Optimarketer: The Marketing Optimization Blog

Tom Messner: The Freaking Marketing Interview

Tom Messner, the erudite ad veteran and periodic Freaking Marketing commenter, co-founded Messner Vetere Berger Carey, which later became Euro RSCG New York. This morning I emailed Tom 10 questions, and a short time later, back came these responses.

It seems like your generation produced more iconoclastic personalities than we see today. Do you agree?

To be iconoclastic, you need icons to destroy. The fewer icons, the fewer iconoclasts. Today's iconoclasts are independently owned companies and anonymous or eponymous bloggers.

You worked with advertising legend Carl Ally, co-founder of Ally & Gargano. What did you learn from him?

He said there were leaders, managers, and doers. He didn't want managers. Wasteful, he thought. Our agency's organizing principle: leaders who are also doers.

One of your ads for Adelphi University, with the headline, "Why the most interesting university in the country stoops so low as to advertise itself," was, to say the least, controversial. What was that about?

We thought that advertising universities diminish universities. A little pompous. But Adelphi's President, a controversial figure himself, thought we created the university he wanted.

Your crowd of creative people seemed to avoid direct marketing like the plague. Why?

My crowd (going back to Ally & Gargano) felt we were crossovers. We had many DR successes (and some failures, too). MCI, most notably.

Some people think you can't built a great brand through TV anymore. Do you agree?

No. But it is harder to build a great (or lesser) brand today with ONLY television. Which is why no one tries it.

You worked on the Tuesday Team that helped re-elect Ronald Reagan in 1984. What was that like?

You were on an all-star team. Unprecedented really. People from Ogilvy, Della Femina, BBDO, DDB, Ally.

What did you really think of David Ogilvy?

If you had a Mount Rushmore of ad people, the four would be J Walter Thompson, William Bernbach, David Ogilvy, and, well, maybe only three.

You promoted the Commodore 64, which became the world's best-selling computer. What made the campaign so successful?

The product, the price, the timing coming out of a recession, the distribution, the competitive nature of the work and the market development Commodore indulged.

You're now in a comedy troupe. Are you having fun?

I'd say it was a second childhood except grownassmen.tv seems like the first.

What advice do you have for kids who want to grow up to be like Tom Messner?

Business advice: have patience and find great partners.

George Parker: The Freaking Marketing Interview

The advertising world has more than its share of problems, and nobody does a better job of chronicling them than George Parker. Campaign Magazine named his AdScam blog, which draws 3,000-5,000 visitors a day, one of the world's four best advertising blogs.

George, who began his advertising career in the Mad Men days of the early 60s, has worked at shops like J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather, and Young & Rubicam. He's won hundreds of awards, including Cannes Gold and Silver Lions, Clios, and Effies. The man knows his shit.

Recently, George wrote a really helpful book called MadScam: Kick-Ass Advertising Without the Madison Avenue Price Tag. In his standard no-bullshit style, George explains how to differentiate your product or service, grow extraordinarily interesting concepts, write a profitable communication plan, operate successfully in online and offline media, measure the real contribution of your work, hammer down the cost of creating great advertising, and a whole lot of other useful stuff. 

I interviewed George twice over the past few weeks and found him incredibly articulate and empathetic. He cares passionately about advertising and the people who earn their living in the industry. In the interview George reveals why most advertising is mediocre or worse, how to keep from becoming a Big Dumb Agency (BDA), what great clients do differently, shortcomings of "brand" advertising, what's wrong with today's agency selection process, why advertising is in its decadent phase, and more.

George talks about personalities like Bill Bernbach, Larry Ellison, Jeff Goodby, Howard Gossage, Steve Jobs, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves, Michael Roth, and Rich Silverstein -- as well as agencies like DDB, Goodby Silverstein, Interpublic, Ogilvy, Omnicom, Publicis, TBWA\Chiat\Day, Wieden & Kennedy, and of course, WPP. Advertising aficionados won't want to miss this one.

Order MadScam through Amazon.com and listen to my podcast interview with George Parker by clicking here: Download george_parker_the_freaking_marketing_interview.mp3   

Yo, new readers: If you like what you see and hear, subscribe to Freaking Marketing in the upper right of this page. 

Bob Bly: The Freaking Marketing Interview

He's authored 70 books and influenced an entire generation of direct marketers (including this one). And he's known for speaking his mind. Bob Bly is one of the most important -- and controversial -- figures in direct marketing.

Robert Rosenthal: In a 2004 issue of DM News you wrote, "(blogs are) a complete waste of time -- a pure vanity publication that won't pay you back even one thin dime for your effort." Today you have an extremely popular direct marketing blog. Do you regret that statement?

Bob Bly: I no longer think they are a complete waste of time. Blogs clearly have some value, for some marketers, in some situations.

What I objected to in my 2004 column was the pretentious B.S. of blogging evangelists and consultants proclaiming that e-mail and other proven online marketing methods are dead -- and that blogging is some kind of profound communications revolution. It is not.

Many of these blogging gurus dupe their clients into thinking blogs are much more important in the marketing mix than they really are.

RR: You commented on a Freaking Marketing post called Bullshitters of Brand Building. Why do you think so many marketers are susceptible to all that brand-related bullshit?

BB: Because it's fun to be creative, and it's safe to come up with advertising and marketing that is not measurable or accountable. Far fewer people venture into direct marketing, where the precise measurement of results would reveal their inability to sell.

RR: I think of Bob Bly as one of the high priests of the direct marketing orthodoxy. Is that an accurate characterization?

BB: If by that you mean I believe in a relatively orthodox approach to direct marketing -- strong selling concepts, powerful offers, and positive ROI -- and that I advocate it in my books and articles, then yes, it's accurate.

RR: I've been reading your blog for over a year but I'm not sure if you think interesting ideas in the so-called creative realm really matter.

BB: I think we may have different definitions of "creativity." If by creativity you mean clever and flashy, then I don't think that matters. If by creativity you mean doing whatever works to make the sale as long as it's honest and ethical, that interests me.

RR: You wrote an average of nearly three books a year for a quarter century and recently decided to call it quits. What the hell are you going to do now?

BB: I have an online publishing business, CTC Publishing, generating net revenues of thousands of dollars a week in passive income, and that's where I will concentrate my energies going forward.

RR: What does it take for a young person to become a rich and famous direct marketing copywriter like Bob Bly?

BB: If I were starting out as a copywriter today, I would find a niche -- an industry, a marketing technique, a medium -- and establish myself as the expert in that specialty.

Thanks, Bob.