And was the guy in the grassy knoll from Madison Avenue?

The Hathaway Shirts man revealed

An article by theatre critic Richard Ouzounian in Tuesday’s Toronto Star, (Time in a Mad Men World) travels the well-tread ground of blaming Madison Avenue for pretty well every ill confronting the modern world.

Having attended “a scholarship Jesuit boys’ prep school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan” during the early to mid sixties, he and his friends “wore jackets and ties and moved within that bubble of artificial but attractive sophistication that was Manhattan in the 1960s.”

It was during this time that the “real-life equivalents of Drapper and company at Sterling Cooper” force-fed Ouzounian and his friends with the lies that would scar each of them for life.

“Hathaway delivered to us a mysterious gentleman with an eye patch who wore shirts that bespoke a world of sophistication filled with stripes and colours that our white-on-white world could only gawk at, culminating in a campaign for one shade called ‘Cezanne Blue’ that had us wishing we dared to wear such an assertive hue.”

God help us! Images of men in shirts! Striped shirts!

Blue shirts!!

As if fully clothed men weren’t bad enough, Ouzounian complains that these propagandistic messages were completely devoid of warnings, such as: “Pursue this dream and your life will eventually self-destruct.”

If this seems over the top, just look at what happened to his friends.

The “Pete Campbell” of his group became a “cold-blooded creature with a weakness for vulnerable women,” who entered the priesthood, only to leave it for “the secular world and marriage, still searching for meaning.” You have to admit, this could only have been caused by advertising. Certainly the Jesuit school had nothing to do with it.

Meanwhile, the “seemingly solid Harry Crane of our world went through four wives and an equal number of treatment centres before falling off the radar permanently.” What else could cause multiple marriages and the need for therapy? And certainly nobody would ever lose track of old school buddies if it weren’t for advertising.

And the closeted gay “Salvatore Romano” among them married, moved to suburbia, and raised a family. “It was decades later,” says Ouzounian, “when he was dying of cancer this past summer that we learned he had finally admitted his homosexuality after years of repressing it through alcoholism.” Ah, for those bucolic days before advertising when gays could live openly and without shame!

There is more — oh, so much more, in Ouzounian’s muddled scree against Madison Avenue. But what really puzzles me is why he, like so many others, seems determined to present himself as a helpless, empty-headed automaton. During the same period of time in which Ouzounian and his buddies were being brainwashed into drinking Beefeater martinis (“because that’s what we were told to consume”) and smoking Benson & Hedges (” because they bespoke true sophistication”) millions of his contemporaries were reaching out to new ways of living, completely separate from the diabolical messages of advertising. They protested war, they turned their backs on materialism, and they most certainly didn’t get freaked out by shirts in Cezanne Blue.

With an infinite number of influences in our lives, why do people want to give all the credit to advertising?

It’s a guy wearing an eye patch, for Christ’s sake — not Svengali!

• The man on the street is a frickin’ liar

No, really. She does all her makeup herself, and only uses Cover Girl. ("Nothing covers bruises like Cover Girl.")

I must have been around eight years old when I saw a Candid Camera spot that taught me almost everything I needed to know about “man on the street” testimonials.

It involved a restaurant owner asking his customers what they thought about a new brand of coffee. The catch? Each cup of coffee had several heaping teaspoons of mustard added. The camera, of course, was hidden, but the ketchup bottle, which he waved conspicuously in front of their faces, had a thick cord running out the bottom. The customers, then, were led to believe they were being “secretly” interviewed for a commercial.

They waxed poetic. It was the best coffee they’d ever tasted. This was the way coffee was supposed to taste. And so on. Of course, what the camera caught (that their words were meant to hide) were the expressions of shuddering disgust. The most amusing was one customer who was asked if he’d like another cup. His face showed pure horror, even as his mouth said, “I’d love one.”

• Product business vs. marketing business

Note -- this is not one of my twins who plays bagpipes in China.

I just talked to my twins on the phone.

I don’t hear from them too often, and see them even less, because for the past three years they’ve been earning their living by playing bagpipes in China.

That’s right. Bagpipes. China. Earning a living.

During our conversation, John (or was it Aragorn) mentioned the difference between “product business” and “marketing business.”

“Marketing business is based mostly on your marketing efforts,” he said. “Product business is based mostly on your product.”

Of course, all business requires some degree of each, but I could see his point.

To illustrate it, he compared Starbucks with Tim Horton’s.

• Told you so

Just a quick note:

From WARC:

NEW YORK: The “green” messages of many major advertisers in the US are failing to resonate with consumers, despite the fact an increasing number of Americans are placing a heightened emphasis on environmental issues, a new study has found. (US brands see green messages fall flat.)

Well, duh! With everything from light bulbs to bathroom tissue promoting themselves as the latest word in “green,” the message is bound to get muddied. I pointed that out in Prius Gets It Right — With the Help of a Contrarian:

The purpose [of the Prius ad] is solely to promote the brand as being eco-friendly — a feature which, in the present market of eco-friendly cleaners, bathroom tissue, light bulbs, and drain cleaners, is becoming less and less of a distinction.

What with the present obsession with Word of Mouth (WOM), social networking, and promotion of “green” it’s a wonder any ads manage to sell a single product these days.

• I’ll be back

It is against the law to use the phrase "I'll be back" without accompanying it with a picture of the Terminator

I’ve had a few e-mail queries asking if I’ve gone the route of Bob Hoffman (better known as The Ad Contrarian) and folded up shop. Not true. But this semester has presented me with two classes in a course I’ve never taught before, two new campuses in which to teach, and a reworking of the curriculum I already had reworked last year — but that now has to be done again so I can accommodate certain changes.

Oh, and I’m taking courses myself towards a journalism certificate.

As a result, I’ve not had a chance to attend to either Ad Nauseam or Editor’s Sidebar.

But it is only temporary.

• Another example of gorilla advertising

Following a decline in public perception of the Cadbury brand during the first part of 2007, the UK company bypassed its main agency, Publicis, in favour of the Fallon agency to promote its Dairy Milk product. The result was this video, and a noticeable improvement in public perception, according to the polling company, YouGuv.

On YouTube, the video received 500,000 hits the first week.

But note — the spot was also widely aired on TV and in movie theatres.

Note too — the spot also tells you what the ad is for.

Best of all, however — it’s just plain fun.

• Polar Ice: Why you should never drink when meeting an advertising hero

See how it's in the freezer? That's where it hides before pouncing.

Alcohol played an integral, but not excessive, part of agency life back in the ’80s and early ’90s. Probably not so much now, what with all the law suits and societal disdain towards getting tipsy in the afternoon.

I remember the sound of glass tinkling in the hallway outside my office at JWT as the president pushed a cart loaded with various bottles of hooch and mix, stopping at each door, and fixing whatever drink was requested. It wasn’t a frequent event, but it was a welcome one. And of course there were the liquid lunches at JWT South, a particular bar on Yonge Street that I won’t name because it wouldn’t be prudent  – but it’s true that one of our female employees (I think she was in traffic) quit the company to start dancing there.

• A guerrilla campaign that may not work — but is certainly welcome

Stop! That duck isn't an approved Talk Talk agent!

In Britain, Talk Talk is engaging in a reverse pickpocketing scheme. In a move intended to show that companies can put money back into the pockets of consumers, as well as taking it out, the mobile phone and broadband provider has sent out 20 “putpockets” into the streets of London  where they will slip five pound or 20 pound notes into the pockets and purses of unsuspecting people. “With so many scams out there, Britons have become very sceptical of companies giving money away,” said TalkTalk’s Mark Schmid. “We have turned to put-pocketing to give something back. Whilst unconventional, we don’t think anyone is going to mind finding a crisp £20 in their pocket.”

• Guerrilla advertising for dummies — and for other cutting edge advertisers

I'm telling you, Schultz. With guerrilla advertising the consumer will know nothing! Nothing!

Imagine the scene. The Allied forces are storming the beaches of Normandy. People are getting shot all over the place. There are explosions and screams and the firing of automatic weapons. Finally, after hours of fighting, the German forces retreat and the beachhead has been won.

You know what didn’t happen next? What didn’t happen next was the Allied forces gathering up all their stuff and then buggering off home. And you know why that didn’t happen next?

Because that would have been a guerrilla warfare tactic. And they weren’t using guerrilla warfare tactics. And do you know why they weren’t using guerrilla warfare tactics?

Because they weren’t bloody idiots!

• Prius gets it right — with the help of a contrarian

I guess some people just care more about the environment than others.

A few days ago we looked at the Prius commercial, “Futurewow,” in which a Prius drives the streets of the city while onlookers whistle a tune whose message suggests that we’ve got plenty enough nature and don’t need any more. (Prius ad says, “Enough with nature, already!)

Now I’m happy to report a spot that gets it right.

The new commercial, created for the NorCal Dealers Association by the Hoffman/Lewis agency, follows their previous “Yes” campaign, which focuses on the high percentage of Prius owners who say they would buy it again. In the new spot, which strikes me as more powerful, people speak about its special features. Rather than promoting the vehicle solely through a message about the advantages to the environment, such as Saatchi’s “Harmony” ads in which the landscape turns green as the car passes by, the Hoffman/Lewis spot promotes it by means of a message about the advantages to the owner.