Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Dynamic Duos: The Famous Partnerships in Advertising

Episode Date: September 23, 2023

This week we look at “Dynamic Duos”  - those rare ad agency/client relationships that resulted in some of the most famous advertising of all time. We’ll examine the relationship between Nike founder Phil Knight and his ad agency creative director Dan Wieden, Apple’s Steve Jobs and Creative Director Lee Clow, tempermental winery owner Julio Gallo and his legendary creative director and tough guy, Hal Riney, and we’ll tell the story of the creative director who created a Hall of Fame campaign around the fact his client looked like a chicken. 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. in an instant. Your teeth look whiter than no nose. You're not you when you're hungry.

You're a good hand with all things. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. Adman David Ogilvie created one of the most famous advertising agencies in the world. He founded his company, called Ogilvie & Mather, back in 1949. He was already 38 years old at the time. Prior to that, he had worked as a chef in a hotel in Paris, he sold cooking stoves door-to-door in Scotland,

and he worked as a researcher for the Gallup organization in the U.S. During World War II, he worked for British intelligence at the British Embassy in Washington. After the war, he craved a quiet existence and purchased a farm in an Amish area of Pennsylvania. Turns out Ogilvy wasn't much of a farmer, so he sold the property and moved to Manhattan, where he started Ogilvy & Mather. All of that eclectic experience gave him a unique vantage point when it came to human behavior.

Many years ago, a number of ad agencies, including Ogilvy, were invited to pitch the Rayon Manufacturers advertising account. It was a big piece of business, worth millions, and it would have greatly increased the size of Ogilvy's company. Each ad agency was only given 15 minutes to make their pitch to Rayon before a bell rang signifying that their time was up. When Ogilvy's turn came, he walked into the room and saw 12 people staring at him from across a boardroom table.

He asked which of them would eventually be approving the ads. When all 12 raised their hands, Ogilvy said, ring the bell now and walked out. He knew instantly that the account would be painful and the resulting work would be vanilla. There is no doubt about it. Advertising by committee is responsible for most of the bad advertising you're forced to watch and listen to. As Mr. Ogilvie insightfully said, search all the parks in all your cities, you'll find no statues of committees. While committees are very good at implementing ideas,

they're not so good at creating or approving big ideas. My friend Paul Lavoie, the founder of taxi advertising, has a similar philosophy. He called his agency Taxi not because he does advertising for taxis, but because he believes the number of people required to create great advertising on any given account, should be able to fit into a single taxi. In other words, a very small, tight group. I share that conviction. When you examine the best advertising, the kind of work the public actually likes, the kind that is entertaining and effective,

the kind of advertising that elevates the industry and wins awards for creativity, you'll often discover the team behind the ad is usually a small handful of people. Just like in popular music, not a lot of songs are written by the entire band. It usually comes down to one or two key players. And that is the secret sauce. If you look even closer at the best advertising, you'll discover the hallmark of these campaigns is the extraordinary and rare partnership between two specific people,

usually the ad agency creative director and the advertiser's CEO. Team up with me as we go looking for the famous twosomes that managed to bridge the tenuous agency-client relationship. Those dynamic duos who shared such a chemistry or were so opposite that the sparks they created ignited some of the best advertising of all time. You're under the influence. Ernest Gallo was one of the most feared clients in the advertising business. Over three decades, he had hired and fired just about every agency in existence. Annually, the advertising press would rank the worst advertisers,

and the Gallo Winery always topped the list. Then, one day, Gallo asked a small San Francisco ad agency called Hal Reine and Partners to pitch their account. Hal Reine was an advertising veteran. He had opened up the San Francisco office of Ogilvy & Mather in 1976. Legend has it, Ogilvy discovered Reine in a San Francisco bar, sipping Jim Beam while writing ads for a brewery. Nine years later, Reine purchased the Ogilvy office

and thus began Hal Reine and Partners. Reine knew all the Gallo stories. When Reine told Gallo he wasn't interested in pitching for the account, the winery persisted. Eventually, Reine began to see Gallo as a challenge. Plus, his agency was small and needed new business. So he researched the wine industry for three months, decided Gallo had a great story to tell, and pitched the account by recommending long-copy print ads. Ernest Gallo told Reine he had already learned more about the wine business than any other ad agency he had ever worked with.

He was incredibly impressed. Then he told Reine nobody reads magazines and to come back with some television ads. The relationship had begun. Hal Reine wasn't your average ad guy. He was a big, barrel-chested man with a gruff personality, and he didn't grovel before clients. I worked with Reine once. He was tough, with a bourbon chaser.

But he wasn't just tough in the boardrooms. Years before, while on honeymoon in Central America, terrorists stormed the plane he was on. After a full-day standoff, Reine got tired of waiting to be rescued, so he stormed the plane's exit and helped free the other passengers. Hey, what ad guy doesn't have that on his resume?

In so many ways, he was perfect for the volatile Ernest Gallo. While Gallo presented a potentially explosive client-agency relationship, Reine made an important decision early on to develop a personal one-on-one relationship with Ernest Gallo. He knew that a direct relationship with the Mercurial CEO would allow him to develop a level of trust

Gallo had never previously given to an ad agency. Reine also knew that a close relationship would allow him to take creative chances. Having Ernest Gallo's ear would get him instant approvals for his big ideas without a committee getting in the way

On the other side of the table Gallo was getting a creative director who didn't flinch when standing in the full gale force of his tirades It was an eyeball-to-eyeball relationship that the overbearing Gallo came to respect. And that respect allowed Reine to create a beautiful campaign for Gallo called All the Best, voiced by Reine himself. Chardonnay.

Zinfandel. Johannesburg Riesling. Sauvignon Blanc. Cabernling Sauvignon Blanc Cabernet Sauvignon The vintage dated varietal wines of Ernest and Julio Gallo Among the most respected in America Among the most respected in the world Today's Gallo

All the best a wine can be Later, when Gallo wanted to launch a new wine cooler, he trusted Reine not only with the advertising, but asked him to contribute to the labels and even name the product. So Hal Reine thumbed through the phone book and pulled out two unrelated names, Bartles and James. Then he presented the winery with the most un-Gallo-like approach anyone could imagine. A campaign based on two quirky old guys sitting on a porch talking about their new wine cooler.

Actually, make that one old guy doing all the talking on a porch and the other just staring at the camera. Gallo, to everyone's complete and utter shock, approved the idea. We want to thank you for all the name suggestions for our new wine cooler. There were some really clever ones. So we decided just to call it the Bartles and James Wine Cooler, because my last name is Bartles and Ed's is James. If you don't like the name, please don't tell us because we've

already printed up our labels. Anyway, you could always just call it Bartles and skip the James altogether. Ed says that is okay with him. Thanks for your continued support. The advertising industry watched the Bartles and James ads with amazement, not just because they were so funny, but because the toughest client in the business was suddenly approving some of the best watched the Bartles and James ads with amazement. Not just because they were so funny, but because the toughest client in the business was suddenly approving some of the best advertising in years. But there was a reason why that was suddenly happening. It was the result of the relationship Reini had cultivated with Gallo.

Even if Gallo's marketing people were against an idea, Reini could leverage Gallo's marketing people were against an idea, Riney could leverage Gallo's support. And that was the only vote he needed. Hello. There are many ways to use the Bartles and James premium wine cooler. One lady in Massachusetts even uses it to make bread. Well, Ed suggests an even better idea is to use it as a topping. For example, as a topping for ice. This is quick and easy to do

and will not only improve the flavor of ice considerably, but will make it more attractive as well. So if you're tired of having your ice just plain, add some Bartles and James. We hope you appreciate this suggestion and thank you for your support. Reine would go on to write over 143 Bartles and James commercials. Within 12 months, the wine coolers became the market leader. But eventually, their relationship got rocky. After seven years of 18-hour days, and in particular, when the Gallo marketing department felt they could start writing the Bartles & James commercials, Riney resigned the account. Even though the Gallo winery represented over

78 million dollars in business to Riney and accounted for over half of his company and most of his income, Riney wouldn't stand for a breach of his integrity. When news leaked that Reiney had resigned the account, agencies that wouldn't have touched Gallo with a 10-foot pole lined up to pitch. They, too, wanted to do work that good. But they never would. Because it was the relationship between Reiney and Gallo that made it possible.

They were simply a dynamic duo. It's one thing to create a campaign for a beautiful winery, but what do you do when someone comes to you and says, make my chicken famous? The End who sold them to the public. But those processors were squeezing Perdue's profits. So he decided to sell his chickens directly to the public himself. Frank Perdue knew his chickens were better than other chickens. Nobody paid attention to the details like Perdue. His birds were bigger, meatier, and healthier.

Only one problem stood between Frank Perdue and untold millions in revenue. Nobody had ever branded a chicken before. So in 1971, Perdue decided to interview 48 different advertising agencies. He asked each one of them to rank the top five advertising agencies on Madison Avenue. Naturally, each agency put themselves first on the list, but interestingly, every one of them put advertising agency Scali McCabe Sloves second. So, Perdue arranged a meeting with co-founder Ed McCabe. Perdue told him, the only thing all those other agencies could agree on

was Scali McCabe Sloves, so I'm going to hire you. And with that, the upstart agency had a new account. Scali McCabe Sloves was a small, feisty ad agency with big ideas, and co-founder Ed McCabe was a cocky ad writer. His ad agency would go on to do bold work for advertisers like Volvo and Hertz. Frank Perdue had a dual goal,

to brand his chickens as the best, and create a demand that exceeded supply, so he could charge a higher price per pound. So Ed McCabe and his agency set about learning the chicken trade. One thing became abundantly clear. Frank Perdue was obsessed with chickens. That detail didn't escape McCabe's eye. Slowly, Perdue and McCabe began to strike up a very unusual relationship.

The relationship between the ad agency and Frank Perdue wasn't without its problems, though. From almost the second the agency was awarded the business, the phone calls from Frank started coming non-stop. He would pepper them with questions and ideas. So much so that Ed McCabe told Perdue, You know, Frank, I'm not even sure I want your account anymore because you're such a pain in the butt. Perdue wasn't insulted in the least.

He told McCabe he agreed with him and then continued peppering him with questions and demands. Not long after, Ed McCabe came up with a campaign idea. He wanted to put Frank Perdue himself in the TV commercials. Perdue was animated, credible, and totally obsessed with the quality of his chickens. And there was one more reason. McCabe thought Frank Perdue looked like a chicken. When they presented the campaign idea to Frank Perdue, his face fell. He hated it and said that maybe he had hired the wrong agency. But Scali McCabe's sloves held its ground. They believed in the idea. McCabe was no wallflower either. He essentially said to Perdue,

you make the chickens, I'll make the ads. With that, Perdue reluctantly agreed to become his company's spokesperson. Every Perdue chicken has one of these tags on it. And every Perdue chicken part has one of these tags on it. They mean you're getting fresh, tender, tasty young chicken. I make sure of that because both of these tags have my name on them. And right under my name is my money-back guarantee. Believe me, when it comes to chicken, I'm tougher than you are.

Each commercial ended with a fantastic tagline McCabe had written that said, It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken. The commercials became incredibly popular. Demand for Purdue chicken soared. Sales skyrocketed. McCabe had understood a core truth about the company, that Frank had a unique chicken obsession, and their relationship allowed him to have fun with Frank in the commercials.

It became one of the most awarded campaigns of the year and is considered today to be one of the top 100 advertising campaigns of all time. If you think all chickens are created equal, then you've never tried my special purdue breed. Equal? My chickens have 15% more breast meat than the average of those other chickens. And my birds don't leave here until they pass 65 quality inspections. So try a Purdue chicken yourself.

If you don't think it's a better bird, I'll give you your money back. Would your chicken make you that offer? Hmm, I wonder why. Frank Purdue became a star and he accomplished the near impossible. He branded chickens. With the campaign becoming such an immediate

success, Perdue bonded to McCabe. The toughness of Frank Perdue and the brashness of Ed McCabe was the perfect combination. And the underlying fact that Frank actually looked like a chicken didn't hurt either. Perdue went on to become one of the largest poultry producers in the United States, with revenues of over $2.7 billion. One day, long after Perdue had been immortalized in the commercials,

he and Ed McCabe were having lunch in a restaurant. A prospective client spotted McCabe and approached him. He was a furniture manufacturer and asked McCabe to make him as famous as he had made Perdue. McCabe took one look at him and said, Sorry, can't do it. You don't look like a sofa. Dan Wyden was an ad man who didn't really like advertising. His father had been an ad man who was never home, and in the early part of his career, Dan followed his father into the ad business

and found himself writing toilet paper commercials. Wyden learned there are two kinds of people in the world, waters and folders. Waters are better. They use more toilet paper. He hated his job. Then one day, he met an art director named David Kennedy. They decided to start an ad agency together,

just so they could do the kind of work they wanted to do. The kind that didn't talk to waters and folders. A short time later, they met a man named Phil Knight, who had a small sneaker company called Nike, named for the Greek goddess of victory. Knight shook their hands and said, I hate advertising. Wyden looked back at Knight and said,

Me too. It was a match made in heaven. Nike didn't want anything that looked, smelled, or tasted like advertising. And that was just fine with Wyden and Kennedy. So Dan Wyden sat down and wrote maybe the most un-advertising-like slogan of all time. Just do it. The rest is advertising history. Don't believe you have to be like anybody to be somebody.

If you're born a refugee, don't let it stop you from playing soccer for the national team at age 16. Don't become the best basketball player on the planet. Be bigger than basketball. Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything. The ads were exhilarating, philosophical, and sometimes even moody. I don't even think I ever heard the word Nike

in any of them. So don't ask if your dreams are crazy. Ask if they're crazy enough. It's a high-risk advertising strategy because there is no formula. All Nike asked their advertising agency to do was to surprise and amaze them. I can't stress enough how rare that philosophy is for a major global corporation. The partnership of Dan Wyden and Phil Knight produced epic commercials, from Samperson Agassi playing tennis in the streets of Manhattan,

to soccer all-stars playing football with the devil, to Michael Jordan saying something no other shoe commercial would say. It's not about the shoes. It's about knowing where you're going. Not forgetting where you started. It's about having the courage to fail. Not breaking when you're broken. Taking everything you've been given

and making something better. It was advertising that could only have been born out of a shared philosophy that is rare inside the ad world. Because Knight and Wyden both disliked boring advertising. And that disdain has created some of the most amazing advertising in history. The famous Swoosh logo is all that's needed now. No brand name mention necessary.

And Swoosh was the last thing their competitors heard as Nike thundered by them all the way to the top. It has been called the greatest television commercial of all time. Titled 1984, it launched the Apple Macintosh computer during Super Bowl XVIII. If you've never seen it, YouTube Apple 1984 right now. We'll wait here. I've mentioned this amazing story before. When Steve Jobs told his ad agency, Chiat Day, that the Macintosh computer was going to change the world.

He also told them he wanted a television commercial that would stop the world in its tracks. Insert excessive ad agency perspiration here. But creative director Lee Clow accepted the challenge. Clow and his team created

a radical television commercial for the 1984 Super Bowl based on the line, Find out why 1984 won't be like 1984. It was a line that played off George Orwell's cautionary novel about totalitarianism and Big Brother repression. It also took a swipe at IBM. Jobs loved it. Lee Clow, arguably one of the most

influential advertising creative directors of the last 40 years, had an incredible track record of creating defining moments for brands. He would bring the Energizer Bunny to life, he would guide Nissan's ads for over 25 years, and he gave Adidas a theme that came out of his own belief that impossible is nothing. I worked with Lee briefly when I was at Chiat Day Toronto. He looks nothing like a slick Madison Avenue ad man. He prefers the LA surfer vibe he grew up with. Shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops, and a long gray beard. Even into his 60s, he still surfed near his home in Los Angeles.

Like Lee Clow, Jobs too rejected the codes of business attire. He had one uniform, jeans, a black turtleneck, and new balanced sneakers. Jobs and Clough had a connection. Jobs understood what the world wanted to have, and Clough understood what the world needed to hear. 1984 was the first television commercial that made Super Bowl advertising an event. On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984. The commercial was bold, arrogant, and outrageous,

just like Steve Jobs. Clow had delivered a commercial that stopped everyone in their tracks. It showed all of us in the advertising industry that a TV commercial could have Hollywood production values, and even the Super Bowl football announcers were stunned at the commercial when play resumed. When Jobs was eventually ousted from Apple in 1985, so was ad agency Shiat Day. Eleven years later, when Jobs came back to run Apple,

he rehired Lee Clow. In the late 90s, with Apple's fortunes at their lowest, Clow came to Jobs with a theme line that most English teachers hated. It was simply, think different. It was a celebration of iconic geniuses who had changed the world, like Einstein, Edison, and Muhammad Ali. But remarkably, it also included images of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Rosa Parks. Could you imagine Walmart or Ford using Gandhi in their advertising? But somehow, the world gave Apple permission. Voice-over courtesy of Richard Dreyfuss.

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them. Disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them

as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. Of all the icons Lee Clough presented to Jobs for the Think Different campaign, Jobs only turned one image down. and that image was of Steve Jobs. So few good ad campaigns are created by committees. But if you scratch below the surface of the best ones, chances are you'll find a rare relationship at work.

Early in my career, someone once told me that in a boardroom full of people, you don't count the votes, you weigh them. Hal Reine understood that instinctively. He knew that when push came to shove, Ernest Gallo's vote was the only one he needed.

When Frank Perdue was told he looked like his chickens, he would only accept that from someone he respected. Ed McCabe was that man. And when Phil Knight said he hated advertising, what were the chances he'd be saying that to the only ad man in the business who felt the same way? In an industry where the average agency-client relationship only lasts four years, each of the relationships I've talked about today lasted much longer, some 20 years or

more. That's the key. A long relationship between two people, over time, develops more depth, trust, and understanding. Something about each propels the other. It's a bond that a committee can never have. And when that kind of close relationship occurs, something else happens. The advertising that spills into your living room gets a whole lot better 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. This episode was recorded in the Terrestrial Airstream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Jeff Devine. Under the influence theme by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. Tunes provided by APM Music. Follow me on social at Terry O'Influence.

If you liked this episode, you might also like another Apostrophe podcast titled Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. In every episode, longtime producer Jess Milton tells you the backstories to all of Stuart McLean's wonderful stories. You'll find the episodes on this podcast app. You can also find our podcasts on the new Apostrophe YouTube channel. And if you think there are too many ads in a show about advertising, we have decoupled the ads from our podcasts on Amazon Music so you can listen ad-free. See you next time.

Fun fact. When Phil Knight founded his sneaker company, he originally wanted to call it Dimension 6. Thankfully, he changed his mind. And by the way, the name is pronounced Nike, not Nike.