Word: added
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...products with commercials that are goofy, whimsical and sometimes downright obnoxious. One of the pioneers in the field is Crazy Eddie, the New York-area consumer-electronics chain with the pitchman who raves about "insane" prices and "Christmas sales" in August. Instead of copying the slick style of the ad factories on Madison Avenue, local advertisers churn out low-budget affairs that they often write and produce themselves. Nothing is too ridiculous if it catches a viewer's attention: announcers attack water beds with chain saws or dress up like gorillas and yell, "You'll go bananas!" In some cases...
...Ross: "I wanted an irritant to wake somebody up during the early morning." He grabbed the microphone and began wildly shouting out lines. "When the engineer played it back," Ross says, "it sounded so good that I told the deejay to go home." In one zany Fourth of July ad, Ross dressed like a firecracker and blew up in a "sales explosion...
Despite their relative cheapness, goofy ads often deliver spectacular results. James McIngvale, 35, owner of Houston-based Gallery Furniture, was struggling to survive when he launched a madcap campaign in 1982. Although lacking in broadcast experience, McIngvale ad-libbed spots in which he blabbered as fast as he could for 55 seconds and then, in the last five seconds, leaped into the air holding a cluster of dollar bills while shouting, "Gallery Furniture really will Save! . . . You! . . . Money!" Since he first went airborne, McIngvale's sales have soared 1000%. Says he: "It saved the company...
Several factors are driving ad agencies into a pattern of expansion by acquisition. For one, industry profits dipped 1.5% last year, in part because the economy was sluggish and client companies curbed their advertising budgets as a cost-cutting measure. In response, many ad agencies are resorting to mergers as a way of sustaining their revenue growth...
...mark by relating the foibles of his Philadelphia youth on hit albums like 1965's Why Is There Air? In the '70s, he turned Fat Albert into a Saturday cartoon series, and his kiddie- conscious commercials for big-time sponsors like Jell-O helped earn him one of the ad world's highest Q (positive-recognition quotient) ratings, a rank he still holds. In his first solo TV series, he played a high school coach; it ended after only two seasons, in 1971, but by the '80s he got the formula perfectly tuned to the popular funnybone. After raising five...