Word: admen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Real People. This kind of pitch, with its view of the consumer as saphead, is still afl too prevalent. But, increasingly, as admen are trying to break through the CEBUS barrier, the old commercial is being replaced with the truly new brand of ad with miracle ingredients some honesty, some humor, packaged with meticulous care. It might be called the uncommercial, and it has transformed the viewer into a consumer of the pitch as much as of the product...
...which fall under the heading of the Dreadful Ds: drugs, dentifrices, deodorants, detergents and dandruff removers. They all deal in intensively competitive products, and their problem is the kind of problems they treat. Stuffed sinuses, after all, are not exactly a popular subject, but that does not stop the admen from hawking some nasal spray as if it were the greatest breakthrough since the Salk vaccine...
Promises, Promises. That particular revelation came during one of the "depth interviews" conducted in the name of motivational research, the way-out wing of advertising in which the Freudian sell is rudimentary. As all admen know, people don't buy products, they buy psychological satisfaction: the promise of beauty, not cosmetics; oral gratification, not cigarettes. Depthwise, baking a cake is supposedly a re- enactment of childbirth and shaving a form of castration. Speed and performance, or a sense of male power, are blatantly stressed in automobile commercials. Cars become wild animals or fish Wildcat, Impala, Cougar, Stingray, Barracuda. When...
Actually, most admen use this sort of motivational psychology the way Roman emperors used auguries or modern politicians use religion: they don't necessarily believe in all that stuff, but they invoke it when it seems useful. Often motivational research merely boils down to an inspired hunch. The elaborate process of commercial making begins in earnest with an agency brainstorming session (see box opposite). Once the slant of a campaign is determined, writers and artists then work up rough drawings of the ads in comic-strip form. Ideally, these "story boards" will have a "hooker opening" or an intriguing scene...
...length, a small army of actors, makeup men, hairdressers, set designers, wardrobe people, technicians and directors head out to make their film, and act out the admen's fantasies. Perhaps they will alight in an ancient West German castle, which was the setting for a recent Volkswagen commercial. Maybe the cameraman will strap himself to the back of a speeding motorcycle or scoot around in an electric wheelchair to achieve new whirling, eye-catching effects...