Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Ask Terry (From the AOP Archives)

Episode Date: November 25, 2023

This week, we turn the show over to listeners. It’s our annual “As Terry” show. We asked you to submit any questions you had about the advertising world, and you responded with a record amount of very interesting, very insightful ones that touch on subjects like negative political advertising, why there are so many bad local commercials, and what do background actors really say when their lips move. Join us for some surprising answers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling.

Subscribe now, and don't miss a single beat. Due to popular demand, we've dug very, very deep into our archives and are pleased to announce the re-release of episodes from the last season of The Age of Persuasion. And we've remastered them to fit our Under the Influence format. Here is an episode from 2011. This is an apostrophe podcast production. Your teeth look whiter than noon, noon, noon. You're not you when you're hungry. You're a good hand with a heart.

You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. Back in the 1950s, Dwight D. Eisenhower had become known as the first TV president. In 1952, when Eisenhower came to power, only 30% of America had television sets. But by the 1956 election, over 75% did. Then, in 1955, Eisenhower suffered a heart attack, which put his re-election campaign in jeopardy. That's when the big question was asked. How does the president get re-elected if he doesn't have the health to endure a strenuous 53-city campaign tour across the country.

The answer was to campaign on television instead. Eisenhower was skeptical of television, but his vice president Richard Nixon convinced him of its power, saying, Eisenhower had employed advertising agency BBDO saying, imagine the tremendous audience you could reach. Eisenhower had employed advertising agency BBDO for his previous victory, and they had a smart television department. The next question was this. How do we get the public used to the idea of a presidential candidate who doesn't hit the campaign trail?

So the White House press office got to work to soften the news by repeatedly telling reporters that the president would be doing little traveling during this campaign, saying, after all, we're in the new television age. Then the next question emerged. How does a reluctant Eisenhower get comfortable on a medium he doesn't like? While Eisenhower hated television during his 1952 election, he actually began to change his tune in 1956. He became incredibly comfortable

in front of the camera and was able to use the medium effectively. That was due, in no small part, to the fact the White House had hired actor Robert Montgomery to coach the president. Montgomery was a popular Hollywood leading man whose daughter, Elizabeth Montgomery, would one day star in the sitcom Bewitched.

Montgomery bewitched Eisenhower. He would be the first Hollywood figure to actually have an office at the White House. He taught the president how to command respect while expressing his warm personality on camera and how to treat the camera as if he were talking to a single person, not a faceless audience of millions.

By the end of the campaign, Montgomery had become one of Eisenhower's closest friends. Then, another nagging question surfaced. How do you calm the public's concerns about the president's health? Advertising agency BBDO recommended using television to show an active and robust president on the move and to have the president often repeat how fine he felt while on camera. The TV strategy worked. On election night, Eisenhower enjoyed one of the biggest election landslides in history. He carried 42 of 48 states.

And, in a survey, Americans overwhelmingly named television as the media source most influencing their voting decisions. So, in the 1960 presidential election, in which Richard Nixon was running against Senator John F. Kennedy, it was only natural that Nixon would also employ ad agency BBDO and utilize television. At one point during the campaign, Nixon was in the hospital with a knee injury, but he summoned the executives from BBDO to his bedside for an important meeting. When they got there, Nixon asked one single question. Why do you suppose Kennedy wants to debate me on television? He asked because a presidential debate had never been televised before.

When Nixon asked that question, there was a big pause in the room, followed by a silence. When the vice president pressed for an answer, one of the BBDO executives cleared his throat and said, Sir, women are going to decide this election, and Kennedy is good-looking. You're not.

That was probably not the answer Nixon was expecting. Funny thing about questions, the answers can often be surprising. Today, we answer your questions. Funny thing about questions, the answers can often be surprising. Today, we answer your questions. We've asked listeners to send in any questions about advertising or marketing, and we received a record number. Some were thought-provoking, some were angry, and lots were funny.

So, sit back as I try to answer them to the best of my ability. And we're hoping that, unlike Mr. Nixon, you just might enjoy the answers. You're under the influence. When we put out our call for questions this season, we received a gamut that crisscrossed every corner of the advertising business. Some were easy to answer, and some were so astute I had to do research or talk to friends in the advertising industry to formulate an answer. In the case where the same question was asked by several people, we chose the person who submitted it first.

But suffice it to say, under the influence listeners are very savvy. So let's begin today's show with a question we received online from someone whose Twitter handle is MimeRifle. He asks, Why do small business owners insist on doing their own commercials even when they turn out so atrociously? Yeah, you mean like this. It's a Crazy Eddie Christmas in August audio blowout blitz. Crazy Eddie's going to save you a blizzard of bucks on stereo rack systems, compact

disc players, portable stereos, speakers, turntables, receivers, anything and everything and audio's on sale now! Well, there are a number of reasons why small business owners do their own commercials. First, there is the cost factor. The actors, sets, equipment, and crew required

for a television shoot are very expensive. I asked a television production company what the cost was just to get a typical crew to the set. Answer? Anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000 depending on the complexity of the

idea. And that's before you start shooting any footage. Then, once the commercial is shot, it needs to go into post-production. That's where the spots get edited, then the sound effects, music, and voiceover are added, the sound is mixed, the color is tweaked for broadcast, and the final commercial has to be shipped. Then the actors have to be paid. Most commercials are shot with union actors. They are guaranteed certain rates depending on their role in the commercial.

The highest rate is for the lead actor with lines and the lowest for an extra with no lines. Total cost of a typical TV commercial? Anywhere from $250,000 up to three quarters of a million dollars. And pass that if the idea is big. Todd Gale asks this. What do background actors actually say when their lips are moving but we can't hear them? And wouldn't it confuse deaf people who lip read?

Good question. So I asked Andy Crosby, owner of Sparks Productions. Andy's company shoots many of the commercials you see on TV. He said all background extras are instructed to mouth fake words. That way their voices won't interfere with the lead actor and lip readers won't be distracted or shocked. Ha ha. All in all, it takes an army to make a TV commercial.

That makes it expensive, and that's why local business owners often star in their own cheap commercials. Another reason is that many business owners believe that nobody can sell their product like they can. And occasionally, a business owner is a highly persuasive TV presenter. And sometimes a revolutionary product, in order to be believable, has to be presented by the owner. James Dyson comes to mind. Reinventing the vacuum cleaner has been an obsession of mine for the past 17 years.

It began with cyclone technology. For me, the fundamental answer to loss of suction. Next, we eliminated bags. Then came our ball. There really had to be another way to push a vacuum around the home. While James Dyson is passionate about his product, that doesn't mean all passionate business owners make for good television. Sometimes, the boss just wants to be on TV. Here's another popular question. Arwin2 asks this via Twitter. How do we get rid of election attack ads? Answer? We can't.

But that prompts another question. Do they work? The reality is they are highly effective. Political parties figured this out a long time ago. In a past episode, we traced negative political advertising back as far as the late 1800s. In the 1980s, politicians discovered something.

They would conduct focus groups with voters aligned with other parties, gather those voters in a room, and discuss the downsides of their party with them. This was done to try and understand why people would vote for a party in spite of so many negative factors. By the time the people left that room,

a high percentage of them had switched parties in their minds. Even though the organizers of the focus groups were only trying to understand the psyche of the voters, they were amazed at how many people would switch parties after hearing negative information.

So political parties extrapolated that insight onto a bigger canvas and started to use that tactic in campaign advertising. In the U.S., attack ads against presidential candidate Michael Dukakis greatly impaired his chances against Bush Sr. in 1988.

In Canada, attack ads against Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff in 2011 essentially neutralized his chances long before voters even went to the booth. The conservatives won an overwhelming majority, leaving liberals with their worst showing in years. Even though Justin Trudeau's first election campaign broke that trend by being positive, based on the slogan, Sunny Ways, if you're waiting for negative political ads to go away soon, don't hold your breath. Lorenzo posted a very interesting question on our Under the Influence website. He asks,

which single advertising campaign had the biggest impact on the success of a brand or product ever? Whew, good question. And one that is probably impossible to answer conclusively. But any advertising that catapults a brand to number one status has to fall into that category. A great example is the famous campaign for Miss Clairol, launched in 1956. Does she or doesn't she? Miss Clairol hair color looks so natural, only your hairdresser knows for sure. The famous Does She or Doesn't She campaign for Clairol hair coloring convinced an entire

nation of women that it was okay to dye their hair. In those days, hair coloring was a taboo subject. The perception at that time was that only Hollywood stars and street walkers did it. Yet this campaign, with its naughty does-she-or-doesn't-she slogan, which, beyond the sexual innuendo, suggested the hair dye was so natural-looking only a hairdresser would know for sure. And that propelled Clairol sales 413% higher in only six years. Not only that, it influenced over 60% of all adult women to color their hair to this day. Not many campaigns can claim that kind of success.

In the mid-50s, Chicago advertising agency Leo Burnett landed an assignment from client Philip Morris for a cigarette brand called Marlboro. Back then, Marlboro was a lady's cigarette. The slogan was, Marlboro, mild as may. The cigarette even had a red filter tip to hide lipstick smears. But as a women's brand, it was failing. So Philip Morris asked Burnett to reposition the brand

to become a man's cigarette. In the advertising world, it would go down as one of the riskiest decisions ever made. So Leo Burnett chose to reimagine Marlboro using the most masculine

image in America, the cowboy. With that, they created the Marlboro Man. The imagery was tough and masculine. In only 30 days, Marlboro became the number one male cigarette brand in a New York test market. It's astounding, isn't it, considering it was a female brand only one month before. By the time the Marlboro Man went national in 1955, sales soared to $5 billion, a 3,241% increase over 1954. Even with the release in 1957 of the first article in Reader's

Digest linking lung cancer to smoking, the Marlboro Man rung up sales of $20 billion that same year alone. Twelve years later, tobacco commercials were banned on television. And even without the benefit of television, which is to say, without the benefit of the most powerful medium in advertising, Marlboro became the number one tobacco brand in the world. It is, without a doubt, the advertising industry's darkest achievement. But it is a case study in repositioning a product to become number one. It not only took a completely feminine product and made it a male brand, it became the symbol of masculinity.

Then there's my beloved Volkswagen campaign, which I think is the greatest advertising campaign ever done. In the 1950s, post-World War II, sales of the German car were marginal at best. Then advertising agency Doyle Dane Burnback landed the account. Their ads taught the industry how to use humor as a powerful selling tool. Soon, the ugly little VW Beetle was selling 120,000 out of a total of 614,000 imported cars, which was incredible. By 1967, import sales rose to 700,000 and Volkswagen sold over 60% of them.

It remained the number one imported car for years. And people still remember the beloved VW Beetle to this day, which I maintain was due, mostly, to one of the greatest advertising campaigns of all time. So, I hope that answers your question, Lorenzo. And Volkswagen didn't even have a jingle. G.O.P.O. asks on our website, What happened to jingles? Could they return? Hmm, excellent question.

Jingles have been such a big, important part of advertising since the advent of commercial radio in the 1920s. Many people who object to jingles don't know how many days there are in April without going through a certain jingle in their head. And you first learn to remember your ABCs with a jingle. Yep, jingles are incredibly sticky. Remember these? To A&W Food's more fun At A&W Huckabucka, Huckabucka Huckabucka, Maxwell House

Me and the boys in our 50s Me and the boys and our beer Coke is it! Coke is it! It could be argued that the advertising industry has never created a method as effective as jingles to get people to remember a brand. The last great gasp of the jingle was in the 1980s. That's the era when musicians like Michael Jackson and Madonna began licensing their music to advertisers.

Music has always been a big part of advertising, but jingles, in their truest sense, have all but disappeared. Could they make a comeback? Hey, Mr. Clean has been using this jingle since 1959. Mr. Clean will clean

your whole house and every room that's in it. Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean Jayheim123 asks, We all know that ad agencies thrive on the accolades that the industry bestows on itself. But what I would like to know is which campaigns actually lifted the sales of a brand. Not just the awards sitting in the agency's boardroom, but sales awards sitting in the client's boardroom. Hmm. I suspect Jayheim123 is a client.

Yes, the advertising industry has a lot of award shows, but so does Hollywood and even the insurance industry for that matter. The advertising business, as I've mentioned before, is an industry built on rejection. Few careers I can think of are based on daily rejection the way the advertising industry is. Hours and weeks are spent generating ideas that are turned down and crushed daily. So award shows help celebrate the ideas that survive. Many advertising clients believe award-winning ads don't sell. A VP director of marketing for one of the top 10 largest brands in the world once said to his agency, we don't care what you do for other clients,

but if you win a creative award on any of our products, you'll be fired. He sounds like a peach. Which prompts the question, do award-winning commercials work? A comprehensive and conclusive study on that very subject was undertaken. 400 of the most awarded commercials in the world were gathered, the advertisers were contacted, and the results of the commercials were analyzed. The ads were created by 186 different advertising agencies from 28 different countries. The study results were remarkable.

It found that 346 of the 400 award-winning commercials had absolute measurable marketplace success. That means 86.5% of the award-winning commercials achieved or surpassed the advertisers' goals. The study was repeated, using the exact same methodology, a decade later. This time, the most highly awarded 180 commercials from around the world were analyzed. Even in tougher economic times than when the first study was done, 82% of the commercials achieved or surpassed advertisers' objectives in the marketplace.

The results were conclusive. There was overwhelming evidence that award-winning commercials, based on the right message and a smart strategy, delivered at least two and a half times more sales than commercials that lacked creativity. Proving award-winning commercials produce award-winning results. Damon Scott asks this question on Facebook. What was your take on the Geico caveman commercials? What is the history of that type of advertising where the subject matter seems to be memorable but completely unrelated to the brand. Well, Damon, let's play one of the very first Geico commercials from the so-easy-a-caveman-could-do-it campaign. How could it be offensive if it's true? Okay, first of all,

I'm not 100% in love with your tone right now. Tone aside, historically, you guys have struggled to adapt. Yeah, right. Walking upright, discovering fire, inventing the wheel, laying the foundation for all mankind. You're right. Good point. Sorry we couldn't get that to you sooner. Geico. Now, let's analyze the idea. Geico wanted viewers to know that handling their insurance needs online at geico.com was so easy, anyone could do it. Including an underdeveloped Neanderthal. The humor they overlaid on the it's so easy idea

was the notion that the campaign insulted cavemen, that there were a couple of intellectual cavemen still running around, and the Geico campaign offended them. It was pure comedy. So, on one hand, you could argue that cavemen have nothing to do with insurance. But on the other hand, the strategy was to let people know that Geico's website was dead simple to use. But that message is boring. So the advertising agency created the caveman idea to get noticed and make that point memorable.

Remember, job one of a commercial is to get attention. An advertiser can't sell anything to anybody if nobody notices their advertising. Remember the gorilla ad for Cadbury dairy milk that aired in 2007? You could easily say that a gorilla pounding a drum kit to the Phil Collins song In the Air Tonight has absolutely nothing to do with chocolate bars. Cadbury Dairy Milk was a long-time UK confectionery leader, but sales plateaued for a decade and then started to decline. So their British advertising agency came up with the gorilla idea. The gorilla drummed to In the Air Tonight with unabashed pleasure. Cadbury has long stated there is a glass and a half of milk in every bar. The dairy milk slogan is a glass and a half of joy.

The gorilla had nothing to do with chocolate bars and everything to do with giving people the feeling of joy. It's hard to watch that commercial and not smile. Results? Sales went up 9% for the entire 12 weeks the ad was on the air after 10 years of flat and declining sales. And in the UK, the public there voted the Gorilla commercial the best commercial of all time.

This is my point here. Sometimes the idea is connected to the product and sometimes the idea is connected to the emotional benefit. There is a rule in the advertising business that you don't sell the steak, you sell the sizzle. Put another way, you don't sell the steak, you sell the sizzle. Put another way, you don't sell the product, you sell the benefit. A caveman has nothing to do with insurance, but everything to do with the benefit,

that the GEICO website is so easy to use, even a prehistoric man could figure it out. Recently, GEICO reached a new milestone with 16 million policyholders and assets of $32 billion. In 2008, the caveman was voted America's favorite advertising icon of the year and was inducted into the Advertising Walk of Fame. The caveman, still upset with Geico for its so-easy-a-caveman-could-do-it slogan, did not attend the award ceremony.

We received a few hundred questions for this episode, and all of them were excellent. As Richard Nixon discovered all those years ago, some answers can be surprising. What does a caveman have to do with insurance? Well, the same thing a gorilla has to do with a chocolate bar. They personify the benefit of those products, ease and joy. Why do loud local business owners make annoying commercials?

Because they can. And do award-winning commercials really work? Or are they just the ad industry congratulating itself? Answer, they really, really work. As we often mention in our show, we have a not-so-secret wish. We hope that you'll choose to patronize companies whose advertising treats you with respect and intelligence. And spend your money with advertisers that make you think or make you smile. And we hope you'll stop buying from advertisers that produce bad, annoying commercials. Voting with your wallet is the most powerful message you can send. It beats irate phone calls, angry letters, and hopping mad emails.

That way, more advertisers will come to the conclusion that smart and engaging ads are the ones that work when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Airstream mobile recording studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound engineer, Jeff Devine. Under theluence theme by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. Tunes provided by APM Music. Follow me on social at Terry O Influence. This podcast is powered by ACAST. And here's some news. You can now listen to our podcasts on the YouTube Music app. Just search apostrophe podcasts and new episodes are added every week.

And if you think there are too many ads in a show about advertising, you can now listen to our podcasts ad free on Amazon Music. It's so easy, even a caveman could do it. See you next time.

Fun fact! The Dairy Milk commercial sent Phil Collins' song, In the Air Tonight, back up the charts 26 years after it was first released. It was so easy, even a gorilla could do it.