Agency creative coming out of East Coast agencies continues to surprise and enlighten viewers everywhere. There were the Survivor-themed ads for Reebok from Berlin Cameron & Partners, New York. Arnold Communications, Boston, broke a simply animated campaign for pre-owned Volkswagens. And the Olympics have kept New York shops such as Ogilvy & Mather (IBM), BBDO (Visa, Texaco) and Cliff Freeman and Partners (Coca-Cola) quite busy.
This week’s Special Report examines a few of the recent campaigns from East Coast shops, and looks at Helayne Spivack, the former chief creative officer at J. Walter Thompson, New York, who recently came on board boutique firm Artustry Partnership as a creative partner. In "New Ad Venture," SHOOT talks to Spivack about the changing nature of advertising. She also discusses what it’s like to go from a large, full-service agency to a hybrid shop such as Artustry, the company started by a contingent of people in the ad business, including director Bob Giraldi of bicoastal Giraldi Suarez Productions, and David Sklaver, the former president of now defunct Wells Rich Greene BDDP. Artustry bills itself as representing a new business model that is able to work on a case-by-case basis. Spivack says that at Artusry, each client’s needs are considered, and then talent is brought in that is suited to the individual project. "Here, David Sklaver and myself and Bob Giraldi sit down with our clients" she notes. "We first see what they need and we build the correct teams. There’s a lot less second-guessing. … And [the clients] know that what we’re focused on is the task at hand. There’s no hidden agenda. It’s a freer way of working."
When Sony wanted to reintroduce its Walkman to college-aged kids, the company didn’t go with a typical spokesperson. Instead, Sony turned to Plato, a big-headed, blue alien who is starting his freshman year of college. Plato was introduced in "Spaceship," which featured the little blue guy driving through nebulas, asteroid clusters, and freeways on his way to college. Subsequent spots in the series show him as a ladies man about campus. In "Alien Encounters," Nelson Martinez and Randy Van Kleeck, senior partners/creatives at Young & Rubicam, New York, the agency behind Plato, talk about the origins of the campaign. "We definitely knew we didn’t want to go with CGI," Van Kleeck says of the decision to make Plato a puppet. "I think the thing we were most concerned about was not trying to fool people. We also thought it would be funny to have something that was obviously a puppet, without seeing the strings."
One of the hardest aspects of creating advertising for an older product is making it relevant to both new and old customers. The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va., addresses that problem with an ingenious campaign for TV Land, the Nickelodeon spin-off that shows reruns of classic TV shows. The campaign, which uses the tag "Times Change, Great TV Doesn’t," features clips of old shows such as The Honeymooners and Emergency!. In "Re-Runs With A Twist," Bob Meagher, Pat Wittich, and Cliff Sorah, The Martin Agency team behind the spots, discuss how they found their footage from old episodes of the shows. Although it may seem like funasitting around and watching TV all dayathe creatives are quick to point out that sifting through clips is an arduous task. "The client told us the shows they wanted to highlight," Meagher explains. "…We’d tape [at least] six hours of shows a day off the TV. It would take us all day just to go through the stuff."
SHOOT will continue to bring you insight into the agency creative process, and as always, we welcome your feedback.
