I know, I know. I'm dismayed, too, by the Christmas Creep. Some NY sidewalks (I'm looking at you, 125th) are already festooned with giant snowflakes. But one thing it does is remind you to stock up on little gifts. Funny, isn't it? Christmas comes on the same, foreseeable date every year, yet who isn't scrambling for prezzies in the last days before? Dominik Imseng, a Swiss journalist and copywriter, saves procrastinating gifters from being caught short this year. For the Mad Men and Women in your life, here comes Think Small, the story of the world's greatest ad. It's a delightful immersion in the ad world of the 1960s via the story of one of the most iconic campaigns of the era. $23.99 on Amazon, only 5 left at this writing. Secret Santas start your engines here.
Showing posts with label DDB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DDB. Show all posts
Sunday, November 11, 2012
think stocking stuffer
I know, I know. I'm dismayed, too, by the Christmas Creep. Some NY sidewalks (I'm looking at you, 125th) are already festooned with giant snowflakes. But one thing it does is remind you to stock up on little gifts. Funny, isn't it? Christmas comes on the same, foreseeable date every year, yet who isn't scrambling for prezzies in the last days before? Dominik Imseng, a Swiss journalist and copywriter, saves procrastinating gifters from being caught short this year. For the Mad Men and Women in your life, here comes Think Small, the story of the world's greatest ad. It's a delightful immersion in the ad world of the 1960s via the story of one of the most iconic campaigns of the era. $23.99 on Amazon, only 5 left at this writing. Secret Santas start your engines here.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
ad broad who invented the lemon
George Lois recounts the birth of DDB's Volkswagen ad "Lemon", attributing copy not to Julian Koenig who was Helmut Krone's partner (and named in awards) but to a woman in her 50s who worked for Koenig: Rita Selden. The report differs somewhat from what I had heard. But Lois was there. I go with his story. (From the film troves of Imseng)
UPDATE: The true story of Rita Selden is being written by her niece, Harriet Reisen, a biographer who recalls many colorful details about her glam aunt. One of them: Selden once arrived to their Jersey Shore summer house in a yellow cab hailed on Madison Avenue. Promises to be a great read for ad broads of any era.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Happy Boxing (not Boxers) Day
How did the bank holiday in England acquire its curious name? According to a letter to the NY Times from an Anglophile reader in 1902, on the day after Christmas "the letter carriers, lamp lighters, messengers, and newspaper boys and others apply to householders for Christmas gratuities…presented in boxes." A hundred years later, most Brits know Boxing Day as the day sales start. Except when Christmas falls on a Saturday. Then the holiday is observed on Monday, as in 2004 when this Harvey Nichols ad ran. Ladies, take your corners.
DDB London, photographer Ben Stockley, via Ads of the World
DDB London, photographer Ben Stockley, via Ads of the World
Friday, August 8, 2008
friday flashback: this 1979 ad could run today
For Prius. It was art directed and illustrated by Helmut Krone, legendary art director and Real Life Mad Man at Doyle Dane Bernbach (NY) who was one of the greatest designers ever to wield an exacto. He knew how to use image to define corporate personality long before "brand" was used as a verb--an etymological development Ad Contrarian blames for our industry being in such a muddle. (Read the book.)
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
centenarian brand ambassador
According to MySpace, he's 99 years old. Aries. Single. With only 49 friends. And that's including dead ones like Captain Kangaroo and Howdy Doody.
This month, he's on the cover of Playboy. The back cover.
Speedy Alka Seltzer, from Bayer, the makers of aspirin and heroin, is being revived by BBDO in the hopes he'll hold vintage appeal for a younger market, according to the NY Times today.
Speedy was created in 1951 by the now defunct Wade Agency and dumped ten years later by Jack Tinker Partners, a hot creative boutique in the 60s. (Tinker was formed by CDs tired of being managers at McCann, who wanted to get back to creating work. They convinced Interpublic to set them up in a suite at the Dorset Hotel, next to a great source of visual ideas before the internet: MOMA. Alka Seltzer was among the first clients to walk in the door.)
In the swinging 60s, the Speedy mascot (and stop action animation) was seen as staid and corny and declasse.
Tinker replaced Wade's work with "groovier" spots, including a simple-line animation commercial that William Steig illustrated using pre-computer animation, penning the drawings with a sharpened bamboo reed. Gene Wilder was voiceover.
As yet, there was no plop, plop, fizz, fizz. One of the creatives at Tinker was Mary Wells who tells the story behind the tagline. The creative team milking R&D for ideas met a doctor who said that two aspirins work better than one. Knowing that aspirin is the main ingredient in Alka Seltzer, the team got the doctor to agree that two Alka Seltzer tabs also worked better than one. The client was only too happy to up the dosage on the pack. (When was the last time your idea doubled annual sales?)
Eventually, Tinker lost the account to DDB who did spots that still rank among my favorite commercials of all time:
The spots won all kinds of awards, but the client hated them, contending that indigestion wasn't funny. Unfortunately for the agency, viewers loved "Spicy Meatball" but thought that the product it sold was spaghetti.
The client brought the account back to Mary Wells who by now had left Tinker to start her own shop: Wells Rich Greene. She lured the client with another groundbreaking idea: do 30 second spots instead of 60s.
And today's powerhouse concept for the brand is...recycling?
This month, he's on the cover of Playboy. The back cover.
Speedy Alka Seltzer, from Bayer, the makers of aspirin and heroin, is being revived by BBDO in the hopes he'll hold vintage appeal for a younger market, according to the NY Times today.
Speedy was created in 1951 by the now defunct Wade Agency and dumped ten years later by Jack Tinker Partners, a hot creative boutique in the 60s. (Tinker was formed by CDs tired of being managers at McCann, who wanted to get back to creating work. They convinced Interpublic to set them up in a suite at the Dorset Hotel, next to a great source of visual ideas before the internet: MOMA. Alka Seltzer was among the first clients to walk in the door.)
In the swinging 60s, the Speedy mascot (and stop action animation) was seen as staid and corny and declasse.
Tinker replaced Wade's work with "groovier" spots, including a simple-line animation commercial that William Steig illustrated using pre-computer animation, penning the drawings with a sharpened bamboo reed. Gene Wilder was voiceover.
As yet, there was no plop, plop, fizz, fizz. One of the creatives at Tinker was Mary Wells who tells the story behind the tagline. The creative team milking R&D for ideas met a doctor who said that two aspirins work better than one. Knowing that aspirin is the main ingredient in Alka Seltzer, the team got the doctor to agree that two Alka Seltzer tabs also worked better than one. The client was only too happy to up the dosage on the pack. (When was the last time your idea doubled annual sales?)
Eventually, Tinker lost the account to DDB who did spots that still rank among my favorite commercials of all time:
The spots won all kinds of awards, but the client hated them, contending that indigestion wasn't funny. Unfortunately for the agency, viewers loved "Spicy Meatball" but thought that the product it sold was spaghetti.
The client brought the account back to Mary Wells who by now had left Tinker to start her own shop: Wells Rich Greene. She lured the client with another groundbreaking idea: do 30 second spots instead of 60s.
And today's powerhouse concept for the brand is...recycling?
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