Perhaps Alex and David just get it…
"Would you like some more Kool-Aid?" "No thanks, I've had enough."
I recalled this story printed in the New York Times that I actually had the opportunity to hear first hand. I don’t claim to know Alex’s motivation for leaving MDC, CP+B and the ad biz all together but I’d like to believe that it is as sincere as David’s was for writing the Avis ad that called them out for not living up to what they were advertising to the public. It is easy to just “cash the check” and justify doing the wrong thing. It is much harder to call BS and stand for something. Crispin in the early days was at it’s best. The work showed it. As they grew the work just seemed to lose that magic, the crafting, the ideas, became homogenized, predictable. I think the story below illustrates what can sometimes happen when you stop being a kool aid drinking, industry whore and actually do what is right. Wish more thought this way…
Back in the 1960’s, David Herzbrun recalls in his recently published book ”Playing in Traffic on Madison Avenue”, he rented a car from Avis and found its ashtray, as he delicately writes, ”jammed up with butts.”
Mr. Herzbrun was then a copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach, the agency then boosting Avis’s fortunes with the famous ”We try harder” campaign. Peeved with his dirty car, Mr. Herzbrun wrote an ad whose copy began, ”I write Avis ads for a living, but that doesn’t make me a paid liar.” If Avis would not live up to its advertising, he added, ”they can get themselves a new boy.” To Mr. Herzbrun’s surprise, Avis ran his ad, which has been credited with raising the company’s standards.
The Avis incident typifies Mr. Herzbrun’s aggressive nature, which contributed to a peripatetic career. His bittersweet book, subtitled ”Tales of Advertising’s Glory Years,” offers a peek into the creative revolution of the 1960’s, and expresses his dismay that the revolution did not go far enough.
Now mostly retired, Mr. Herzbrun works through a consulting firm, Cannon Communications, in Weston, Conn. He deals directly with clients. ”I don’t much like working for ad agencies these days,” he said.