Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Terry's Book Club (From the AOP Archives)

Episode Date: November 4, 2023

This week, we invite you to our Book Club. We'll be telling stories from Terry's favourite advertising books, and will examine the incredible lessons they contain that have served him well for his entire career. By the way, a few of those books aren’t even about advertising. In fact, one is a book about science, and another is about theatre actors.But each one contains incredible wisdom that can be applied directly to the world of advertising and marketing.And everyday life. 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. 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.

There is a book that is quite famous in the advertising business. It was written by Jerry Della Femina. The title is From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor. It comes from a meeting Jerry Della Femina was in as a young ad writer. It was his first day on the job at an advertising agency in the early 1960s. The ad men were sitting around a boardroom table one day, trying to think of a new slogan for Panasonic, the Japanese electronics company. Everybody was sitting there, stumped.

So, Della Famina figured he better say something. After all, he was the new guy, and they were paying him $50,000 a year plus a $5,000 expense account. So he piped up and said, Hey, I've got it. Everybody suddenly swung around and looked at him. Then Del Femina said, I think a great headline for Panasonic would be

From those wonderful folks who gave you Pearl Harbor. It was complete silence. Dead silence. But that was Jerry Della Famina. He was outrageous, brash, and willing to shake it up. Della Famina's book is a no-holes-barred look at the advertising industry during the Mad Men era. It's filled with dark yet hilarious tales of the ad business,

and one in particular had an impact on me as a young ad writer starting out. Della Femina tells the story of an agency going to pitch a big new account. The ad guys walked into the boardroom and sat across from half a dozen people from the client side. The top account man from the agency who would be leading the pitch arrived late. When it was his turn to speak, he stood up and looked down the line at each client, searching for the one person he was going to zero in on. See, in every meeting there is one person who will make the ultimate decision to hire, or not hire, the advertising agency.

But finding that person isn't always easy in the first meeting. So the account man spotted one person at the boardroom table who looked important, very inquisitive, and who leaned in as he started his pitch. That's the guy the account man decided was the decision maker in the room. He stared him straight in the eye all the way through the pitch, never taking his eyes off him for 45 minutes. In his mind, he threw the rest of the people out of the room

and sold, sold, sold to this one man. When the meeting was over, the account man was convinced he had made a persuasive pitch to the most powerful man in the room. When the meeting adjourned, everybody shook hands and the ad men left to go back to the agency. That's when something strange happened in the parking lot. The client the account man had focused on appeared and jumped into the cab with the rest of the agency people. That's when the account man realized that the guy he had focused the entire pitch on was, in fact, a new guy who had just joined his ad agency. He had just laser-beamed his whole pitch to his own employee, to the exclusion of the

real clients. That story, besides being hilarious, made a powerful impression on me. When I read that 30 years ago, I made a lasting mental note to always know, ahead of time, who the decision-maker was in any boardroom. I made it a point to find out who my clients were by name when meeting them, understanding what their roles were, and, importantly, where the power resides in the room. Because in a pitch, you don't count the votes, you weigh them.

I've learned a lot about the advertising business from reading books. That's why I'm always on the lookout for new ones and old ones written by people who have a few miles on their odometer. Today, I'm going to talk to you about some of the best books I've read and tell you a few of the stories that come from those pages. Each book contains incredible wisdom that I've taken to heart and lessons that have served me well over the course of my career. And by the way, not all of them are advertising books. As a matter of

fact, one is a sports book and another is about theater actors. But as I learned a long time ago, some of the best books on advertising aren't always about advertising. You're Under the Influence. The first book we're going to pull from the Under the Influence shelves is titled Leap, written by Bob Schmetterer, the former chairman of advertising agency Euro RSCG Worldwide. It's a fascinating book where Bob tells first-hand stories of advertisers who use big, creative ideas to leap ahead of the competition. One of the most insightful examples comes from Buenos Aires.

An advertising agency there had a client who needed an advertising campaign to launch a big, new, riverfront real estate development called Madero Este. It covered a seven-block area and included a Hilton Hotel, a convention center, office and apartment buildings, a mall with an 18-theater cineplex, a sea museum, and a 2,500-foot pedestrian street

for outdoor events. As Schmetterer writes, it was more than a new neighborhood. It would be a city within a city. The developer writes, The development was located on the Rio de la Plata riverbank, but it had one big drawback. It was situated in a remote part of the city. So the advertising campaign had a clear objective, to generate awareness and drive traffic to the out-of-the-way

complex. Budget? Four million dollars. But as the marketing was taking shape, something bothered the ad agency. The typical recommendation, and the one the client was expecting, was a comprehensive multimedia advertising campaign that persuaded shoppers to come out to the Madero estate complex by highlighting all the features of the new development, coupled with compelling reasons to go the extra distance to get there. But the ad agency couldn't help but think that spending $4 million on an ad campaign would be a mistake. And that's a highly unusual thought for an advertising agency. Given its absolutely

inconvenient location, the agency believed that no ad campaign could truly drive the level of traffic required to be a success. There was just too much competition from existing malls that were much easier to get to.

So they began to explore other ways to communicate the existence of the Madero Este complex. They began conducting research to determine where the traffic would come from, what the most compelling reason would be to go there, and how people would get to the out-of-the-way location. It was while pondering that last question that they made a fascinating, counterintuitive leap. Instead of building an ad campaign, why not build something that would literally bring people out to the complex?

In other words, why not build a bridge? Their idea was to build an actual pedestrian bridge that would cross the river and provide easy access for the public. Then they pushed the idea one step further. Many of the world's major cities have famous landmarks. In Sydney, you have the Opera House. In New York, you have the Empire State Building. And in Toronto, you've got the CN Tower. But in Buenos Aires, landmarks were scarce. Therefore, instead of a utilitarian bridge, they suggested a world-renowned architect. So, let me ask you this. If you were a CEO who

had asked for a marketing campaign, and your ad agency came back with a bridge, what would you say? Really, what would you say? say. The Madero Estee CEO sat there absolutely stunned, but the ad agency made a powerful case and he listened. Fortunately, this CEO was a man of vision and he bought the bridge. Even though the press and even the advertising industry both dismissed the idea initially, the beautifully designed footbridge became a landmark and a symbol of the new Buenos Aires. It eventually generated more publicity than any advertising campaign ever could have and literally brought shoppers out by the thousands. It was an out-of-the-park home run. Bob Schmetterer's book Leap is full of remarkable stories,

but I was drawn to this one because it demonstrated that not all business problems can be solved with advertising. That even though an advertising campaign was the expected solution, the advertising agency looked at the problem with fresh eyes.

Fast Company co-founder Bill Taylor calls this Vujaday. We all know what Deja Vu is. It's looking at an unfamiliar situation and feeling as if you have seen it before. But Vujaday is the opposite. It means looking at a familiar situation as if you have never seen it before. And that's exactly what the ad agency did. They stared at a familiar request for an advertising solution, but looked at the problem as if they had never seen it before.

That fresh view led them to dismiss the conventional wisdom of recommending an advertising campaign, and instead, they recommended a bridge. The task was to drive traffic. Who knew they would take that challenge literally? But what happens when your customer traffic completely disappears and you're staring at bankruptcy? Our next book from the Under the Influence library is a bit dusty.

It's titled The New Advertising, and it was written by Robert Glatzer in 1970. The book is about the 1960s creative revolution in advertising that changed everything. On page 53, Glatzer tells the story of how ad agency Doyle Dane Burnback, or DDB as it's now called, helped rescue the Levy's bread account. Once upon a time, there was a little Jewish bakery in Brooklyn. For 30 years, it quietly sold bagels, onion rolls, and challah to the faithful. Then, trying to expand, it went into packaged rice, pumpernickel, raisin bread, and other trendy products. Jewish folks stopped buying, and the Gentiles didn't start. Things went from bad to worse, until one day the little bakery went into bankruptcy.

The bank appointed a receiver, and that receiver hired DDB to hopefully turn the bakery around. The receiver told ad agency owner Bill Bernbach that they wanted to get their Jewish customers back. Bernbach, who was Jewish, tasted the packaged breads and said, No Jew would eat your bread. If you want more business, we have to advertise to the Gentiles. So, DDB created a very witty, very smart print campaign aimed at New York's army of Wonder Bread eaters. Sales improved, but the large grocery chains still refused to stock Levy's. So, DDB wrote a radio campaign featuring the voice of a little boy asking for... In no time,

people all over New York were walking around saying, I love levies. And before long, grocery stores added levies to their shelves. Then DDB created subway posters with one of the most famous slogans in the advertising business.

Each ad showed people, like a Native American or an Asian child, eating the bread with a big smile under the line, You don't have to be Jewish to love levies. The posters were beautifully designed, and you can still find them online after all these years. Since Jewish people weren't buying levies anyway, and since Gentiles often thought Jewish foods were delicious, the posters were a huge success.

The campaign was charming, had a sense of humor, and people loved it. It created a personality for lev's and the bread it made. But here's the interesting thing. That personality wasn't based on logic, facts, or information. The ads asked people who liked the advertisements to buy the bread

because they liked the advertisements and because the ads represented a company that made eating bread a pleasure. This is an important point in why I include this story here today. The campaign used emotion instead of logic. It didn't compare Levy's bread to other competitors or tell you how it was made or make big claims about being better. As a matter of fact, the campaign was based on honesty.

DDB recognized the bread had no discernible characteristics that might make it better than their rivals. No advantages of flavor, nutrition, or appearance. Instead of claiming virtues where there were none, DDB gave Levy's a personality that differed from its rivals. And by using gentle humor, the ad agency made the Levy's name recognizable to New Yorkers. It was an emotional connection. That's not to say reason and logic

have no place in advertising, but when one product is largely similar to another, the product with the most sharply defined personality wins. When people feel a connection to a product, if it makes them feel good or

smile or laugh, they will reach for that product over all others. You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's, but you gotta love their thinking. Another book I read recently is titled The Captain's Class, A New Theory of Leadership by Sam Walker. The book takes an absolutely fascinating look at the elite captains of sports teams and how important they are.

Many of the best captains are not the top scorers or stars on the team, but they are the essential backbone. And often, a team is more likely to become elite if it has a captain who leads from the shadows. Walker gives the example of basketball player Bill Russell. What distinguished Russell wasn't his mediocre dribbling or scoring. It was his dedication to playing without the ball. For example, Bill Russell's block of Jack Coleman's shot in the 1957 NBA Finals

is considered one of the most incredible physical acts ever done on the basketball floor. The then St. Louis Hawks were trailing the Boston Celtics by one point with only 40 seconds left in the game. The Hawks' Jack Coleman got a breakaway pass and charged towards the net. There wasn't a single Celtic player near him. He was all alone. He took one dribble, left his feet, and stretched out his arm to roll in a layup to win the game and the championship.

But just as the ball left his fingertips, a giant white-shirted blur engulfed him from behind. It was Russell, who seemingly came out of nowhere and somehow, someway, blocked the shot. Russell was 92 feet away when he began his pursuit. He had to travel 31 feet per second to do it, meaning he was moving at a speed of 21 miles per hour. A near impossible feat. But he did it. That historic defensive play was typical of Bill Russell's leadership. His career mark in defensive win shares is the best in NBA history by a remarkable

23% margin. Russell wasn't a particularly friendly player and he had no interest in being in the Hall of Fame. He just wanted to win and he made everyone around him better. Leaders like Russell know how to close the gap between the team's current state of being and the one it needs in order to succeed. In any endeavor, leadership makes the difference. People respond to leadership in a remarkable way. They want to be inspired, and they want to be nobly led.

We're programmed to respond to brave, steadfast, and fiercely committed leadership. Walker says leaders are like the verb in a sentence. Not as memorable as the nouns, not as evocative as the adjectives, and not as expressive as punctuation. But in the closed unit of a great sentence, the verb is the only essential component. Another wonderful book I devoured recently is about theater performers.

The title is The Spectator, and it's comprised of a series of conversations broadcaster and Pulitzer Prize winner Studs Terkel had with leading stage actors and directors. In one chapter,

Terkel has an extremely interesting conversation with Marcel Marceau, who was the world's greatest mime artist. You'll remember this famous sketch of Marceau, who was the world's greatest mime artist. You'll remember this famous sketch of Marceau's. Love that one.

In the book, Marceau tells Turkle an interesting story about performing in Japan. One of his most famous pantomime performances was called The Staircase. In it,

Marcel Marceau climbs what seems to be an unending series of stairs, all alone, on stage, with mime. In New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, the audiences roared with laughter. It became one of Marceau's most famous sketches. But in Japan, nobody laughed. The American public found this mime so amusing because they identified with tall buildings and onerous staircases. But in Japan, they didn't laugh

because houses there were so small at the time. They had no staircases. The miming of walking up 30 flights of stairs didn't resonate with them. And that is such an important lesson. People can only laugh if they recognize themselves in comedy or tragedy. That is also the key to successful advertising. It has to be based on an insight that comes from real life. Good advertising mirrors customers, but great storytelling mirrors the human experience.

It seeks to find a common bond, a universal truth, to gather as many people as possible in a relevant way. As Turkle points out in his book, people haven't changed since the days of Shakespeare. What the Bard was writing about in his plays, ambition, fear, jealousy,

love, and betrayal, were all relevant in the 16th and 17th centuries. All relevant now. All relevant long before Shakespeare. In other words, the basic desires that motivate us all, no matter how old you are, what gender you identify with,

or where you live, never change. That's why a product or service can connect with huge swaths of individuals who seem to have nothing in common. Because basic human experience is the most powerful bond of all. It is said that when an old person dies, a library burns down. So much wisdom is taken to the grave. But books live on. There are some books I've read once and always remembered.

Others I reread time and again. Some of the most valuable lessons I've learned, I've learned from books. From those wonderful folks who gave you Pearl Harbor by Jerry De La Femina taught me the importance of determining where the power resides in a boardroom. Leap by Bob Schmetterer gives readers an incredible lesson in how to look at problems with fresh eyes. The new advertising by Bob Glatzer is about how the creative revolution changed everything in advertising

by using the heat of emotion instead of cold, hard logic. The Captain's Class by Sam Walker shines a light on the value of people who lead their teams to greatness, but do it quietly, without fanfare. And lastly, The Spectator by Studs Terkel is a rare collection of theater wisdom about the importance of knowing your audience. It's all there for the taking and the reading. The willingness to learn is up to you 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 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.

Here's some news. You can now listen to our podcasts on the YouTube Music app. Just search Apostrophe Podcasts. More episodes are added every week. And if you think there are too many ads in a show about advertising, I won't judge. You can listen to our podcasts ad-free

on Amazon Music. See you next week. Fun fact! In the Mel Brooks film, Silent Movie, the only person with the speaking role is mime artist Marcel Marceau. All of a sudden, he's a chatty Cathy.