Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Seeing Is Believing: The Power of Demonstration Commercials

Episode Date: July 4, 2026

An encore episode of Under The Influence.... one of our favourites.This week, I ask a dozen of the top creative directors in the advertising business to tell me the best “demonstration commercials�� they have ever seen.Because there is nothing more powerful than a dramatic product demonstration.We’ll talk about a famous Krazy Glue commercial.And a Volvo ad where the ad writer risked his life to demonstrate a point.We know you want to listen to all the ads in this show. On the off-chance you don’t, subscribe ad-free here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, this is Jeff Devine, audio engineer for the Aposrophy Podcast Network, and this is Margo. Hello. And you're listening to the Apostrophe Podcast. Podcast Network. Network. Enjoy. This is an apostrophe podcast production. New York World's Fair opened on April 30, 1939.

The theme was The World of Tomorrow. The exhibition covered nearly two square miles and had several zones, which included transportation, food, government, amusement, and communications. It was in the communication zone that a brand new piece of technology was being unveiled. It would change the world for all time. It was called television. On April 20th, David Sarnoff, chairman of NBC, gave a speech to a speech to a small crowd at the World's Fair

10 days before the official grand opening. He was standing in front of the 9,000 square foot RCA pavilion which was shaped like a giant radio tube. Also, as an entertainment adjunct, television

will supplement sound broadcasting by bringing into the home the visual images of scenes and events which up to now have come there as mind pictures conjured up by the human voice. Note that Sarnoff pronounces television as television, accent on the vision,

because that was the remarkable breakthrough. Astonishingly, live pictures could be transmitted to television sets in the comfort of your own living room. It was radio with vision. Then, on April 30th, television was unveiled. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a speech opening the World's Fair. It would be televised, making Roosevelt the first president to ever appear on television, which was watched by approximately 200 homes who were brave enough to purchase this leading-edge technology.

I hear my dedicate. the World's Fair, the New York World's Fair of 1939, and I declare it open to all mankind. It's hard to imagine how wondrous and miraculous television must have felt in 1939. As a matter of fact, most people who visited the World's Fair were skeptical of it. They didn't believe they were actually watching. a live picture. They thought it was a trick.

People assumed that first RCA television screen was just showing pre-recorded motion pictures. So RCA and Sarnoff had to demonstrate the new medium in order to generate excitement, because if people were excited, they would buy television sets. RCA installed several new television sets in the pavilion, but there was one special one. Unlike the other TV cabinets made of wood, this one was made of transparent lucite.

It let the skeptical public look behind the screen to see the internal components, proving that television wasn't hiding a movie projector. Then RCA went one step further to demonstrate this amazing technology. The public was invited to step in front of the lone NBC TV camera and actually see themselves appear live, on the television screen. It created audible gasps and cheers. They were then given an official document with their name on it.

It certified they had actually been televised at the New York World's Fair. Seeing was believing. Seeing is believing in the world of marketing too. You can talk about a product, you can sing about a product, and you can take great photographs of a product. But if you can actually demonstrate how the product works in a dramatic way, if you can show people in real time how the product solves a problem, well, that's the most powerful advertising in the world.

It all comes down to five simple words. Don't tell me, show me. You're under the influence. Leo Burnett was a famous ad man who started the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Chicago back in the 1930s. He once said, The greatest thing to be achieved in advertising, in my opinion, is believability, and nothing is more believable than the product itself. In the world of advertising, there is nothing more persuasive than a product demonstration.

And I'm not talking about torture tests, which we covered in a past episode, I'm talking about a simple demonstration of a product that is so persuasive, it ramps up the desire to own that product and sends chills down the spines of competitors. So I canvassed a dozen of the top creative directors in the advertising business and asked them to name the best product demonstration commercials they have ever seen. From those lists, I separated the classic commercials from the contemporary ones. Let's begin with the classics. Not surprisingly, most of the creative directors put this one television commercial at the top of their list.

It was produced in 1964. It's in black and white, and begins with someone walking into a garage on a very snowy, dark morning. He gets into a car and starts it up. The headlights pop on. As he drives out of the garage into the deep snow, we realize he's driving a VW beetle. The VW makes its way through the snowy landscape, up hills, along dark roads, it is the only vehicle in sight. Then a voiceover says, Have you ever wondered how the man who drives a snowplow drives to the snowplow?

This one drives a Volkswagen, so you can stop wondering. The headlights on the snowplow flash on, it pulls out of the garage pushing snow aside and passes the parked VW Beetle. It was an incredibly simple idea, mostly shot in the dark of early morning. Three simple sentences set up by the question, how does the guy who drives the snowplow get to the snowplow?

Those old VWs were pretty good in the winter because the motor was in the back and the weight of the engine over the drive wheels gave the beetle traction in snow. A simple but incredibly persuasive demonstration still talked about 60 years later. Another commercial that virtually all the creative directors named was for a luggage company.

We've mentioned this ad before. It aired in 1970. The commercial begins in an empty gorilla cage at the zoo. A zookeeper quickly opens the cage door, throws in a red suitcase, and shuts the door again. Suddenly, a sliding door opens at the back of the cage and a gorilla bounds out. He picks up the suitcase and starts throwing it against the walls.

He bounces it off the bars. He throws it on the floor. He jumps up and down on it. Dear clumsy bellboys, brutal cab drivers, careless doormant, ruthless porters, savage baggage masters, and all butterfingered luggage handlers all over the world. Have we got a suitcase for you?

Then a graphic appears for the name of the luggage brand. Most people say this Samsonite commercial is one of the best of all time. But here's the thing. The commercial wasn't for Samsonite. It was for its number one rival, American Tourister. Samsonite at the time had double the market share of American Tourister. But sometimes in the marketing world, the bigger brand gets all the credit. When people are asked to remember the best luggage commercial of all time,

they default to Samsonite. Because Samsonite spent more advertising money, it is the only brand name they can remember. Over time, Samsonite solved that disconnect by purchasing the American Tourist or Company and adopted the guerrilla imagery in all its retail stores. Advertising Age magazine ranks Gorilla one of the top 100 commercials of the 20th century,

and it is included. in the permanent collection at the New York Museum of Modern Art. You can be reminded of great commercials, but some can stick with you for a long time. If you were watching television in the 1980s, you might remember this classic commercial. It showed a construction worker in a hard hat, putting a single drop of glue on the top of the hat, then, amazingly, sticking the hat to a steel beam. Crazy glue, strong enough to hold this man suspended in mid-air. Bonds almost anything.

A plastic knob, plastic plug, a rubber, bud, a metal, brooch, a fishing rod, a cycle, grip, model, planes and model trains, a doorknob, screw, a flashlight case, the broken trim on any car. Amazingly, Crazy Glue could provide up to 1,000 pounds per square inch of bonding strength. That six-second demonstration, showing a man being a man being a man. held in mid-air with a single drop of crazy glue made the brand famous. So famous, in fact, that every crazy glue package shows the silhouette of the suspended man to this day 40 years later.

While television is a perfect medium to demonstrate a product, print advertising can do it too. There is a famous print ad for Volvo. It was done in the UK, written by David Abbott. one of the best advertising writers there ever was. His ads were always so compelling. He simply talked about the product, but he had a knack for making everything so very interesting. In this print ad for Volvo,

he was asked to feature the strength of Volvo's spot welds, that the welds were so strong they would keep the car intact in the event of a collision, keeping the occupants safe. And furthermore, Volvo said that any one, One of the welds could hold the entire weight of the 3,000-pound car. That gave David Abbott an idea. He wanted to photograph a Volvo being suspended off the floor,

held by a single spot weld, and he wanted to put the welder's baby on the floor under the car to prove how much confidence the welder had in Volvo's welding. Volvo said, Absolutely not. Then Abbott suggested the welder himself. Volvo said, no way. Then Abbott suggested himself.

Volvo paused and said, Okay. No babies, no welders, but an ad guy, why not? So, the dramatic photo was taken with David Abbott lying on the floor directly beneath a precariously suspended cherry-red Volvo. The headline said, if the welding isn't strong enough, the car will fall on the rider.

The ad went on to say, That's me, lying rather nervously under the new Volvo 740. For years, I've been writing in advertisements that each spot weld in a Volvo is strong enough to support the weight of the entire car. Someone decided I should put my body where my mouth is. So, we suspended the car and I crawled underneath it. It's so well built, you can bet your life on it. I know. I just did.

It was a bold demonstration. And even though Chrysler Chairman Lee Iyakoka once said, Safety doesn't sell, Volvo proved him wrong. There was another memorable VW commercial done 34 years ago. It was a launch commercial for the new VW Corrado G60. It was a big leap for Volkswagen, as the Corrado was supercharged. While Volkswagen were known for reliability, they weren't known for speed. But the new Corrado G60 could go 225 kilometers an hour.

So VW asked its advertising agency to come up with a dramatic TV commercial to demonstrate the speed of the Corrado. My friend Duncan Bruce was given the assignment. As he was thinking about ideas, Duncan realized that every time he thought of a Volkswagen, the image of an old VW beetle would pop up in his mind. Then he would shake his head, start thinking about the new VW Corrado, but the VW beetle kept popping back into his mind. That's when it hit Duncan.

Maybe he could use an old VW beetle to slingshot people beyond the old perception they had about Volkswagen's. The great thing about showing a beetle was that it evoked the feeling of reliability, and it was beloved. But how do you make an old VW beetle with 30 horsepower go 225 kilometers an hour? Duncan had an idea. It was dramatic, but simple. The commercial was to say, there are two ways to make a Volkswagen go 225 kilometers an hour. The first way was to pick up an old VW beetle with a helicopter and let it drop 200 kilometers an hour to the ground.

The other way was to drive a new carrado. When Duncan presented that idea to the VW client, they reacted with, as Duncan says, slight horror. First they said, Why are you showing an old VW? Then, why are you destroying an old VW? But the more they discussed it, the more the VW clients slowly fell in love with the idea. Because this was a big launch for Volkswagen globally,

all advertising ideas had to be approved by Volkswagen Germany. They hated the idea. A lot. There was a flurry of calls from VW Germany to VW. Canada. The Canadian team said they loved the idea. The Germany headquarters said, No way in hell. Eventually, the passion of the Canadian team won out. Germany held their breath. Now Duncan had to figure out how to shoot the commercial. First, a helicopter powerful enough to lift a Volkswagen vertically off the ground had to be found.

six classic VW beetles were brought in. Duncan wanted the car to fall right side up, but when the first beetle was dropped from the helicopter, it fell trunk first because of the weight of the engine. So the engine was removed from the second beetle, but when it was dropped, the wind took it and it fell sideways. Three more attempts were made, but each time something unexpected happened that ruined the shot.

Now Duncan had five destroyed VW Beatles and only had one left. Everybody held their breath, the last Volkswagen was hoisted up by the helicopter, and let go. There are two ways to make a Volkswagen go 225 kilometers an hour. It fell perfectly. The other way is to make a new Volkswagen. The commercial then cut to exciting scenes of a Vogue,

V. W. Carrotto speeding along a twisty road. New supercharged, 158 horsepower, 225 km an hour, carrado. In the final shot of the commercial, the carrado skids to a stop. Then the old VW Beetle falls from the sky behind it in slow motion. From Volkswagen. It was a dramatic, memorable, tongue-in-cheek demonstration of the speed of the new Volkswagen. Carrotto. Back in the early 90s, Janet Keston and Nancy Vonk were a creative team at advertising agency Ogilvy and Mayther, Toronto. They were assigned to the Dove's soap account.

That year was a tipping point for the soap company, as its 35-year patent was expiring. Dove was worried a competitor had a clone product in the works. It was the first time in decades that Dove's number one status looked shaky. Because Janet and Nancy were new to the account, Dove organized a technical briefing in its lab. There they learned that Dove wasn't a soap, technically speaking. It contained a non-soap ingredient developed during World War II to gently clean the skin of burn victims. Because of that, Dove is pH neutral, which is one of the fundamental reasons why it's so

easy on skin. It didn't strip away skin oils the way other soaps do. Squeaky clean skin is actually irritated, dried out skin. The lab technicians also mentioned you could actually do a litmus test on Dove. As you may remember from high school science class, litmus paper changes color when it detects alkalinity. The lab folks told Nancy and Janet that if you were to hold a piece of yellow litmus paper to Dove, it wouldn't change color. But if you held the same litmus paper to other soaps, it would turn ink blue instantly because of the high alkalinity. Janet and Nancy asked which other soaps had that kind of high alkalinity. The answer was, all soaps. When they left the Dove lab, Nancy and Janet went to a drugstore, swept dozens of soaps off the shelf, bought some litmus paper, and took it all

back to their boardroom. They had to see it to believe it. So they held the yellow litmus paper against all the soaps, even baby soap, and they all turned dark blue again and again. But when they held the litmus paper to the dove bar, it didn't change color. That gave them an idea. The litmus test was so persuasive, why not show it on television? The resulting commercial was incredibly simple. First, it showed a piece of litmus paper being dipped into a household cleanser, which looked like a Mr. Clean bottle. It turned dark blue. Then a piece of yellow litmus paper was held against the bar of family soap,

then beauty soap, then even baby soap. In each case, the litmus paper turned blue. But when it was held against Dove, it remained yellow, measuring no alkalinity. There was no voiceover. Nancy and Janet wanted the story to be told objectively. The commercial was perceived as an enormous risk by the top brass at their own ad agency and at Leaver Brothers, parent company of Dove. The ad didn't show a woman, there was no voiceover, and the commercial contained no emotion. It was purely rational, a chemistry test. It simply broke the rules of Dove advertising,

established decades earlier by Ogilvy and Mayther founder David Oglevy. Oglevy himself was so unhappy with the proposed commercial, he even wrote a scolding letter to Oglevy, Toronto, saying, Science Won't Sell. Well, Mr. Ogilvy was wrong. When the commercial aired, Dove sales went through the roof. The simple demonstration completely refrained Dove and forced other brands to rethink the way they spoke to women

about soft, mild soaps. 33 other countries would adapt the commercial. And it all started by choosing not to tell people about the mildness of Dove, but to show people instead. The power of a demonstration commercial cannot be over. stated. Seeing is believing. When judging international advertising award shows, language can often get in the way. German judges struggle to understand English commercials, the French struggle with Portuguese commercials, English-speaking judges try to interpret Japanese ads. But there

is one universal language, the demonstration commercial. No words required. When you see a drop of crazy glue hold a construction worker in the air, it's incredibly persuasive. When a gorilla violently throws a piece of luggage around his cage and it survives, nothing else needs to be said. And when a soap tells you it's mild on your skin and proves it in real time with litmus paper, that's all you need to see. Next week we'll tackle recent demonstration commercials. It takes a confident advertiser to present a simple demonstration. No flash, no fireworks, no catchy jingles. That's when an advertiser puts their money where their mouth is.

And occasionally puts an ad writer under their Volvo. When you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terstream 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. This podcast is powered by ACAST. See you next time. Hi, this is Michelle from Toronto, Ontario. Fun fact, one day a company executive was playing with a new glue his company had developed, and he couldn't

believe how quickly it worked. He yelled, this is some crazy glue. And the name stuck.