hair and fire
vinay kamat
Here’s a true Sunday entertainer—a book straight from the copywriter’s desk. It tells you which soundbites sell, why insights score over ideas, and how to pitch an idea at GE’s Jack Welch, FedEx’s Fred Smith and Pepsi’s Roger Enrico. Phil Dusenberry’s book is an ad zapper: you will look at the world of advertising afresh.
Don’t be misled by the title, though: Then We Set His Hair On Fire. Nothing punk about it. The title comes from a Pepsi ad shoot done by ad agency BBDO featuring Michael Jackson. “Michael’s hair caught on fire from an exploding special-effects fireworks tower at the edge of the stage. It was a fluke, an errant leaping flame that somehow covered enough stage space to attach to Michael’s hair.” Needless to say, the accident—and the commercial—became a phenomenon. And a title.
Dusenberry’s take on advertising—a domain he bestrode as BDO North America’s chairman and chief creative officer—is like an ‘errant leaping flame’ in today’s world of search-driven text ads and viral marketing. His creative epiphanies hardly make sense to a generation that hates to listen; they may be even out of tune in a world of comparison shopping. But his is a world that creatively triggered romance between the consumer and the brand.
That romance is now called relationship. Cupid has changed, too. Gone is the copy writer. Instead, you have a one-on-one relationship blossoming in cyberspace between the user and the brand.
Dusenberry’s book centres around insights that created brands. Like GE’s famous one-liner, We bring good things to life, which was born in a cab as DBDO’s creative team “honked, bounced, and stalled our way through traffic.” Then came Pepsi’s The choice of a new generation, a super-phrase that was coined 20 minutes before presentation.
The best part in the book is Dusenberry’s belief in insights: “In the advertising world, a good idea can inspire a great commercial. But a good insight can fuel a thousand ideas, a thousand commercials…At the risk of overstating the value of We bring the good things to life, I would argue that it was more than just effective advertising slogan. It also explained the fundamental rationale for (Jack) Welch’s company: every business GE goes into must provide a benefit to some consumer constituency, must make people’s lives better.”
But where does Dusenberry’s ‘insight moment’ fall? Does it fall between innovation and execution? Can it be applied to other wings of business or other organizations? Does it qualify as an out-of-box thought? Is it the answer to creative advertising’s ills?
Here’s the last word from Dusenberry, on ‘insight moment’: “The moment you hear it, you can’t see the world in any other way.” That is good old creativity reminding you that it is still around. You may need a Sunday and Dusenberry’s book to realize that.
Here’s a true Sunday entertainer—a book straight from the copywriter’s desk. It tells you which soundbites sell, why insights score over ideas, and how to pitch an idea at GE’s Jack Welch, FedEx’s Fred Smith and Pepsi’s Roger Enrico. Phil Dusenberry’s book is an ad zapper: you will look at the world of advertising afresh.
Don’t be misled by the title, though: Then We Set His Hair On Fire. Nothing punk about it. The title comes from a Pepsi ad shoot done by ad agency BBDO featuring Michael Jackson. “Michael’s hair caught on fire from an exploding special-effects fireworks tower at the edge of the stage. It was a fluke, an errant leaping flame that somehow covered enough stage space to attach to Michael’s hair.” Needless to say, the accident—and the commercial—became a phenomenon. And a title.
Dusenberry’s take on advertising—a domain he bestrode as BDO North America’s chairman and chief creative officer—is like an ‘errant leaping flame’ in today’s world of search-driven text ads and viral marketing. His creative epiphanies hardly make sense to a generation that hates to listen; they may be even out of tune in a world of comparison shopping. But his is a world that creatively triggered romance between the consumer and the brand.
That romance is now called relationship. Cupid has changed, too. Gone is the copy writer. Instead, you have a one-on-one relationship blossoming in cyberspace between the user and the brand.
Dusenberry’s book centres around insights that created brands. Like GE’s famous one-liner, We bring good things to life, which was born in a cab as DBDO’s creative team “honked, bounced, and stalled our way through traffic.” Then came Pepsi’s The choice of a new generation, a super-phrase that was coined 20 minutes before presentation.
The best part in the book is Dusenberry’s belief in insights: “In the advertising world, a good idea can inspire a great commercial. But a good insight can fuel a thousand ideas, a thousand commercials…At the risk of overstating the value of We bring the good things to life, I would argue that it was more than just effective advertising slogan. It also explained the fundamental rationale for (Jack) Welch’s company: every business GE goes into must provide a benefit to some consumer constituency, must make people’s lives better.”
But where does Dusenberry’s ‘insight moment’ fall? Does it fall between innovation and execution? Can it be applied to other wings of business or other organizations? Does it qualify as an out-of-box thought? Is it the answer to creative advertising’s ills?
Here’s the last word from Dusenberry, on ‘insight moment’: “The moment you hear it, you can’t see the world in any other way.” That is good old creativity reminding you that it is still around. You may need a Sunday and Dusenberry’s book to realize that.
posted by vinay kamat at 8:50 AM
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