising created without copywriters and art directors.  Ads, commercials, designs, logos, even whole campaigns conjured up by hundreds of erstwhile “creatives” out there…somewhere…somehow…

It’s real.  It’s here. 
It’s called crowdsourcing.

The theory behind crowdsourcing is, “if two heads working on an assignment are better than one then, hot damn, 12,000 heads must be the absolute best-est best of all bests.”

There’s even an agency start-up in Colorado, Victors & Spoils, claiming that it generates all its creative output through crowdsourcing.  (Actually, read their fine print and it’s clear that they’re a virtual agency with an all freelance off-site creative department that pitches ideas against each other. Sounds more outsourced than crowdsourced. Nice try, guys.)  There are also several websites offering crowdsourced logos.

Wow, crowdsourcing sure sounds like it’s the goods.  All those heads with smoke coming out of their ears focused on a single creative assignment, it’s a slam dunk.  Right?

Sometimes so.  Mostly, not.

I think crowdsourcing is viable in certain applications. Product naming and product idea generation are successful examples.  But unleashing a mob to do the work of one, two, or three talented creative professionals is counterproductive.

Let’s start with client contact.  Smart, effective creative sparks its genesis with a keen understanding of the client’s marketing problems and objectives.  That means face time with clients, their people and their customers.

Second is incentive.  What some hail as “crowdsourcing” isn’t much more than a contest.  How much “prize money” does it take to make it worthwhile to spend days working on an idea that, in all likelihood, won’t see the light of day?  Are we really attracting the best and brightest?  Those with true creative chops are working elsewhere, either on-staff at agencies or as fulltime freelancers for set project fees.

What if the crowdsource agency decides to combine two or more ideas or tweak a crowdsourced notion into something similar, but not exactly the same?  Who gets paid?  How much?  Why do I see lawyers hovering?

Then there are deadlines.  Can a crowd meet a deadline faster than one or two creative teams?  What if the crowd comes up with crap?  Who’s accountable then?  What about rewrites?

Remember, too, that many great campaigns, spots, ads and designs are created at the last minute or even after.  Bill Bernbach called this “breaking the plate,” which happened when many of the most famous Doyle Dane Bernbach concepts sprung to life after press plates were made for print ads.  Bernbach wasn’t shy about scrapping plates and making new ones in service of creating great advertising, which is also great art.

That’s why you won’t see exhibitions of crowdsourced art or One Show pencils awarded for crowdsourced ads any time soon.

More on Bob Devol Communications: www.BobDevol.com

Brain Bombs

Matthew Barney's "Cremaster Cycle" blew my mind.

We’ve all done it.  We get stuck for an idea and start flipping pages in an issue of Communication Arts or a similar advertising review

You’re looking for inspiration from these pubs – words, images, etc. – that will blast a concept loose from your atrophied cerebral cortex.

I call this technique brain bombing.

Brain bombing works.  But beware.

Using advertising to blast loose more advertising can cause collateral damage.  You  risk conjuring a concept that looks strangely familiar and derivative.  But what did you expect?  The concept was derived from other advertising.

I’ve often found it’s better to search for brain bomb material from more far flung creative fields.  To me, if there’s anything that makes a point of not looking or feeling like anything else, it’s contemporary art.

One artist from this genre who bombed my brain until the rubble bounced is Matthew Barney.  His epic Cremaster Cycle series is a multimedia extravaganza that, if anything, seizes the viewer and makes him or her think in new, exciting ways.  Advertising is about first getting attention.  Barney’s work certainly does that.

So contemporary art works for me.  It gives me a visual jolt that helps new words and ideas flow.  But, hey, whatever works you, go for it.

Bombs away!

More on Bob Devol Communications: www.BobDevol.com

New film teaches your clients a lesson.

Have you ever wished you could prove the importance of breakthrough creative to your clients?  Here’s a suggestion: make sure they see “Art & Copy,” a new documentary film directed by Doug Pray and sponsored by The One Club.

In “Art & Copy” we see and hear from advertising creative legends like Lee Clow, Mary Wells Lawrence, Rich Silverstein, Jeff Goodby, Dan Weiden, David Kennedy, Phyllis Robinson, Hal Riney, Cliff Freeman, Charlie Moss, Jim Durfee and George Lois.

Each tells the story of how their most memorable and effective campaigns were born.  Some were by design.  Others by accident.  Still others in minutes.  All were hugely successful and changed advertising. 

Not to mention the fortunes of their clients.

Speaking of whom, we hear from three clients in this film – the marketing directors of the California Milk Producers, Nike, and designer Tommy Hilfiger.  Each credits their success to a willingness to take risks and trusting their creative pros.

Valuable lessons for any client.

“Art & Copy” is playing in New York, Chicago, Denver and Seattle through August 27 .  I’m sure a DVD release will soon follow. 

http://www.artandcopyfilm.com/

More on Bob Devol Communications:  www.BobDevol.com

The End of The Bernbach Model? Not so fast.

In the most recent issue of Communication Arts, Robert Greenburg of R/GA boldly states that the “Bernbach Model” of copywriter/art director teams as the genesis of advertising creative is dead.

His opinion is that the complex technical nature and ever-spiraling coolness of interactive branding makes it essential that all stakeholders — copy, art, web development, technology support, web/broadcast producers, etc. – be involved in creative development from Day One.  He cites R/GA interactive branding projects for his Nike client as examples.

My take?

While this is likely true for tech-heavy interactive branding, for many projects this looks unwieldy.  It wastes valuable agency resources (too many cooks) on core concept development.

After all, how many hammers do we need to drive a nail?

The Bernbach Model, which was developed by Bill Bernbach (shown above) at Doyle Dane Bernbach in the 1950s, assigns a copywriter and art director to the development of the ad or campaign concept and then brings in specialty talent (production, etc.) once the idea is baked.  This system has worked brilliantly for decades and continues to generate breakthrough work.

For those of you who are ready to take up pitchforks and torches and run me out of town as a luddite, calm down.  I’m just being pragmatic.

For projects like TV, radio and print let’s “Bernbach Team” it.  When a tech-heavy web or mobile media assignment comes along, a “Greenburg Army” is probably the best approach.

What do you think?  Comments, please.  (Check your pitchforks at the door.)

For more on Bob Devol Communications:  www.BobDevol.com

Backing it dowards: doing a concept backwards can work, too.

 

Sometimes you gotta do a concept in reverse.

First you search for a visual that looks like a grabber and then work up a relevant concept and headline from there.

Case in point: the latest self-promotion postcard for my copywriting and concepting consultancy, Bob Devol Communications.

I started my concept development by searching for images on the popular stock photo website istockphoto.com.  After gathering up all potential images into the site’s handy lightbox, I couldn’t ignore a shot of a kid who looks like he’s going a jillion miles an hour.  It hit me that this image could be worked into a concept about breakthrough creative.

The address side was a bit tricky.  I needed to make the notion of “breakthrough creative” more relevant.  That’s what led me to come up with the “economy sucks so let’s do great work” theme.  With this body copy:

The economy stinks?  Perfect.  Now’s our chance
to bust the boring barrier to create advertising
that jolts and jams and inspires people to wake up and buy.

You with me?  Call now and let’s get out there and save the world. 

The result is an 8 1/2 x 6 postcard, aimed primarily at graphic designers, that does what’s described in the headline of the next blog post down the page from this one.

The next time you’re stuck for a concept and headline, try slamming the process into reverse. 

Bye good, for now.

For more on Bob Devol Communications: www.BobDevol.com

“Get their attention…then hit them over the head with a plank.”

 

 

 

That sage advice was passed down to me from my copywriting mentor, Evan Stark.

In 1970 Evan and his art partner at Doyle Dane Bernbach, Roy Grace, created the all-time classic TV spot “Spicy Meatballs” for Alka-Seltzer.  This spot, one of a handful to be included in the advertising collection at the Museum of Modern Art (take that, Cannes Lions) is an example of that valuable advice Evan gave me years ago.

Essentially, it’s a concise codification of that time-tested copywriting formula, “AIDA”:

Attention.  Interest.  Desire.  Action.

Artfully directed by Howard Zieff, “Spicy Meatballs” is the perfect example of AIDA in practice. 

 

First, it seizes our attention.  “What’s this?  They’re shooting a commercial?  Well, there’s something different.”

 

Then it generates interest.  “Wow, he blew another line.  Will he ever get it right?”

 

It drives forward while building desire.  “Man, that guy could use some fast relief.”

 

Ultimately, it leads to action.  “It figures — he takes Alka-Seltzer.  That’ll fix him up.”

 

Thanks to Alka-Seltzer, the actor (played with impeccable timing by Jack Somack) felt well enough to nail the take…at least for the moment.  Then we’re hit over the head with the plank.  Or, we should say, oven door.

 

This spot was one of the first to “let the wires show” by taking us behind the scenes at a commercial shoot, complete with a director talking off-camera, slates, and film editing cues.  Evan told me that this commercial was inspired by a real-life shoot for a TV spot Evan and Roy created for Buitoni Foods.  It was shot in Italy using Italian talent who didn’t speak English and had to deliver his lines phonetically. He flubbed lines relentlessly, take after take, as he sampled Buitoni’s new product, a pop-up pizza.  Inevitably, the actor got sick on the set.

 

This is art imitating, uh…art.

 

What’s more, it’s a brilliant example of how to work around client mandatories.  At the time Alka-Seltzer’s marketing people insisted that commercial characters who quaffed their fizzy fix-up should never be forced to take it for relief from wanton gluttony.

 

No sir, they had to get their tummy aches unintentionally.

 

Clearly, our hero in “Spicy Meatballs” – and characters in the later “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” campaign originally created at Jack Tinker Partners – had no intention of wolfing down mass quantities of food.  It just happened.

 

Great advertising, on the other hand, is no accident.  Even now, 39 years later, Alka-Seltzer still benefits from the fact that Stark and Grace created their advertising based on formulas, not bromides.

 

(By the way, the TV spot above is the actual “Spicy Meatballs” 60-second commercial, as aired, and not a blooper reel.)

For more on Bob Devol Communications: www.BobDevol.com

 

Turn junk mail into charm mail

Too often, direct mail deserves its place in the recycling bin.

But it doesn’t always have to be.  Transform it into charm mail and everything changes.

When executed with style and flair, creative direct mail works better than the usual recyclables.  But the all-time, heavyweight, attention-grabbing, clutter busting charmer is dimensional mail.  Numerous research studies, the most prominent of which is the Baylor University study of 1993, prove that dimensionals get noticed, read through, and gain high response.  Dimensionals are particularly effective when deployed to smaller-size lists, usually under 1,000, of C-level executives.

Beyond extolling the virtues of dimensionals, let’s take a closer look at how to create them.

Let’s start with the budget.  A high cost-per-piece is the price of doing business in a dimensional world.  Remember to add postage costs to your production numbers.  Budget will be a moving target as you develop your concepts.

Another salient factor is the star of the show – the item inside your dimensional.  The item can be anything, let your imagination run wild.  If you have a big budget and a low list count, the item can get ritzy.  For example, a successful mailing I on worked on for IBM carried a real wood L.L. Bean trout fishing net.  The outer box copy read, “The big one that got away…” lead to the inside box copy, “…won’t get away anymore.”  The client was very happy, to say the least.

If your budget is tight, consider an inexpensive, yet original and funky premium item first – and then wrap your concept back around it.  An example is my latest dimensional campaign for my own business that features a pair of novelty x-ray glasses.  I first became fascinated with the notion of x-ray glasses as an item and then reverse engineered a thematic concept built on “insight” to make it work.  The package’s production cost was under $5.00 a piece, before postage.  I got the glasses at a great price, under a dollar each.  And it mailed in a stock, rather than custom, mailing carton with the teaser printed on the cover.  My graphic design partner was www.skourasdesign.com.

You can even create an original dimensional item that’s tailored to your key selling message.  An example is a self promotion campaign I ran several years ago — the red package shown above.  The “In Case of Copywriting Emergency Break This” laminated hang-up card had the plastic case containing my business card affixed to it with mounting foam.  The inserts were printed on my ink jet printer.  This is another package that cost less than $5.00 a piece, including the business card, before postage.  It was a Caples Awards finalist, got a great response and generated significant new business.  My graphic design partner was www.barnettdesign.com.

I try to avoid the usual, expected promotional premium items.  But all rules are meant to be broken.  Years ago, I created a self promo package that contained a mouse pad with my company’s logo printed on it.  It was mailed in an envelope with an outer teaser, “A pitch, a promise and a bribe.”  The letter inside was humorous and informal.  This package, too, was a Caples Finalist and a huge success.

The next time you need to breakthrough to low numbers of high value targets, start thinking inside the box.  It’s a profitable place to be.

For more on Bob Devol, go to: www.BobDevol.com

It’s April, already. Winchell, that is.

A month or so ago I posted my little homage to one of the pioneers of funny advertising in the Fifties and Sixties, Stan Freberg.

Here’s another favorite of mine who’s as fresh as a pair of BVD’s right out of the package — April Winchell.  Damn, she be funny.  And her stuff works.

If there’s a modern incarnation of Stan Freberg, it’s April.  Like Freberg, she’s a quadruple threat: writer, producer, actor, comedian.

Many of you Left Coasters already know April.  She’s been a fixture in L.A. radio for quite awhile.  She’s also one of the top animation voice over artists.  Her radio spots have won beaucoup awards, including the vaunted Radio Mercury.

Here’s a link to some of her hilarious TV work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SXJp9nBOK8&NR=1

 

Watch, laugh and learn.

For more on Bob Devol:  www.BobDevol.com

Stan Freberg: genius, genesis, genuinely funny

Many ad industry wags peg the so-called “Creative Revolution” to the emergence of Doyle Dane Bernbach in the early Sixties.  But I posit we have to wind the clock back a little earlier to the brilliant comedian/satirist Stan Freberg.

Freberg got his start in show business back in the late 1940s on radio.  In fact, when he replaced Jack Benny on CBS, his was the last network radio show launched. In the early Fifties, Freberg gained fame as a song and show business genre satirist with numerous hit comedy records.  But when he introduced his unique brand of loopy, smart satire to the field of advertising, he turned the industry on its ear.

His initial efforts on radio for Contadina Tomato Paste finished with the tag: “who put eight great tomatoes in that little bitty can?”

Freberg hated cigarette advertising.  At the time, Lark cigarettes ran a TV campaign to the tune of The William Tell Overture in which Lark smokers were encouraged to “show us your Lark pack.”  This set Freberg off to create a parody TV spot for Jeno’s Pizza Rolls – “show us your pizza roll! – set to the same tune as the Lark commercials. This spot, a major production, ended with a confrontation between a cigarette smoker (supposedly representing the Lark commercial’s announcer) and Clayton Moore, TV’s Lone Ranger, over the use of the music which was also used as the theme of Moore’s show. Jay Silverheels appears at the end in his role as the Lone Ranger’s sidekick, Tonto, filling his saddlebag with pizza rolls. The spot was a smash. After just one showing on The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson remarked that it was the first commercial to receive spontaneous applause from his studio audience.

Stan’s Sunsweet pitted prunes commercials featured a picky eater, “they’re still rather badly wrinkled, you know,” and ends with the famous line: “Today, the pits. Tomorrow, the wrinkles. Sunsweet marches on!”

Another hilarious spot shows the blast-off of an Atlas missile as a sly metaphor for prunes’ most infamous selling point.

Freberg outdid himself for Great American soups from Heinz. Famous stage and screen dancer Ann Miller played a housewife who turns her kitchen into a gigantic production number, singing such lyrics as “let’s face the chicken gumbo and dance!” After watching his wife’s flashy tap dancing her TV husband asks, “Why do you always have to make such a big production out of everything?”

In the Eighties, Freberg moved into direct response TV with a series of spots for Encyclopedia Britannica.  The boy in these commercials was Freberg’s son Donavan, whom Freberg talks to from off screen.

Meanwhile, in direct mail, Freberg pioneered dimensional direct mail with a boxed game format mailing he created for a steel company client.  The response rates shot through the roof.

True, Freberg was funny.  But he also knew how to get results.

Perhaps his most powerful campaign was directed not just at consumers, but at retailers too. “There was a product called Kaiser Aluminum Foil which didn’t have distribution,” Freberg recalls. “Young & Rubicam brought me in and I did two campaigns of humorous animated commercials about a poor man named Clark Smathers, a Kaiser Aluminum Foil salesman who couldn’t feed and clothe his family because the mean, old grocer wouldn’t stock Kaiser Aluminum Foil.

“I remember the head of the San Francisco office of Young & Rubicam said to me, ‘look here, Freberg, you didn’t go to the Harvard Business School, did you?  I said, ‘no, sir, I didn’t.’ So he said, ‘well, if you had, you’d know that advertising cannot force distribution. It’s a rule of advertising.’  I said, ‘Uh, Hal, I’ll keep that in mind.’

“When Kaiser hit 11,000 new outlets, Newsweek did a story on it. They eventually went to 43,000 outlets. After that, I was never able to get any more figures out of Young & Rubicam because the aluminum curtain dropped and they were afraid to tell me how well it had done.  “I went back to the guy who said, ‘advertising can’t force distribution,’ and said to him, ‘look, now I’ve got Kaiser Foil into 43,000 new outlets. I thought you said that advertising can’t force distribution. And he actually said to me, ‘it can’t. Something must have gone wrong.’”

During his 40 years in advertising Stan Freberg, who is now 83 years old, has won 21 Clios for his radio and TV ads, as well as 18 International Broadcasting Awards, and medals from the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals.

Look Freberg up online.  And prepare to be inspired.

For more on Bob Devol: www.BobDevol.com