Hats off to the Madmen

It was a wearisome humid afternoon in Manhattan, one of many New Yorkers had suffered that sticky summer of 1959. The normally sanguine Carl Hahn ran his finger around the inside of his shirt collar and bit down on an expletive. He looked at the board on the desk in front of him and raised the fountain pen his wife had given him for Christmas. He was about to put his name to a press advertisement that seriously worried him.

Simmonds-Gooding flicked through the research report one more time. He turned to the justifiably nervous account man in the seat next to him. “Doesn’t look good does it?” he said. The other guy said nothing in reply but, almost imperceptibly, shook his head. Tony looked back at the cover of the report. It was damning of the campaign he’d helped create.

Gary Haigh paused outside his boss’s office. He was about to tell him that the TV ad he was working on had changed from a full colour, Beach Blanket Bongo movie set to a Beach Boys track, into a stark, monochromatic film with a downbeat voice over and music by a group famous for their gloomy melodies. Worse, it was going to cost over £500,000 more than the budget.

Each one of these guys had to make a really tough decision. Should they put their necks on the line for this work? Or should they simply bin it? After all, there were other ads on the table, other campaigns that could run. Less creative, admittedly, but hey, they wouldn’t get you fired. And like they say, you don’t get fired for buying IBM.

For any Creative Director worth their salt it was a hell of a dilemma. But these three weren’t Creative Directors.

They were clients.

The work they went on to champion was ‘Lemon’ for VW of America, ‘Policemen’s Feet’ for Heineken and ‘Surfer’ for Guinness.

Were they stupid? They had to be a bit soft in the head to take the options they did.

Who in their right mind would launch a small, ugly foreign car into a market that worshipped bigness, beauty and Made in America with an ad who’s message was’ ‘This car is crap’?

Who but an idiot would commit hundreds of thousands of pounds on a campaign that had some of the worst research results he’d ever seen?

What sort of lunatic would persuade his board to invest half a million pounds more on a commercial for a product that sold extremely well anyway?

Thank heavens they did.

The VW work would change 20th Century advertising forever. The Heineken campaign helped propel a Dutch lager from obscurity into one of the best-known and best selling beers in the UK. ‘Surfer’ became one of the most awarded commercials ever, garnering along the way the accolade ‘Greatest Ad Of All Time’.

But where are today’s marketing madmen? When was the last time a press ad made you want to read it, or a poster stop you in your tracks?

Spend a week watching commercial telly and apart from one or two shining gems, the rest is dross.

‘But media costs are incredible these days. We just don’t get the same bangs for our buck’.

True. But if you haven’t got that much to spend, why not spend it well?

What’s more expensive? Twenty poster ads that have people walking into lampposts or one hundred that no one notices? Thirty seconds of bland anonymity or a couple of kicking tens that start conversations in the pub?

‘Ah, but the agencies aren’t as good these days. They’re just not as creative as they used to be.’

Well I’m sorry, chaps, but it just ain’t so.

The originality is still out there, the innovation is still out there, but it needs a certain type of Marketing Director to bring it to light.

Someone with a supreme confidence in both their own judgement and the skills and abilities of the agencies they employ.

Do they have to be mavericks, eccentrics and nutters?

Hardly. In reality, they’re all hard-nosed businessmen driven by commercial success.

Like Hahn, Simmons-Gooding and Haigh, they know the value of a well-spent dollar. They understand what distinctive, popular and talked about advertising can do for the health of a brand.

They understand exactly what ROI means, because sometimes the investment is more than just the company’s marketing budget. It’s their reputation and even careers.

They’re the real heroes in advertising; not the crazy creatives or the wild-eyed account men but the great clients.

The folk who buy the good stuff.

We need more of them.