Word: admen
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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...
Pupil Response. Admen go to extraordinary lengths in trying to determine whether the result of all their effort is effective or not. Prior to launching a commercial, agencies screen it before test audiences and run a series of checks and quintuple checks that are as elaborate as those for a space shot. Lie detectors, word association, sentence completion and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory are among a few of the methods used. Foote, Cone & Belding lugs rearview projectors to homes to get verdicts. Kenyon & Eckhardt plays TAG (Target Attitudinal Group), a method of extensive indirect questioning...
Spitballing, or brainstorming, is something like a group-therapy session in which the patient is the product and the doctors are the admen. Recently, TIME Correspondent Edgar Shook sat in on a brainstorming meeting at Chicago's North Advertising Inc. The patient: Flair, a new Paper Mate pen with a nylon tip. Among the doctors: North President Don Nathanson, Creative Director Alice Westbrook, Copy Chief Bob Natkin and Copywriters Steve Lehner and Ken Hutchison. The dialogue, somewhat condensed: Natkin: We have what I think must be the first graffiti advertising campaign, which we've been running in teen...