Wheaties Archives - Media Guy Struggles

Scratching the Back of the Hand that Feeds You

The Media Guy — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 19:38:00 +0000

Okay, so where am I?

I’m checking email and low and behold, hard work pays off sometimes. I just received notification that I am officially a 10-time Telly Award winner.

Always nice to be honored amongst the best in TV and cable, digital and streaming, and non-broadcast productions. In the old days I’d celebrate all week with some of ther other winners I know. Now? I’ll toast to the achievement tonight and get back to the business of looking for the next big idea.

Speaking of the next “big idea,” that idea was spawned by the genius of David Ogilvy. His formula seemed simple:

Big Ideas = Fame and Fortune

In his book OGILVY ON ADVERTISING, he shared a checklist to help decipher if an idea cqualified as a big idea:

Did it make me gasp when I first saw it?
Do I wish I had thought of it myself?
Is it unique?
Does it fit the strategy to perfection?
Could it be used for 30 years?

Ultimately, I’ve only have a few ideas that qualified by those standards. Motivation indeed!

Winning awards gives you pause to reflect on big ideas. One of the things I pull out in times of reflection is the “Scratching the Back of the Hand that Feeds You” memo authored by advertising icon Leo Burnett in December of 1958.

When Burnett — a hugely influential force in the industry who had a hand in creating Tony the Tiger, the Jolly Green Giant, and the Marlboro Man — heard that his admen were driving Fords instead of Chryslers and, goodness gracious, eating Wheaties over Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, he decided to give his staff a piece of his mind.

The three-page memo circulate through his agency reminding his staff of their unwritten duty to at least try the very products they helped to advertise to the nation; the sales of which funded their salaries. The sentiment of the green-papered memo (sorry, all I have is a black and white copy) of “believ[ing] in the products we advertise,” is juxtaposed with Burnett’s condemnation of the employees who eat competitors’ cereals (“I hope he chokes”), makes the memo a must-read. [See transcript after the visuals of the actual memo below.]

Transcript

December 16, 1958

TO: THE ORGANIZATION

FROM: Leo Burnett

Re: Scratching the Back of the Hand that Feeds You

This is a land (and a company) of free choice and free speech.

In this memo I would like to exercise my own right to free speech to express some thoughts about choice.

I hope you know me well enough to realize that your opportunities with this company have nothing whatsoever to do with your personal way of life or the products you use. Loyalty, obviously, cannot be legislated.

Nevertheless, I would like to get off my chest some thoughts that have been smouldering for a long time. I present them only as the way I personally feel. If they don’t relate to you, that’s that, and no harm done.

As you well know, your income and mine are derived 100% from the sale of the products of our clients.

During the 36 years I have been in the agency business I have always been naively guided by the principle that if we do not believe in the products we advertise strongly enough to use them ourselves, or at least to give them a real try, we are not completely honest with ourselves in advertising them to others.

The very least we can do is to remain neutral, and I guess this memo was touched off by two recent incidents.

Recently I overheard one of our people sound off with some loud and derogatory remarks about what lousy cars Chrysler makes — how they fall apart — “I guess I’ll stick to a Chevy, etc.”

In another instance I heard one of our people who smokes Winstons, I believe, say to a group of outsiders, when offered a Marlboro, “I can’t smoke those things!”

I’m sure you’ll agree that this is going a bit too far.

The net of the way I feel is this:

Naturally you don’t need to do all your banking at Harris, but you should certainly think of Harris when opening a new or separate account.

Maybe you don’t eat canned vegetables, but if you do, those products with the Green Giant label should find a space in your shopping cart.

Certainly nobody would suggest that you tear up your insurance program, but shouldn’t you look at the Allstate story on any new coverage you want?

If the picture is still sharp on your old RCA, keep on looking, but do look at Motorola when you change. The same applies to vacuum cleaners and washing machines.

Maybe you have bunions and need a special orthopedic shoe, but you might consider Buster Browns or Robinhoods for those nice, normal feet your kids run around on.

When you go on your next car-trading expedition, one of the Chrysler lines should at least be on your looking-list.

Generally, the products of our clients enable us to have a good breakfast, keep the house clean, wash our clothes, fertilize our lawns, neatly plaster up cuts and bruises, gas up the car (one of “ours”), insure it, keep our faces, teeth, and dishes clean, bake a cake or pie, have soup, tuna, spaghetti, peas or corn for lunch or dinner, send our hogs to market faster, make our hens lay more eggs, walk well-shod and relax with a good cigarette while we watch TV or listen to Stereo Hi-Fi.

I recognize the unconscious spirit of rebellious independence that exists in all of us, and the compulsion you or I may have to demonstrate that we wear no man’s yoke. I have always felt, however, that there were better and more rewarding ways of doing this than in conspicuously avoiding or flouting the products of the people who pay our way.

I’ll let the kids off the hook. I don’t believe in the principle of reminding them of where their living is coming from. (They’ll learn soon enough as it is.) If, for example, they are attracted to a premium offered by General Mills or General Foods, bless their fickle little hearts. We’ll catch ’em next time.

I guess my feeling is pretty well summed up in the remarks of the vice-president of a competitive agency. When asked why he was smoking a not-too-popular brand of cigarettes which his company advertised, he replied:

“In my book there is

no taste or aroma quite

like that of bread and butter”

Leo Burnett/ms

P.S. Inasmuch as this memo expresses an entirely personal point of view, I can’t resist adding that if any of us eats those nauseating Post Toasties or Wheaties, for example, in preference to the products of Kellogg’s, I hope he chokes on them; and if any of us fertilizes his lawn without first trying Golden Vigoro, I hope it turns to a dark, repulsive brown. If you smoke cigarettes and your taste is so sensitive that it discriminates strongly between “our brands” and competitive ones, please, as a personal favor, don’t put the competitive package in front of me on the conference room table, because it does things to my blood pressure.

—-

A couple of my Telly beauties…part of the big idea philosophy.

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Soft Balls

The Media Guy — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 21:56:00 +0000

The Super Bowl with its 100 million plus viewers is around the corner. The recent deflated football scandal from last week’s conference championship game brought to light that personal brand is the ultimate selling point. Sal Paolantonio, reporter for ESPN, aka the Worldwide Leader in Sports, theorized that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, aka the best looking guy in sport and hubby of mega model Gisele Bündchen held a press conference yesterday to protect his brand. He reported that Brady was motivated to speak out of a carefully plotted plan to get back to pitching girly UGG Boots.

“Women don’t like cheaters,” said Paolantonio. “What’s the number one demographic that Tom Brady tries to sell Ugg boots to? Women. Guys are not going into the mall [and being like] ‘Let me get a pair of Uggs.’ No, guys don’t go into the mall for a pair of Uggs. Women do. This was clearly motivated because Tom Brady knows that his brand is damaged by this — not only on the football field, but what he sells off the football field.”

Moral of the story. Keep your balls firm when you’re playing the branding game.

Speaking of brand, most celebrity endorsements seem rather obvious — or at least uninteresting and lacking inspiration. In the age of the second screen and on-demand information, when advertising is everywhere we look, it takes a lot more than Michael Jordan hawking his latest line of Nikes to get our attention. Advertising campaigns are at their most fun when we see something (or someone) out-of-the-box. When Wheaties recently put Madeleine Albright on the cover of their box, it prompted us to think of other unexpected brand representatives from recent (and not-so-recent) years.

Madeleine Albright
Wheaties

No, she was never an Olympic medalist or World Series winner, but former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is no less a champion — at least, according to Wheaties, who are attempting to redefine the term by awarding the diplomat the box-cover placement usually reserved for sports figures. And who are we to disagree? The former Representative to the United Nations has as many accomplishments in her field as star athletes have in theirs, making her as worthy of admiration as any Super Bowl MVP.

Joe Namath
Hanes Beautymist

Joe Namath was the ultimate counter-culture athlete at a time when America was questioning its identity. He grew his hair long, wore full-length fur coats on the sidelines, and famously backed up his guarantee of winning Super Bowl III. But he also had a charm and sense of humor that endeared him as a cultural icon, as he proved in this clever 1970s commercial for Hanes Beautymist pantyhose, which tricked many viewers into thinking they were admiring a woman’s legs. Sports have always been saturated with machismo, but only Broadway Joe was cool enough to pull off wearing women’s garments for millions to see.

Ron Burgundy
Dodge Durango

Okay, we’re cheating here, since Ron Burgundy is more of a fictional celebrity. But the real fun was how the Will Ferrell character touted the most basic features of the Dodge Durango, even going as far as appearing on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show to call it “a terrible car.” Proving that there’s no such thing as bad advertising, the ads helped push a 59% sales increase for the Durango. Perhaps more importantly, the 70 clips produced for this campaign provided enough content to tide Ferrell’s fans over until the next Anchorman sequel.

Terry Quattro (Jeff Goldblum)
General Electric

Jeff Goldblum is also merely playing a so-called “famous person” here, but it’s too inventive to overlook. Directed by Tim and Eric, Goldblum’s “Terry Quattro” is only interested in how lighting can serve his vanity. Weird enough to be memorable and funny enough to be quotable, it’s also clever enough to use all these devices to effectively explain the advantages of General Electric’s new technology.

Tom Brady
UGG for Men

Tom Brady is one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history, and is also lucky enough to have the All-American good looks many advertisers covet. But what makes him an interesting spokesman is how he compares to other athletes that are much more approachable, like fellow MVP quarterback Peyton Manning. While Manning uses his affable personality and charm to endorse everyday products aimed at more mainstream consumers, Brady has been speaking for brands like UGG and Movado. These ads aren’t clever or funny or even relatable — but they establish a vision of class and luxury befitting someone who has led his team to five Super Bowls and married a supermodel.

Penelope Cruz
Nintendo

From Coca-Cola to L’Oreal, Penelope Cruz has done plenty of the kind of advertising you’d expect from a popular Oscar-winning actress — so it was a surprise to see her in ads for a product usually marketed to gamers and kids. Nintendo hired Cruz to appear in commercials for the Nintendo 3DS XL in 2012, in which she loses a bet to her sister over a game of the New Super Mario Bros. 2. Her debt? She had to dress up like the iconic plumber, complete with mustache. In doing so, Cruz delivered a performance that easily beats Bob Hoskins and Captain Lou Albano as the Best Super Mario tribute ever.

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