My very first assignment at Young & Rubicam New York in 1972 was to work on the Rums of Puerto Rico account. The advertising goal was to promote the many rums that were produced on the island, which included Bacardi, Don Q, and many more that were less well known such as Ronrico, Ron Superior,… Read More: Getting the Test Kitchen Staff Drunk »
Everyone thinks that the way things are now is the way they have always been. You hear it in dismay about the horrors of global climate change to the changes in language, technology, business, or society. While we can intellectually understand that the world is a place in transition, we have a lot of emotional… Read More: Pulling Up the Ladder Behind Us »
Watching retailers do their own commercials on TV often makes me cringe. Particularly car retailers. They start their commercials by yelling and keep it up. Their theory may be that all their energy makes the viewer think that something exciting is going on. But is just yelling enough? The result is a constant yelling throughout… Read More: If I’m Not Yelling, I’m Not Selling »
Are origin myths true? No matter, they set the trajectory.
In the mid-1970s, my parents arranged for a condo in Florida when I was living in New York. We had a family summer vacation, joined by my brother-in-law and sister and their two small girls, aged 5 and 6 who had come down from Canada. One day we were all heading off to dinner with… Read More: Stories Have Staying Power »
Necessity breeds invention. As a graduate student, one February I was reduced to living off of green beans and wieners. That motivated me and led to the publishing a highly cited study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, with the help of a very kind professor. As a poor grad student at the University of… Read More: Green Beans & the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology »
Shooting commercials is an intense process. Very intense. You usually have one day to capture everything you need that’s in your script and then some. You are paying a lot of people on that one day to get exactly what you want and they are all there that day and then …it is over. What you… Read More: Don’t Speak to the Director! »
We are in a rapidly evolving time for languages. There are so many new concepts entering our lives, mostly through technology but also through immigration, that we are having to come up with new words and sayings all the time – LOL. IMHO When your BFF sends you a text, there are whole new spelling… Read More: Dacoits on the Skookumchuck »
When you have the opportunity to shoot a commercial with a top rock group, you have a narrow time window to shoot through. And you only get one chance. Their time is in high demand when they are on top – it may not last and must be exploited quickly. I have had the opportunity… Read More: We Shot a Snow Leppard »