Advertising: The good, the bad, the ugly.

Two years ago, I wrote “Advertising: A source of insecurity”. I talked about deceit and manipulation in the advertising world, and how they had a negative influence on my well-being. At the time, I still felt like I was an outsider, looking in. Now, having been in the wonderful world of advertising for a couple of years, I continuously get an insider’s perspective on how advertising can be used to create change in a positive way.

Thanks to my career in advertising, I get to have a better sense of what’s real and what isn’t. I think more logically, even whilst being the millennial that I am. Stereotypical millennials are known to be impulsive, naïve, and “believe” everything they see on the Internet. We, as a generation, are seen as individuals who tend to make decisions based on how we feel instead of using logic; but does this really only apply to millennials?

My generation isn’t well represented practically everywhere. I’ve seen many-a-video, and many-a-meme about how we’re the laziest, most selfish, and most entitled generation thus far; and for good reasons too. But whether or not you agree, there are still a lot of millennials who want to change the advertising world for good. Given that perhaps, most of us millennials caused this chaos in the first place, individuals such as author, former Cosmo editor, and feminist: Amy Odell, (as we millennials say it) “shook” the industry with her unapologetic take on content advertising. Her book “Tales from the Back Row”, has given its readers an insight on the dark side of fashion, self-promotion, and the always-have-been unrealistic ideals and beauty standards in the fashion industry.

Perhaps something snapped within Odell, or maybe it’s something she’s wanted to do all along, but at one point, she said “this is too much” and should be exposed. Those of us who are “woke” (yes, I know I’m peppering millennial terms here) know how nasty advertising can be–especially fashion advertising. It affects women, men, and non-binary individuals in more ways than one.

 But even as a rookie in the advertising game, it didn’t take me long to realise what the good, the bad, the ugly, and the truth really are in our industry.

The good thing about advertising in 2018 is that advertisers have (more than ever) access to almost every advertising platform there is. #convenientAF

The bad thing about advertising in 2018 is that, again, advertisers have (more than ever) access to almost every advertising platform there is. This access gives manipulative and deceitful companies and individuals a voice. One with which, if they pay enough, can be the loudest voice we hear on a daily basis.

The ugliest thing about access to advertising is that the human brain is programmed to see mistakes, first and foremost. We tend to spot minor mistakes instead of appreciating major successes. That’s just how our brains work. This is why the ads that appeal to us most often project the message “this is what you’re missing” or “this is what’s wrong with you”.

The truth is, you always have a choice. A choice to see advertising as a mere suggestion for products and services you might like. A choice to say no to the kind of advertising that tells you what you should be, who you should look like, and how you should respond to certain things.

The absolute truth is, that we can always change our perception. Exposing this truth, as Odell and many before her have, can create enough change that empowers, promotes positivity, and affects people’s well-being for good.

New Zealand Advertising in the 70s and 80s

Someone once opined that if you could remember the 60s you weren’t there. It is a pithy statement, clever and succinct, if not entirely accurate. But there is enough truth in it to give some of us who were “there” a certain smugness, not because we survived it, but because we remember it.

I feel much the same way about working in advertising in the 70s and the 80s. I was there and for various reasons (unrelated to the prevailing and residual habits of the 60s), I should have forgotten most of what occurred then.

I haven’t. And with good reason; much of what I experienced, observed, or heard of back then is so outrageous and so unbelievable, that even if I wished I could get rid of them, I wouldn’t be able to. It’s all indelibly printed in my memory.

The 70s and the 80s are the eras of great advertising in New Zealand. The profession itself was changing. The “suit” dominated agencies were in decline, to be replaced by creativity front and centre, as the post-war baby boomers entered the profession, and a pocket-sized pirate radio ship called Tiri changed the media-scape.

It was an era that produced some of our greatest-ever television advertising: Labour’s “It’s Time” (1972), the “Great Crunchie Train Robbery” (1975), KFC’s “Hugo and Holly” (1975), BASF’s “Dear John” (1981), and Toyota’s “Crumpy and Scotty” (1982) to name just a few.

However, remarkably perhaps, the ads were somewhat less interesting than the people who created them. And if advertising back then already had a credibility perception issue, then persuading people that these bizarre events and the individuals behind these ads were real and true was an even harder sell.

But I will try.

I worked for Colenso—one of the hot three; the others were MacHarman Ayer, and Saatchi and Saatchi. Colenso was notorious on so many levels. It produced the infamous “Dancing Cossacks” campaign for the National Party in the 1975 general election. It also produced some of the most bizarre scenes I experienced in advertising: the art director who used his own blood to paint an ad layout after lacerating his hand by hitting a wall when his original layout was rejected; the same art director trying to kill his writer during a creative dispute; the wonderfully named art-director/writer team, Al Rapone and Doug Maroney, and the great chainsaw massacre of 1975 when Rapone, in a fit of pique at the loss of the creative’s “rest-area” to make way for an account executive’s office, decided to demolish it with a chainsaw—while we were in it.

On a more productive note, these mad men also created many of the commercials I mentioned earlier. Colenso was also home to one of the giants of our industry—the late, great Len Potts.

Down the road in Parnell, Bob Harvey was making great advertising and a legend out of himself. Delightfully mad, Bob was one of the few suits who understood creativity. Those of us who were there can’t forget him telling the Klisser Family (Vogel’s) that he had arranged for Dr. Henry Kissinger, who was then the most famous German Jew in the world, to come to New Zealand to endorse their bread. That came as a complete surprise to the creatives in the room who had just presented something entirely different.  When asked after the meeting how long he had known about Dr. Kissinger and why he hadn’t told us about it, Bob’s self-assured response was that he had made it up on the spot—that the presentation was going so badly, he had to come up with something. “It is now up to you to make it work,” was his parting shot as he skipped out of the room. Of course, Kissinger never happened.

Work hard, play hard is another often-used (and over-used) phrase. It also often used as a badge of honour; we in Colenso in the 70s, and for me later in the 80s at MacHarman Ayer Advertising, certainly thought it as such. I remember a cartoon in a Thursday magazine showing two people looking up at Colenso’s building in Whitaker Place. There is a party going on in the fourth and fifth floors (Colenso’s). One person turns to the other and says, “Colenso is starting their Christmas party early this year.” The other replies, “Nah, that’s last year’s still going.”

Later in the late 80s, that role, that reputation, was usurped by the money-men and the stock-market traders. Advertising never recovered it. Maybe, no longer wanted it.

Is it still a badge of honour for us today? Probably not.

However, it remains a memory—a beautiful memory of a time when a lot of what we did didn’t make a lot of sense. But, the ads we did? Those were ads of an age that are now ageless.

Saatchi & Saatchi - the Kings of Advertising

Few advertising agencies are instantly recognisable by name outside of advertising circles.

One that is, is Saatchi & Saatchi. Not only is the agency widely known in New Zealand, but it is also treated by the public at large with awe, reverence, and even gratitude. The reason is that Saatchi & Saatchi’s New Zealand operation has, through the years, given us some of our most loved local advertising. They include, most notably, Toyota’s “Crumpy” series, and making Tui’s “Yeah Right” campaign (created originally by Mojo Advertising); which was one New Zealand’s most anticipated advertising campaigns of all time.

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It is true that they are not the force they once were, here or worldwide. But credit where credit is due; at its height, Saatchi & Saatchi brought a new wave of creativity into advertising. They gave creativity an almost tangible quality. You could almost taste it. Before Saatchi & Saatchi, advertising was formulaic and risk-averse. Saatchi & Saatchi, through their UK ads for Margaret Thatcher and their other clients, created advertising that was provocative, compelling and had a real affinity with its audience.

Not bad for two brothers born in Baghdad.

The creative brain behind the business was Charles Saatchi. Long before becoming a reclusive art collector and his much-publicised falling out with wife Nigella Lawson, Charles Saatchi was an acclaimed copywriter working on accounts such as Ford and Selfridges department stores. He entered advertising first, in 1965, followed five years later by his younger brother Maurice.

In 1970, the two started Saatchi & Saatchi with the goal—at least of Maurice—of becoming the largest advertising agency in the world. By the end of the 1970s, they reached No. 1 in the UK. In May 1986, Saatchi acquired US-based Ted Bates Advertising, and with that acquisition, Maurice achieved his goal.

And here we come to an intriguing paradox: the tenuous link between creativity and commercialism, or, to put it another way; whatever happened to Charles Saatchi?

Charles Saatchi, brilliant copywriter though he was, was never comfortable with being at the forefront of his business. He shied away from publicity. Maurice, on the other hand, was the gregarious brother—outgoing, and constantly wining and dining existing and potential clients; always looking for ways to expand the Saatchi & Saatchi empire.

It is not known what Charles thought of his brother’s behaviour. He remained an enigma—reclusive and notoriously reticent to make any public comment on anything to do with the business.

What is known is that, as the business grew, Charles increasingly withdrew; initially from the commercial involvement and then from the creative side. While Maurice’s reputation grew, Charles’ influence dwindled to the point that his presence became little more than ceremonial. Eventually, he withdrew from all active involvement in the business.

Why, may never be known. Charles Saatchi is certainly not telling. But it is interesting to hypothesise that perhaps he did feel that commercialism and creativity were uneasy bedfellows. That he could draw a distinction between them that none of us working in advertising could see or would support.

Perhaps that made him uncomfortable.

Today, and largely through his own creativity and the business activity of his brother, Charles Saatchi is an immensely wealthy man. What he is not, any longer, is an advertising man.

That is of his own choosing—but the advertising profession lost a great one there.

Leo Burnett: The art of belief

He was the advertising giant who understood what people really want.

Starting an advertising agency is difficult even in the best of times. Starting one in the worst of times—the Great Depression of the 1930s—defies belief. Yet in Leo Burnett’s case, that is exactly what it took—belief, and a lot of it.

The Depression had a firm grip on Chicago in 1935, but that didn’t deter the former Cadillac Motor Company employee. He mortgaged his home and started his advertising agency with $50,000 capital, and a bowl of red delicious apples in reception.

Until that time, Burnett’s only experience with advertising agencies was employing them, first as Cadillac’s advertising manager, and then as the advertising manager of Cadillac’s competitor: LaFayette Motors. It is perhaps the supreme irony that the financial failure of the latter was the motivation for Leo Burnett to join the advertising agency he had employed to save it.

Leo Burnett started as a copywriter. His distinctive copy-style was simple and evocative. He was characterised as the writing equivalent of the iconic Norman Rockwell. Like Rockwell, he could evoke middle-America and its perception of itself.

Significantly, and arguably, he was the first of the advertising greats to put the consumer first. He believed in the consumer, understood the consumer, and shared—he believed—their needs and values.

It seems a simple precept today, but back in the 30s it was exactly that belief and the belief that he could offer the giants of industry something different that lead him to start his agency with eight staff and the aforementioned apples.

Incidentally, one of those staff was Draper Daniels, who is believed to have been the inspiration for Mad Men’s Don Draper. That said, there are others, including David Ogilvy, of whom that claim has been made. Draper Daniels has at least the name in common.

By the late 50s, Leo Burnett emerged as the prime mover of advertising’s creative revolution—prompted in part by the advent of television. His agency handled some of the largest clients of the time, among them: Proctor & Gamble, General Motors, United Airlines, Kellogg’s, and Shiltz Beer. Among the great advertising icons that Burnett and his team created are the Jolly Green Giant, Pillsbury Dough Boy, and the legendary Marlboro Man.

In 1999, Time Magazine named Leo Burnett as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Today, the agency he started has 9,000 employees in 85 offices globally, and legend has it there is still a bowl of apples in every reception.

There is little doubt that Leo Burnett took a risk back in 1935. The timing couldn’t have been worse for a fledgling advertising agency. But he made it work—for its first few years the agency billed an extraordinary $1 million annually. Today of course, we are talking in the billions.

Could Leo Burnett have pulled it off today? I think so. There is a certain indefatigable approach taken by young people entering advertising today and those that break away from established agencies to form their own. Many fail, of course. But many, through talent and persistence and one other factor, succeed.

What is that other factor? It is nothing new—we mentioned it earlier and it is something that motivated Leo Burnett to start his agency against all odds in 1935. It is belief. Belief in ourselves, belief in advertising, belief that somehow, somewhere it (advertising) can be done better, and belief that we are the people that can do it.