A little-known fact about the history of advertising.

Remember that Bernbach ad? 'Lemon'?



It's a turning point in advertising history.

It's the first to use a 'concept' as opposed to just 'design.'

It's the first to take a risk on an unflattering message and its inherent interest value.

But it's also a turning point in the history of agency practice.

When agencies starting making ads, like 1,000,000 years ago (or the late 1800s, whichever came first), the copywriter did it all.

He (and it was a he) strategized.

He wrote.

He designed.

He presented.

As ads got more ornate, agencies hired design specialists to lay out copy.

The writer wrote. That writer sent their copy downstairs. The designer downstairs laid it out. And sent it back upstairs. Never the two met.

Bill Bernbach thought, "Why don't these two fine employees actually work together? Maybe the visual can work with the copy instead of merely facilitating it?"

And he did it. He locked them in a room. Together. The first creative team was invented. And what did we get? The best advertising in history.

Don't separate your copy from your design. It's a wasted opportunity. And it's advertising from 1,000,000 years ago.

Holden Caufield: Phony. Advertising: Not.

Holden Caufield is a phony.

Can you believe it? Kids now think that he should just 'take his Prozac and get over it.'

What's the problem? The original story of an alienated teenager is now being alienated itself.

The article reports that experts believe that the creation of teen culture has made it less likely for teens themselves to be alienated. It used to be that 15 year-olds were constantly choosing between youth and adulthood. Between 'the carousel and the Wicker Bar' or cotton candy and alcohol. Kids who shirked youth culture for adulthood felt alienated.

No more. They no longer need to search for an identity. Young adult culture gives them one.

They identify with The Gossip Girls. With Sony Playstations. Sadly, with Grand Theft Auto. And advertising has helped create this.

Is it wrong to segment audiences for target? Is it wrong to create new cultural definitions? I don't have an answer. But I do think that every time advertising tries to create something new, we essentially kill off something old to replace it.

This Might Get Awesome

Tyson is a knockout.

This weekend I had the pleasure of seeing the movie Tyson, James Toback's intensely personal documentary on one of the scariest men in entertainment.

It's perhaps one of the best documentaries I've seen in the last five years.

Forget the fact that I've never seem some of its storytelling techniques used before. The split-screen editing, narration layering (it has WONDERFUL sound editing), complete lack of diegetic sound, and shot selection are category-leading. Mike Tyson is at once both narrator and subject. Sometimes he speaks to an interviewer. Sometimes directly to the audience. Sometimes he's shot long and looks well off-camera.

But the movie is great because of its honesty in depicting Mike Tyson as he truly is. This is, like all of us, a man of contradictions. He tries to be gentle, but in his words, the world keeps dragging him back into rage. He speaks with love about one person--his trainer, Constantine D'Amato, and the rest of the world can go straight to hell. His articulations of fighting in the ring are at one time very much in the nature of sports psychology, but also incredibly vicious. This documentary gives us all a taste of the inner workings of a man whom the media and public have already had kangaroo court. I used to be scared of him. Now I fear and pity him simultaneously.

Go see it. See it to steal storytelling techniques from it. See it because it's good.

Middle America Is Not Twitter America

I'm bookending today's blog post with quotes from David Ogilvy:

"If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think."

I just spent the weekend driving through Colorado. It's not Middle America, but it's close. Our rural towns are similar to Iowa's rural towns (It's not the state you're in that matters, it's the state of mind you're in).

These are the towns that make up most of America.

They're the towns that elect our Presidents.

They're the towns that keep Wal-Mart on top.

And they're the towns that listen to our advertising.

If you or your brand are going to be big in this world--really big--you need to get these people to listen to you.

I tell you this: They don't Twitter. They don't Flickr. They don't Blackberry.

They watch TV. They still read a newspaper. They go on online to look for recipes and how to overhaul a starter motor.

So when you're writing good advertising, remember. Social media is only good advertising if you know your customers use social media. So know your customers. And treat them accordingly. It's like Ogilvy said: "The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife."

Social Media FAIL

The studies are in.

Social media is ubiquitous on the Internet. And it's a marketing FUBAR. Nobody knows how to use it.

The Ad Contrarian called it. He believes that TV ain't dead. And I, for one, land squarely in his camp.

Did you see the gold-Clio-award winning TV campaign for Crest toothpaste? It's, as an old portfolio school professor would say, 'gold'. Sheer genius. Simple. I could watch it again and again and again. And when it comes on TV as I'm watching all those shows that I DO watch but never ADMIT to watching, I'll stop what I'm doing and listen in. Kinda reminds me of the Tide campaign last year entitled 'Silence the Stain.'

Want good creative? Think of a simple proposition. Then produce it in an entertaining way. People will seek it out. Even if it's not on Facebook.

The Next Short, Imagined Monologue

Round 2 of Short, Imagined Monologues of a Jewish Copywriter: