Mountain Dew’s soda-swallowing Cheetah, Visa’s synchronized swimmers, the irritated stadium groundskeeper from the Snickers’ "Chefs" spot—none of them would exist if it weren’t for BBDO New York’s newest trio of executive VPs/executive creative directors: Gerry Graf, Jimmy Siegel and Bill Bruce.
When Siegel was promoted to the post last August, Ted Sann, who is chairman/chief creative officer at BBDO New York, and vice chairman/chief creative office of BBDO North America, observed, "He inspires those around him with the idea that good work is so much more enjoyable than bad work."
The same can be also said for Bruce, who was promoted this past May, and for Graf, who returned to BBDO last September after a stint at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), San Francisco. While their styles and personalities are different, the three former copywriters do have something in common: a highly creative, collaborative approach that has resulted in some of BBDO’s most memorable—and enjoyable—recent work.
Bill Bruce
Ever since his days at Michigan State, Bill Bruce had wanted to go into advertising. "Had I grown up somewhere other than Detroit, I probably would have opted for film school," he says. "But it seemed [commercials] were becoming such a piece of pop culture that it would be a fun way to make a living."
As one of the creators of Mountain Dew’s long-running "Do the Dew" campaign, Bruce has made quite an impact on pop culture. The irreverent campaign—which began back in 1993 and features Gen-Xers engaging in extreme Dew-inspired activities—has garnered numerous industry accolades, and proved enormously popular. It’s one of the longest-running campaigns in the soft drink category. "For me, if something was cool at one point," observes Bruce, "there’s something in it that would resonate today."
"Cheetah," which debuted on the ’00 Super Bowl telecast, continues to resonate with viewers. Created by Bruce and directed by Kinka Usher of Santa Monica-based House of Usher, the ad depicts a young man chasing down a Cheetah, reaching down the animal’s throat and pulling out a can of Mountain Dew. "The thought of the fastest land animal taking off with this guy’s Dew seemed like a funny thought," Bruce relates. In addition to "Cheetah," Bruce has worked on other noteworthy Mountain Dew spots—including "Duo," directed by Tarsem of bicoastal/international @radical.media, which was inspired by Asian action/fantasy films; and "Ram," also helmed by Usher, which features one of the Dew guys literally butting heads with a ram for his soda.
In his new position, Bruce oversees the Mountain Dew, Sierra Mist and DuPont Stainmaster accounts, as well as all work for a new Mountain Dew product called Code Red. For all of his clients, Bruce continues to play an active role in creating spots. "Beyond all the titles, I consider myself a writer," states Bruce, who joined BBDO in ’87, and prior to being upped at the shop, had served as executive VP/senior creative director. "The management part is nice because it gives you a certain level of autonomy," he notes. "But the critical thing for me is just to do the work. That’s what I still get excited about. If it weren’t for that, then I would move on to something else."
While he can’t divulge too many details, Bruce is particularly excited about an upcoming package for Code Red, directed by Paul Hunter of bicoastal HSI Productions. "It’s a different approach," he hints. "I think that, at times, the stuff we work on can be knocked as over-produced. [The criticism] usually comes from smaller or mid-sized boutique agencies. But whatever we do, we approach it as to what’s the best way to communicate the idea. And this Code Red work—it’s a different idea, and we approached it in a very different way production-wise."
Bruce, who has worked with such directors as Tarsem and bicoastal Mars Media’s Samuel Bayer, says that Hunter was as excited about the Code Red work as he was. "I always try to look for directors who not only are right for a project, but have a level of enthusiasm for it," he relates. "If they’re into the work, that goes a long way."
Gerry Graf
"I usually look for clients that want some comedy," says Gerry Graf. He doesn’t seem to have any trouble finding them. In the mid-’90s, he helped conceive, along with his then-partner David Gray, Snickers’ humorous, award-winning "Not going anywhere for a while? Grab a Snickers" campaign. During the three years he spent at GS&P, he was part of the creative team that crafted notably funny spots for such clients as E*trade and Nike. (Gray remains a creative director at GS&P.)
Since his return to BBDO, Graf has been showing no signs of gravity. His recent campaign for Red Stripe beer features a smiling Jamaican spokesman, who pitches the product in various unconventional ways in five ads: "Ugly," "Inner You," "White Man Dancing," "Short & Stubby" and "Parade." In "Ugly," for instance, the spokesman demonstrates the fact that the Red Stripe bottle is so unattractive, it can make even an ugly person look beautiful. Directed by Marcos Siega of bicoastal/ international hungry man, all of the quirky Red Stripe spots feature the tagline "Hooray beer!" and look as if they were shot on a very low budget.
"We wanted the ads to obviously have a Jamaican feel to them, but we didn’t want to go the cliché route with a Rastafarian pitching the stuff," says Graf, who wrote the spots with his frequent collaborator (and former GS&P co-worker), freelancer Harold Einstein.
"Our mindset was, there’s a small agency in Jamaica, with two guys just screwing around, writing ads," he relates. "Whenever we got sidetracked, and we started doing stuff that was ‘commercial-y,’ we’d remind ourselves of that."
Siega "wanted to shoot it on Super 16 to give it a rough edge, so we did that," Graf continues. "He had a lot of input."
On all of his projects, Graf likes to play an active, collaborative role with directors. "That’s probably the most important thing for me," says the creative, whose accounts include Federal Express, Doritos and Guinness. "It’s great when you meet somebody who is open to your ideas, when they realize that the script is just a beginning and we’ll be thinking up things as we go along. Almost everything on my reel has an element that wasn’t in the script until we started rolling the camera."
Graf has come a long way since his days as a pre-med student at Notre Dame University, South Bend, Ind. Even though he "gave up on the doctor thing" before graduation, he didn’t immediately go into advertising. "I was a stock broker for two years, and it turned out I was a very bad stock broker," he explains, "so I decided to try to do something I liked doing."
Graf began working as a copywriter, and went to BBDO in ’94. He left for Goodby in ’97, but returned in the fall of ’00 when he was offered the executive creative director position. "I hate California," he explains. "I always wanted to get back to New York. There just wasn’t a good opportunity until the BBDO position opened up."
Graf, who is currently working on projects for FedEx and Doritos, has a great deal to look forward to. But, as he points out, he also has a lot to look back on, such as Snickers’ "Chefs," which was directed by Bryan Buckley and Frank Todaro. They were then a directing duo out of @radical.media, called Buckley/ Todaro; today, Todaro remains a director with @radical.media, while Buckley is a partner/director at hungry man. "Chefs" stars an elderly stadium groundskeeper who discovers that he has left the ‘I’ out of the Kansas City Chiefs’ name while painting it on the end zone. After realizing his error, the man exclaims, "Great googley moogley!"—a line that Graf is proud to have introduced into the advertising lexicon. "That’s the one line that people quote," he smiles. "I actually got it from Sanford and Son. Grady said it to Fred once."
Jimmy Siegel
Advertising has changed a great deal since Jimmy Siegel came to BBDO as a junior copywriter in ’79. "Back then, it was always three vignettes, a middle and a button," he recalls. "There were still a lot of jingles. Everything was sort of formulaic."
Still, the young aspiring novelist took his job quite seriously. "I look back on some of the things I did as a junior writer that I passionately defended and I think, ‘Oh, my God. They’re so terrible,’ " Siegel laughs. "I remember doing things with Sherlock Holmes saying, ‘I deduce there’s carrots in this Campbell’s Soup’—things like that, which were just awful. I think it takes a number of years before you start to realize what’s good and what’s not good."
Siegel clearly realizes that now. He’s won numerous industry awards, and has created such acclaimed spots as Visa’s "Synchronized Commercialism" and Schwab’s "Retirement Home"—both of which were directed by David Cornell of bicoastal Headquarters. Siegel frequently collaborates with the director. "We trust each other’s strengths," says Siegel of Cornell, whose 2001 nomination for the Directors Guild of America Award for best commercial director was based entirely on work he helmed for BBDO. "I think he’s really a brilliant shooter with a great artistic eye. And conversely, I think he trusts me as far as things like performance and dialogue go. It makes for a wonderful shooting relationship."
Cornell also shares Siegel’s fluid approach to spotmaking. "I’ve always felt that a board is basically just a blueprint," the creative observes. "My particular method is, once I’ve sold that spot, I immediately start thinking of how to make it better: What can we do to it, what variations can we try? David loves that. We could be on our last day of shooting a spot with an hour left of light, and we’ll come up with a completely different way to go. If it has promise, he’ll try to make it happen."
A more recent collaboration with Cornell is Schwab’s "Princess." The spot features Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, telling a fairy tale to a young girl—only there is a twist. The princess meets her prince, but makes wise investment choices using Schwab services in case her knight in shining armor doesn’t stick around.
Though Siegel was a senior VP/senior creative director for several years before his promotion, he’s never been a typical "hands-off" advertising executive. "To me, the fun of shooting is sitting there, looking at the monitor as things are shot and immediately thinking, ‘Wait a minute. If the guy says this instead of that, or if you move this guy here and switch this and bring this in, it could be very funny.’ And then going ahead and doing it," he relates. "Things occur to you in casting, but things also occur to you on the set, and they’re fun to try. The same thing happens in editing. You could look at something and try different things, and you’d be surprised how sometimes you can go in a completely different way, and it’s better."
In hiring directors, Siegel looks first and foremost for an open mind. "There are directors who shall remain nameless who I don’t work with anymore," he reports. "Not only were they not collaborative, they could be downright unpleasant. I realize that there are too many good directors out there. You don’t have to be limited."
Siegel also refuses to limit himself. In addition to overseeing the Visa and Schwab accounts for the shop, he also works on "a piece of Pepsi and some Frito-Lay" projects. Siegel has found time to realize his early dream of becoming a published author. His literary thriller Epitaph came out in June from Warner Books. "I deferred it for many years, but I was finally able to get a book published," he says with a smile. "I guess I’ve come full circle."
