Bill Bernbach was the man who invented good advertising.
His agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach, was the most influential ad agency in the world.
Bernbach made Bob Levenson the Head of Copy at his agency.
Why did he choose him over anyone else?
Because Bernbach thought Levenson understood advertising better than anyone else.
Levenson wasn’t artsy-fartsy.
Of course, he thought advertising had to be great but it also had to be functional.
It wasn’t just decoration.
So how do you judge when an ad is great?
Everyone’s got different standards, a subjective opinion.
Levenson didn’t accept that.
He didn’t think advertising was subjective.
He had a very firm opinion about what made a great ad.
“Here’s the test,” said Bob Levenson: “If you look at an ad and fall in love with the brilliance of it, try taking the product out of it.
If you still love the ad, it’s no good.
Don’t make your ad interesting; make your product interesting.”
So there it is.
The purpose of advertising isn’t simply to amuse or entertain.
The purpose is to present a brand or product.
That’s what makes it an ad.
Now, with that in mind, go back and look at the ads that win awards, and you can see how skewed our values have got.
Beautifully shot, beautifully edited, beautifully cast, beautifully scripted, beautiful soundtrack, beautiful location.
Stunning pieces of film, the product hardly intrudes at all.
And that’s the problem Levenson’s talking about.
A stunning piece of film is not a great ad.
Not if you can take the product out and it’s still a stunning piece of film.
In that case all it does is sell itself, that’s all.
It should probably win a short-film award, but it’s not an ad.
We have fallen in love with the execution, and forgotten the reason for advertising in the first place.
All of us: creatives, planners, clients.
We find glamour in the film business, so that’s what we have fallen in love with.
No problem, as long as the film business serves the original intention of creating great ads.
And as Levenson says, that’s the test.
If you can take the product or brand away, and you still love it, it may be a great piece of film.
But it’s not an ad.
Simply, if it can exist without the product it isn’t an ad.
That’s not tough to understand.
A chair may be beautiful, but if you can’t sit on it, it isn’t a chair.
It’s a sculpture.
It’s beautiful, but it doesn’t do the job.
However beautiful a thing is, if it doesn’t do the job it was originally intended for, it isn’t that thing.
As Edward de Bono said “There are a lot of people calling themselves creative who are actually mere stylists.”
To tell the difference, give everyone’s work the Bob Levenson test.
That will separate the exercises in style off from the great ads.
Arguably there are some great ads which fail the Bob Levenson test, like the Cadbury Gorilla.
LMAO! I didn’t realise it was a Gorilla. I thought it was a charicature of Phil Collins. I didn’t get the ad at all. It meant nothing to me. It failed to communicate. But then what do I know? I’m just one of Joe Public. Was it for Silk Cut? A Purple Drumkit? Someone please explain this ad to me.
LMAO! I didn’t realise it was a Gorilla. I thought it was a caricature of Phil Collins. I didn’t get the ad at all. It meant nothing to me. It failed to communicate. But then what do I know? I’m just one of Joe Public. Was it for Silk Cut? A Purple Drum kit? Someone please explain this ad to me.
Great to see you finally have the epiphany of what advertising is about Dave – or maybe you had it a long time ago and are just voicing it now. Either way, it needs to be said. Almost without fail every single advert fails the Levenson test – they’re nice stories and then a logo appears. And you know that the agency probably pitched that same idea to a tv manufacturer a month ago, and to a dog food company last year.
That Gorilla advert wasn’t even a good story. There has never been a greater example of emperor’s new clothes than that.
Product, product, product. Make the product great in the ad and you’ll win in the long run.
PS. love the blog.
The Advertising Industry has once again become trumped by a Stultified Perineum.
Like a nauseous odour coming from a bath plughole it needs a dose of Caustic Soda
to shift muck in the 22nd Century. Fake News, Hot Air Online and False Promises,
delivered with a Hollywood sheen are completely and utterly meaningless.
The coming phase, as always, will be a cannibal’s witch hunt to clear out the
garbage and the baby will be thrown out with the bathtub as usual.
I guess the next phase of adland’s suicidal developmental demise will be people
being relieved and proud when they hear the words of promotion to real life:-
“You’re Fired!”
Thanks for sharing Levenson’s rule. Had heard it, but not the attribution. Leo Burnett used to insist on highlighting the inherent drama of the brand. Great minds.
Hi Dave,
Any interest in a paid speaking role at the next eTail conference, June 20-22 in London? 700 retailers and 300 tech providers. Let me know!
Greg
Hi Dave
Just wondered if you remember me from 1978/9 and Courage. I was Marketing Manager for Courage Ales back then and wrote the original advertising brief for John Webster and David Batterby for Courage Best. I persuaded Frank Cokayne who was Controller of Marketing about Gertcha and had to tell him(he was Irish) what it meant! I was only around for the first 3 ads: Gertcha and Wife(which I always thought the best)which I think we filmed at the same time and the third which featured the 2 guys going into the pub with one of their wives looking for them.
I stayed at Courage until 1999 doing a variety of marketing roles and then formed a pub buying company with a friend from Watneys.
I seem to remember a night out in the East End just after you ( I think) wrote a “storyboard” for Courage Best after the initial briefing, featuring some drawings rather like the match stick men of a Lowry painting with the tag line of ” two straight sides and a pint of Courage Best” The end shot was to feature a straight side pint glass which was revolutionary as we all used dimple mugs in those days!
Anyway – sorry to use your blog to remind you of the late 70s but I was reminded of you because I went to see Chas & Dave on tour a few weeks ago and they were still great.
Kind regards and I am about to buy one of your books.
Andrew Simmonds
39 years later and Andrew remembers the ad, the product, the pay off line, the catchphrase
and I bet many other people do too! Doesn’t it just prove the point.
Hi Andrew,
It was probably John Webster that did the drawings and Dave Batterbee (account man) that presented the ads.
I found Chas & Dave in a pub in Canning Town and wrote the first two ads with John.
As you say, Chas & Dave are still great.
Glad you still rermember it all Andrew.
I still think of Courage when I look at the building on the SE side of Tower Bridge
Why the building on the SE side of Tower Bridge?
That’s the London Bra Museum isn’t it Dave?
Kev,
The white(ish) building next to Tower Bridge on the SE side used to be Courage Brewery, the building’s still there, still looks the same.
I used to go round it and talk to the head brewer.
I always wanted to do an ad featuring The Canterbury Tales.
One of Chaucer’s characters is late for the pilgrimage and he says “Don’t blame me, blame it on the ale of Southwark”
Courage was the only brewery still in Southwark
Hi Dave,
Thanks, I didn’t know that. I’m sure chatting with the head brewer was an amazing acquaintance. My closest experience to anything like that was when I was about 8 or 9 years old. My uncle and aunt from Aberdeen took our family to the Dufftown Brewery. A big kilted gentleman took us on a tour around the copper kilns. The smell of whiskey was so strong, by the time we got back to the reception I was acting very strangely. I was half cut! When our kilted guide asked if we’d like ‘a taster’ my little eyes lit up, but my dad put his foot down and said “You’re not having anything, you’ve had enough already”. He was right!
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