The Real Mad Men

by Andrew Cracknell

  The resulting commercial, with almost no voice-over and the simplest of camera work and editing, is mesmerising. The chimpanzee is asked by a desk-bound executive – like it happens every day – to make a copy of a document. He takes the document, waddles to the machine, confidently and competently follows the procedure and insouciantly hands the two sheets to the executive, whose only question is ‘Which one is the original?’

  The TV ‘Chimp’ advertisement for Xerox: monkey see, monkey do.

  BY 1962 CONFIDENCE was high, billings were at $17 million and, true to their iconoclastic behaviour to date, they took one of the most radical steps ever in the history of advertising – they became the first agency to go public. The move was loudly opposed by just about everyone in business. The righteous justification, intoned for public consumption by agency chief after agency chief, was that ‘we are in the service of our clients, not anonymous shareholders’. The real reason was that few successful agencies wanted the balance sheet scrutiny that would necessarily follow the announcement of a flotation.

  Agencies were remunerated by a commission from the amount their clients spent on their media exposure, a hangover from the days when their main business was the selling of space. It meant in theory – and very often in practice – they were rewarded for not doing new work; if the same advertisment ran year after year, they would earn their commission for having done nothing more than buy the time or space from the broadcast or print media. It also meant that they had no incentive to keep media expenditure down. On top of that, revenue was bumped up by commission charged on production costs for print and TV executions, as well as on research and other ancillary services. All of which meant these advertising agencies were productive little cash machines from which their owners could withdraw more or less what they wanted, when they wanted it.

  Consequently, most of them lived – and rewarded their senior people – far more handsomely than their equivalents at the client companies, something the clients could suspect but never prove. But once you go public, the covers are off.

  Fred Papert, whose idea it was, figured he could reward himself and his partners from the pool of wealth that shareholders brought. ‘Salaries were getting too high – stock was an alternative. It was the route to real wealth, we would have made a fortune.’ And they weren’t yet fat enough to have left any skeletons in their financial cupboard.

  Lois articulated a more high-minded motive, albeit in a characteristically abrasive way. He stood received wisdom on its head and claimed that public ownership would make them better partners of their clients. ‘The concept of public ownership puts us on a par with any company that produces a product. The image of our business no longer has to be that of shufflers who make money because they have a slick line of talk. No pride, just talk.’

  Despite their howls of protestation, by the end of the decade more than twenty other agencies had sold stock, and five of the top ten were public companies. For PKL, very soon it was seen to be the genesis of the sad, slow disintegration of the agency. Once you have shareholders, you have to deliver to someone else’s expectations; doing the work you want to do, regardless of profitability, is no longer viable.

  Amongst the influx of clients excited by the freewheeling new agency was the Daddy of them all, then and now, Proctor and Gamble, the undisputed king of packaged goods.

  In retrospect it’s obvious that P&G, who were always committed to Rosser Reeves’ school of advertising, should never have gone to PKL. The last thing they wanted was any sort of originality and certainly not controversy; they wanted only that which had been done a thousand times before, anathema to PKL’s founders. But like so many other clients and agencies, they were intrigued by the new creativity and they decided to give the agency a try to see if they were missing something.

  It’s slightly more forgivable that PKL should have taken the business. There was after all a lot of money and huge credibility to be gained – if you were solid enough for P&G you were solid enough for anyone – and there were now also shareholders to satisfy. They probably made the same mistake as literally hundreds of proudly creative agencies around the world since; that of taking unimaginative left-brained clients in the hope that they would be the ones to tame the beast.

  According to Papert, Lois didn’t like the idea. ‘And he was probably right. It made our agency just like any other.’ All three – Papert, Koenig and Lois – now say that it was probably the beginning of the end for them.

  The cultural fit is so important in a business where no matter how much research you do (and PKL shared DDB’s deep suspicion of research), so many creative decisions are simply a matter of opinion. If your judgement derives from a very different outlook than that of your clients, fissures in the relationship will appear very quickly. While the agency respected P&G as a company, they had very little respect for their advertising taste, which was hardly surprising given their showreel. One example of the agency’s frustration was to be told they couldn’t show a pile of dirty washing in a Dash soap powder commercial, because it was… dirty.

  So here we have the excitable Greek art director and the one-time beatnik Jewish copywriter sitting down to discuss ideas with preppy MBAs clothed by Brooks Brothers, whose idea of a creative discussion centred on the colour of the dress worn by the obligatory happy housewife in their floor cleaner commercial. ‘Let’s get down on all fours and see this from the client’s point of view’ was a popular phrase around town.

  Defiant words, but as Bob Levenson was to say later when DDB ran into problems with their slice of P&G, ‘You can’t have Proctor & Gamble on your terms. You have Proctor & Gamble on Proctor & Gamble’s terms’, and that includes careful casting of the people who work on their business.

  Papert recalled that though Koenig could be sharp – once at a P&G internal advertising awards ceremony he thanked all of the members of the client team ‘without whose help the job would have been done a lot quicker’ – but he could also be ‘gentle and nice’.

  On the other hand, he says of Lois, ‘George is in your face. He had a problem – he wanted to work on P&G cat food but got asked off. People who like cats don’t want smart ass stuff thrown at them.’ And at PKL it wasn’t always just ‘stuff’ that got thrown in your face.

  PKL HAD A REPUTATION for brawling. In fact, the agency became known in New York as Stillman’s East, after a famous boxing gym on the West Side. As a way of settling differences of opinion, a robust physicality was never far from the surface, even if sometimes it was theatrical, like the occasion when Lois climbed out onto the windowsill of his Matzos client’s office and threatened to jump if they didn’t buy his ad.

  Jerry Della Femina claims that one former writer tried to sue the agency because the atmosphere of intimidation kept him from concentrating on his work. But Lois denies that fighting was an everyday occurrence, even though he admits to searching for three days for a member of staff who had punched the head of TV: ‘The guy didn’t come in for a week’, he growls.

  From left to right: Fred Papert, Julian Koenig, and George Lois. A Wasp, a Jew and a Greek – the prototype sixties Creative Revolution agency.

  An account handler, Carl Ally, is alleged to have punched George Lois in the stomach. Today, Lois is indignant at the suggestion: ‘Ally punched me? Are you crazy? I’d have laid him out. It was Papert he went after!’

  Illustrating the macho atmosphere at PKL, Lois recalls, ‘We had the best basketball and softball teams in advertising. Our basketball team played in the Bank league, which had all-American college guys on their teams. The agency was loaded with strong guys. We were all depression babies, a lot of ethnics, a lot of street kids. It wasn’t like walking into an Ogilvy or Benton & Bowles, it was a place where men were men. We’d play in Bedford Stuyvesant where no white people went.’

  It’s sort of appropriate that when it came to doing an ad for their women’s fashion store client, Evan-Picone, the models were dressed as mobsters and their molls. It’s equall
y appropriate that the mobsters were Charles Evans, the client; George Lois; an unidentified man from the PKL art studio; and Tony Palladino, an art director at PKL. Later, Palladino was to take the role rather too seriously in an incident in London which today seems comical but at the time was near tragic.

  In 1964, PKL had opened an office in London for no particular reason other than that, according to Lois, Papert was an Anglophile and wanted someone to book his West End theatre tickets. Two New York PKL staff members were sent over to help set up and run the office: Ron Holland and Tony Palladino. The man appointed to head the Knightsbridge agency was a red-haired, dark-suited English aristocrat, Nigel Seeley (later to become Sir Nigel), a former client of PKL in New York. An ex-Army officer, Seeley had been trained in unarmed combat.

  Says Peter Mayle, who would become PKL London’s creative director, ‘We all thought he was a toff because he took snuff and his uncle was an earl or a duke. When the uncle died, Nigel inherited the title (and his uncle’s crested socks, of which he was sinfully proud). I liked him a lot, I never found him disdainful but he certainly had a patrician manner. This might very easily have upset people.’

  George Lois, who knew Palladino from childhood, says, ‘Tony was a tough kid, ready with his dukes. He grew up in East Harlem, black neighbourhood. Number of times I’d leave school and find Tony having a fist fight with a couple of black guys. I’d have to drop my books and start swinging.’

  You can see what’s coming. It arrived about an hour before the agency Christmas party. Mayle recalls, ‘Nigel was in his office having a drink with one of the boys. I don’t know what he’d done to infuriate Tony but when he went into Nigel’s office it wasn’t to wish him Merry Christmas. Strong words must have been exchanged, causing Tony to attack Nigel with a view, or so I heard, to strangling him. Nigel stuck out a hand to defend himself. The hand was holding a glass of champagne. The glass broke off in Tony’s neck, not far from the carotid artery. Nigel’s hand was also cut open. There was an impressive amount of blood which, as Nigel and Tony moved out of Nigel’s office, dripped all over the agency – floor, desks, door handles, account executives’ trousers, everywhere.

  ‘We spent hours mopping it up, since we had a new business presentation the next morning. Someone had the presence of mind to take Tony to the nearby St George’s hospital and he was never seen in the agency again. I guess that once his wound had been sewn up he got on the first plane to somewhere less violent. Like New York.’ He had indeed. He was on a flight the next day. It seems that the Stillman’s spirit travelled well.

  IN 1963, Lois was the New York Art Directors Club Art Director of the Year. Said Herb Lubalin, ‘Nobody has the right to be so young and so successful.’ And life was good at PKL. They’d outgrown the Seagram premises and moved to Rockefeller Center, where the key people had offices overlooking the skating rink. One of their growing list of accounts was Restaurant Associates, a company that ran some of the very best eateries in Manhattan, including the hugely fashionable Four Seasons on the ground floor of the Seagram Building. It was practically the agency canteen; Lois, hair slicked back and dressed in one of his uber-sharp Roland Meledandri suits a Madison Avenue tailor whom Lois claims even Ralph Lauren worshipped, had lunch there most days. Top management could eat at whichever of the restaurants they wanted, whenever they wanted, for free. On Saturday nights, Papert and an OB&M copywriter friend Bob Marshall and their wives would see how high they could rack up the bill for dinner; $75 was a satisfying achievement one weekend.

  Chaos still reigned. There were, as Papert puts it, ‘All sorts of internal shenanigans. At one point I got fired – but I just kept coming in. It all blew over.’ New accounts arrived, often in spite of their best efforts to repel them. At a pitch to National Airlines, the agency showreel was first run backwards, and then upside down. In front of an increasingly transfixed client Papert kept up a stream of wisecracks and small talk while the film was reloaded. The projector was ready, the signal was given and the film spooled smoothly all over the floor.

  ‘We just got up and left – what’s the point? We were in the car, just about to pull away from the car park and there’s a tap on the window. It was Bud Maytag, the National Airlines client. ‘OK, we’ll do it’ he says. ‘Do what?’ ‘We’ll give you the business. At least you’ve demonstrated you’re not just slick salesmen.’

  With the problems brought about by the flotation and the tenure of P&G yet to materialise, it didn’t matter what the agency did, it worked. Everything was turned on its head. The work you did and the way you did it, the people you hired, the way they behaved, even the way they dressed. If there was a new rule, it was that there were no rules. A new account man, Ted Levinson, on asking for an agenda for a new business meeting, was told by Papert (his boss, remember), ‘Are you kidding? We don’t do agendas.’ There was a new pride – the obsequious ad hustler was dead. In his place was the assertive new ad man who would happily tell you that you may know all about your product, but don’t even think about telling him anything about advertising.

  Account executive Phil Sussbrick was with Lois at Quaker Oats in Chicago, presenting some new ads, when Lois got to one of which he was particularly proud. Sussbrick was appalled – but not particularly surprised – to hear him preface the layout with, ‘And if you don’t buy this, you can kiss my ass.’ Then he thought again, changed his mind and said, ‘No, you can kiss Sussbrick’s ass’.

  In Jerry Della Femina’s memoir he writes of a joke circulating Madison Avenue featuring the switchboard operators of various agencies. There were many variations, characterising the way the business was evolving.

  ‘Good morning, this is Ogilvy and Mather – how can we oblige?’

  ‘DDB, Shalom.’

  ‘This is PKL – who the fuck are you?’

  7Avis v Hertz

  ‘We’re all here because of you. Everything we do is to please you.’

  PEGGY OLSEN TO DON DRAPER MAD MEN

  Within the overall discipline that all advertising exists only to sell and everything else was secondary, the creative people at DDB were given complete freedom of the lay-out pad. During a 1965 interview on life at DDB, copywriter Ron Rosenfeld likened the agency to Summerhill, a leading progressive school in England. It was a touching analogy. Summerhill was almost free of rules, with a philosophy that allowed children to experience their full range of feelings. The school accepted that the freedom the children were given to make their own decisions always involved risk, and so allowed for mistakes to be made.

  This was eerily reflective of Bernbach’s attitude at DDB, and the fully-grown and otherwise hard-bitten creative people were almost dizzy with adulation of their teacher.

  ‘We were working for the approval of one person – Bill Bernbach,’ says art director Bob Kuperman. ‘To get your ad pinned up on his “Best of the Month” board, they wanted that more than anything, more than any awards. They were only juries. But this was Bernbach.’

  ‘We did it to see Bill’s eyes light up’, said Bob Gage.

  This near self-abasement had its material consequences. DDB were dreadful paymasters, knowing that people would take a cut in salary to work there. Kuperman turned down an offer from Delehanty, Kurnit & Geller that would have trebled his salary. Later in the sixties, when the size borne of its very success became the seed of its own slow decline and DDB lost some of its passion, the creative people were surprised by how far they’d fallen behind in the salaries they could command.

  But for the time being they didn’t care. In return for their cultish submission within the Church of Bernbach they were granted holy status without. If you worked for DDB you moved in rarefied air, and you knew it. Jim Raniere, an art director, remembered the parties that production companies would throw around Christmas and holidays: ‘You go into this huge room with all the advertising people in New York going to dance and eat and Doyle Dane used to stand to one side, not mixing. I think we were, at that time, a little self-involved. Well,
we were doing the work so we felt we were different from the way they were doing it.’

  The work continued to dazzle. Coffee of Colombia was sold with bonhomie through a good-natured fictitious coffee grower, Juan Valdez. A campaign was created for the Jamaica Tourist Board that was as literary and elegant as anything Ogilvy had ever written for the British Tourist Authority. Some of the sly wit of Orbach’s and VW showed through in a Chivas Regal campaign of such clever conviction that it turned an ordinary whisky into, in its own unashamed words, the ‘Chivas Regal of Whiskies’.

  THE NEXT CAMPAIGN to attract the same attention and admiration as Volkswagen was Avis. Robert ‘Bob’ Townsend, a former American Express executive, had been appointed by banker Lazard Freres in a last ditch attempt to save the ailing car hire firm, which had been leaching money for eleven consecutive years. His approach was about as unconventional as his eventual advertising.

  As Clive Challis reports in Helmut Krone. The Book, ‘Townsend dispensed with a secretary, fired the Avis public relations department, insisted that management undergo the same training as the field staff, cut meeting times by insisting that everybody stand up throughout them and later wrote the bestseller Up the Organisation. [It] went into several reprints and became something of a handbook for an alternative management style.’

  When he called Bernbach to outline his problem and asked how they would work together, the answer he got was so extraordinary that Townsend wrote it down.

  ‘What you do is let us have 90 days to learn your business, and then you run every ad where we tell you to put it and just as we write it. You don’t change a thing.’ He then urged Townsend to call all DDB’s existing clients for a recommendation and that was it – The Presentation. Take it or leave it. Townsend couldn’t resist.