Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S11E10 - Don't Do It Advertising

Episode Date: March 12, 2022

This week, we look at a category of advertising that doesn’t try to sell you something. As a matter of fact, tries to get you to STOP doing something.Like littering. And smoking. And drinking & driving.And spilling secrets. 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. We'll see you next time. on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal.

Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. This is an apostrophe podcast production. Your teeth look whiter than no nose You're not you when you're hungry You're a good hand with all teeth You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. When a Colorado-based band called Chocolate Hair landed its first recording contract, the record label had one request, change your name. So the band rechristened itself Sugarloaf after a popular ski mountain near Boulder, Colorado.

An album was released and it contained the band's first top ten song, Green-Eyed Lady. In spite of that hit, Sugarloaf was soon dropped by the record company. So they signed with another label called Brute, which was a division of Brute Fabergé Aftershave. Then Brute folded. Sugarloaf was without a label again. They began knocking on all the record label doors they could find, but were constantly turned down.

They kept hearing the same brush-off line over and over again, and it eventually inspired a song, which they released on their manager's small record label. It was titled, Don't Call Us, We'll Call You. The opening lyrics are funny. They call a record executive in New York who says hello, then immediately puts them on hold.

As the lyric says, to say the least, the cat was cold. Don't Call Us, We'll Call You is unusual because it's all about the humiliation bands go through trying to get a record deal. In the song, they are turned down the minute they walk into the record label offices. They try to drop the name of a friend of a friend and that doesn't work.

They even say they are willing to perform in the nude and nobody's interested. Then they're told they sound too much like the Beatles. But Don't Call Us, We'll Call You is not just a song about rejection. It's also a revenge song. Near the beginning of the tune, at the 10-second mark, you can hear a telephone being dialed. Listeners with good ears could make out the numbers by the sound of the touch tones

As it turned out, it was the actual phone number for CBS Records The last record label that rudely threw them out CBS was besieged with calls And ended up having to change their number Later in the song's lyrics, the band gets their ultimate revenge with calls and ended up having to change their number. Later in the song's lyrics, the band gets their ultimate revenge. They end up having a hit with the very song the cold label executive, who put them on hold, said he couldn't use. Now, the tables turn.

He starts calling the band, begging them to sign with his label. But they only have one thing to say to him. Don't call us. We'll call you. Don't is a powerful word. That's why the world of marketing prefers the positive word do over the negative word don't. Because almost 98% of all advertising wants you to do something.

Yet, there is a small sliver of advertising that tries to persuade you not to do something. It tries to unsell you. I call it Don't Do It Advertising. You're under the influence. In the marketing trade, every effective ad contains a CTA, or a call to action. That CTA asks you to do something, to buy the product, request the service, or ask for the brand by name. That's why advertising that tries to convince you not to do something is an unusual call to action. Back in 1987, when cocaine use was skyrocketing,

a Don't Do Drugs campaign hit the air. It is considered the most famous anti-drug ad of all time. The idea was clear and direct. A spokesperson simply cracks an egg and drops it into a hot frying pan. Is there anyone out there who still isn't clear about what doing drugs does? Okay, last time. This is your brain. This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs.

Any questions? The message was clear. Don't fry your brain. It was a metaphor for irreversible brain damage. Once the egg is broken, it could never take its original form again. The ad was sponsored by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. When the ad agency first brought the finished commercial over for approval, the folks at the Partnership for a Drug-Free America didn't have a VCR to play it on. So they all walked across the

street to an electronics store and asked the salesperson to play it. The commercial popped up on a few dozen TV screens in the store. The actor cracked the egg, let it fry, and delivered his final line, any questions? The folks from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America had no questions. It was approved. The simple ad exploded across pop culture. The line, this is your brain on drugs, became a catchphrase. Three years later, research showed that over 90% of teens had seen the ad and 88% of them believed even occasional use of cocaine was dangerous. That was a dramatic change in attitude.

You know something has entered pop culture when parodies emerge. The commercial was spoofed on sitcoms, t-shirts, posters, and on Saturday Night Live. There were a couple of odd side notes, too. For starters, the phrase, let's go fry an egg, became street slang for using drugs. The egg marketing board took offense to the ad, suggesting eggs were being unfairly linked with drugs.

The actor in the commercial, John Roselius, got some press years later when he voted to legalize marijuana in California and admitted he had tried cocaine a couple of times in the 80s. That aside, This Is Your Brain on Drugs

is still a pop culture reference to this day, TV Guide named it one of the top 100 ads of all time, and it is enshrined in the Smithsonian Museum. Don't litter is another spoke in the don't advertising wheel. Back in 1985, the Texas Department of Transportation was spending roughly $20 million a year cleaning up highway litter, a cost that increased 17% annually.

So the department hired an Austin-based advertising agency to come up with an anti-littering campaign that would actually make Texans stop and listen. According to the ad agency, the target audience for the campaign was, and I'm quoting here, 18- to 24-year-old bubba's in pickup trucks who were chucking beer cans out their windows because they believed littering was their God-given right. Close quote. Whew.

That's one tough audience. Knowing that, the ad agency struggled to come up with an idea that would actually break through. The day before the presentation, they still didn't have anything. That morning, the creative director was taking a walk near his home, rolling the problem around in his mind. As he walked, he stared at all the litter in his own neighborhood and decided the word litter sounded too soft, like kitty litter. He needed something stronger. Then he suddenly remembered how his mother would always tell him his room was a mess.

In that moment, the line came to him. Don't mess with Texas. When the ad agency presented that theme line to the Department of Transportation the next day, they had a problem with the wording. The transportation people wanted to add the word please to it as in please don't mess with Texas. The ad agency said if they insisted on adding the word please they couldn't have the line.

The word please drained the attitude right out of it. They had to take it as is or it was off the table. The ad agency got their way, and between 1985 and 1997, they produced 26 anti-littering television commercials. One of the first starred two of the Dallas Cowboys, two of the biggest, meanest Dallas Cowboys. Randy White and Two Tall Jones?

What's a couple of football stars doing out here alongside the road? meanest Dallas Cowboys. I got a message for him, too. What's that? Well, I kind of need to see him to deliver it. Don't mess with Texas. That puts a muscle behind the line. Then the campaign moved on to other famous Texans, including boxer George Foreman and Willie Nelson. Mamas, tell all your babies don't mess with Texas was an out-of-the-park home run. Within a very short time, 98% of Texans said they knew the slogan and recognized the problem. Within six years, the littering rate on Texas highways dropped 72%, an astounding result.

Don't Mess With Texas became so popular, it became a problem. Don't Mess With Texas caught on so fast because it tapped the state's sense of pride. That tough-talking, no-nonsense, get-things-done Texas attitude. The line became bigger than the anti-littering message. It became an identity statement. It embodied Texasness. Texans adopted it as an unofficial state slogan. It was used on bumper stickers, belt buckles, and t-shirts. It was chanted at football games.

Federal prosecutors used it at press conferences after big indictments. None of it had anything to do with highway littering. And that was the problem. The Department of Transportation had to figure out a way to reconnect it to their original litter prevention message. To achieve that, they trademarked the line, which allowed them to send out cease and desist letters to businesses and groups attempting to co-opt the slogan. Now when you see the Don't Mess With Texas line on Twitter, television ads, bumper stickers, and trash cans, there is a tiny encircled R beside it, signifying a registered trademark.

Now the line has two messages, Don't Litter and Don't Mess with Don't Mess With Texas. Way back during the Second World War, there was another kind of don't-do-it advertising campaign. It was a dangerous time. There were spies and intelligence operations hidden around the country. So the U.S. government created a poster. The visual showed a warship on fire, sinking in the ocean. The words said,

Loose lips might sink ships. The goal was to discourage casual chatter about troop deployment and ship lanes that could be shared during pillow talk or between departing soldiers and their families. Critical information that would benefit the enemy. The Canadian version of the poster dropped the word might to be even more direct, saying, Loose lips sink ships. Decades later, in 2018, the Navy updated that famous World War II poster. They wanted servicemen and women to think twice about posting photos of warships, maneuvers, and Navy personnel on social media.

The imagery stayed the same, a warship on fire sinking in the ocean, but the words were changed to, Loose Tweets, Sink Fleets. In a past episode of our show titled Talk Ain't Cheap, we discussed how loose lips can damage businesses. Years ago, our company had Molson and Labatt in our offices recording campaigns in different studios. As a rule, we never scheduled competing companies on the same day. We fully understood the level of warfare

between those two breweries. But this was a rare time when both companies needed to record commercials on that date. I won't say which company did this, but when one beer company was finished and everyone in that recording session left, the other beer company snuck into everyone in that recording session left, the other beer company

snuck into that studio and stole the scripts out of the waste paper basket. The time between the beer company leaving the studio and our well-trained staff going in to destroy all the paperwork was about three minutes. But in that three minutes, those scripts were stolen. Our company got into a lot of hot water over that. The beer company who owned those scripts threw a loose-lip-sink-ships accusation at us. Because now the enemy had critical information. Hold your tongue and hold that thought. There have been many don't drink and drive commercials over the years, but two in particular stand out. The first ran in the U.S., the second ran in Canada. The American ad ran in 1983. At that time, many people were still unaware of the magnitude of the problem.

Yet, drunk drivers were responsible for over 50% of automobile fatalities. A campaign was developed and aimed at drivers aged 18 to 24, who accounted for 42% of all fatal alcohol-related car crashes. The simplicity of the commercial was stunning. It showed two wine glasses, then two beer mugs, being lifted to make toasts in slow motion. When the glasses are clinked together, they smash to pieces, and we hear the dramatic sound of a car accident.

When friends don't stop friends from drinking and driving. Friends die from drinking and driving. It was a very smart visual. Glasses being clinked together was a ritual of friendship. Then suddenly that friendship turns to tragedy. Friends don't let friends drive drunk. The tagline said it all. It didn't scold. It didn't preach.

After the campaign aired, research revealed that 62% of young Americans said they were more conscious of drinking and driving than they were before, and 34% said they refused to drink at all

if they were planning to drive. The Department of Transportation saw a 25% decrease in drunk driving fatalities between 1983 and 1990. The commercial idea was so simple, it transcended language and was played all over the world. Another very effective don't drink and drive commercial began airing in 1995.

Originally created in Singapore, it was picked up and sponsored by MAD Canada. The commercial had a powerfully simple idea. It was shot from the perspective of a driver behind the wheel of a car. As the car makes its way on a very busy road, a succession of tall beer glasses is stacked one at a time on the dashboard. As each empty beer glass is put in front of the other,

the picture becomes less clear. The loss of vision becomes even more critical as the viewer looks through three glasses. By the time the fourth sudsy beer glass is placed down, it completely obscures

the line of vision and the car suddenly rear-ends the vehicle in front of it. Words on the screen say, Each drink you have before driving impairs your judgment. Support safe, sober driving. A message from MAD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. That commercial ran for over 15 years in Canada and never lost its impact. There have been many compelling don't-smoke commercials over the years,

but here are two of the most powerful. When Oscar-winning actor Yul Brynner was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at the age of 63, after decades of a five-pack-a-day habit, he gave one of his final interviews on a morning talk show. Knowing his time was limited, he said what he really wanted to do was to make a commercial that would air after he died, imploring people not to smoke. Brinner passed away before he could make that commercial, but his widow allowed the footage from that interview to be made into a message for the American Cancer Society. It began with words on a black screen that said, Yul Brynner, 1920 to 1985.

Ladies and gentlemen, the late Yul Brynner. I really wanted to make a commercial when I discovered that I was that sick and my time was so limited. I had to make that commercial that says simply, now that I'm gone, I tell you, don't smoke. Whatever you do, just don't smoke. It was a voice from beyond the grave.

One of the very few commercials you only have to see once to never forget. The American Cancer Society was flooded with letters from smokers saying that ad was the thing that finally got them to quit. While the Yule Brinner commercial was haunting,

there was another Don't Smoke ad that was surprising. It featured a 39-year-old man named Patrick Reynolds talking about the evils of smoking. What made the message so jolting was that Patrick was the grandson

of R.J. Reynolds, founder of R.J. Reynolds, one of the biggest tobacco companies in the country. My name is Patrick Reynolds. My grandfather, R.J. Reynolds, founded the tobacco company which now manufactures Camels, Winstons, and Salem's. We've all heard the tobacco industry say that there are no ill effects caused by smoking.

Well, we have plenty of cigarette-caused disease and death right in the R.J. Reynolds family itself. My grandfather, R.J. Reynolds, chewed tobacco and died of cancer. My father, R.J. Reynolds, Jr., smoked heavily and died of emphysema. My mother smoked and had emphysema and heart disease. And two of my aunts, also heavy smokers, died of emphysema and cancer. Three of my older brothers who smoke have emphysema. I smoked for ten years and have small airways lung disease. Now tell me, do you think the cigarette companies are truthful when they tell you that smoking isn't harmful?

What do you think? It wasn't easy for Patrick Reynolds to do. On the way to his first interview after filming the commercial, his entire body broke out into hives because of the anxiety he was experiencing about speaking out publicly against his own family. But he said he could not justify

profiting from people smoking cigarettes and dying, and divested all of his company's stock. Patrick Reynolds became a powerful don't-smoke crusader. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes.

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A couple of years ago, a billboard appeared on the Gardner that shocked a lot of drivers. It said, text and drive in big letters. It was sponsored by the Wathen Funeral Home. The reason it got so much attention was because the billboard didn't contain the word don't. It actually encouraged you to text and drive. It caused outrage. And when people googled the Wathan Funeral Home to complain, the website revealed the funeral home was fake.

The website, created by ad agency John Street, said, quote, You probably came to this website to tell us what horrible people we are for running an ad like that. And you'd be right. But we're not a funeral home. Half the drivers in Ontario admit to reading texts while behind the wheel, risking their lives and the lives of others. Which should make you even madder than our billboard did.

It was a bold message. It was also strategic. Traffic on the Gardner slows to a crawl in rush hour. If you've ever been on the expressway, you know how many bowed heads you see looking down at their phones. It was an important message because distracted driving now far outpaces the number of impaired driving offenses in Toronto. Between 2010 and 2016, when the billboard appeared, over 99,000 people had been charged with distracted driving.

If the billboard had said, don't text and drive, nobody would have paid attention. It was don't do it advertising that needed to eliminate the don't to be effective. Almost all advertising tries to get you to do something. To buy a product, to use a service, or to act now. That's why it's unusual to see an ad that tries to persuade you not to act. But getting people to change their behavior is one of the most difficult tasks you can give to marketing. You're not just trying to change a purchasing pattern, you're trying to change a deeply ingrained habit.

Most public service announcements rely on free airtime, meaning the airtime is limited. And when you have a minimal amount of time to get noticed, you need startling work. So the messages have to be unexpected and simple and memorable. When people heard Yul Brynner speak from the grave, it was unforgettable.

When the heir to a tobacco fortune told you not to smoke, it carried unexpected weight. And when people saw a billboard that encouraged them to text and drive, it created enough outrage that people noticed. Advertising that says, don't do it, is an anomaly.

It swims against the usual current of persuasion. But that zig can be powerful for that very reason, especially when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Jeff Devine. Research by Patrick James Aslan. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like Talk Ain't Cheap, How Conversations Impact Business, Season 9, Episode 18. You'll find it in our archives wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you'd like to be the first to know the latest under the influence news, get insider peeks at some upcoming episodes and events, subscribe to our newsletter at apostrophepodcasts.ca. See you next week. Fun fact. Using a mobile phone while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes every year.