General William Westmoreland was the commander of the US Army in Vietnam.
He publicly congratulated one company on “an outstanding job” and “dealing the enemy a heavy blow”.
The official report said “In a bloody day-long battle, US infantrymen today killed 128 Communists.”
But it wasn’t strictly accurate.
In fact it was a cover-up.
What actually happened was that First platoon, Charlie Company, went berserk and murdered up to five hundred unarmed villagers.
Mainly women, children, and old people.
It was a village called My Lai, on March 16th 1968.
The leader of the platoon was Lieutenant William Calley.
He and his men herded the villagers into a ditch and machine-gunned them.
It only stopped when a US helicopter-gunship landed nearby.
The pilot was Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson.
He began pulling the children that were still alive out from under the bodies of their parents.
He told his door-gunner to shoot anyone who tried to stop him.
The gunner trained his weapon on the soldiers and they stopped firing.
That helicopter crew saved 17 people, mainly children, that day.
One of them was just four years old.
At first the army tried to cover up the massacre, but eventually the news broke in the US media.
Lieutenant William Calley was charged with personally killing twenty two unarmed villagers.
Calley’s defence was that he did nothing wrong because he was following orders, as any good soldier should.
The issue became the most controversial news topic across America.
At that time George Lois was doing the covers for Esquire magazine.
He was an outstanding art director and he had an outstanding client.
They both appreciated the value of controversy.
Esquire was going to run a long article about the massacre and Lois persuaded the editor, Harold Hayes, to let him try an idea he had.
He wanted to photograph William Calley, in uniform, with a bunch of Vietnamese children sitting on his lap.
Harold Hayes said Calley would never agree to it.
George Lois said “Just let me talk to him.
He told Calley “Look, people who think you’re guilty will still think you’re guilty. People who think you’re innocent will still think you’re innocent. But what this cover shows is you’re not ashamed. You’re not hiding. You don’t think you did anything wrong.“
And it worked, William Calley posed, smiling, for the photo with Vietnamese children on his lap.
I remember walking down Madison Avenue and nearly falling over when I saw the cover.
It was all over every newsstand, other magazines couldn’t get a look-in.
During the decade George Lois and Harold Hayes were in charge, Esquire completely dominated point-of-purchase.
Which meant impulse sales were through the roof.
The shock of George Lois’s covers meant people who were going to buy another magazine switched at point-of-purchase.
Nowadays we think controversy is a bad thing, to be avoided at all costs.
We think it’s better to go unnoticed than cause a fuss.
But controversy means people will notice our work, controversy means it will get talked about.
Controversy is free media.
In 2008, the Museum of Modern Art had George Lois’s ten years of Esquire covers on exhibition for an entire year.
Dave,
Was the thinking behind Benetton’s shock ads to make people switch from Gap?
The real secret behind Benetton’s success wasn’t the shock advertising; it was the fact that their clothes were made in a neitral colour, so that they could be dyed to whichever colour each market wanted and which was popular – minimal returns of unsold stock = maximising ROI. The shock ads took you into the store (or not) – the job of advertising ends when a potential client steps through the door. As Stanley Kalms of Dixons is supposed to have said, ‘Everyone who comes into my shop has my money in his pocket.’
Benetton’s shock tactics didn’t wash with me. I just never found it appropriate to what they were trying to sell. Basically I didn’t buy it.
Hi Dave, I felt a compunction to see this cover before commenting. I feel it was so controversial at the time, and still is now, it was important to know what the headline was to the picture, so here it is: http://www.thedailybeast.com/george-lois-esquire-covers. It was also interesting to see what Seymour Hirsch’s take on the story was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGkogN-PNTo and how student journalists reacted when he had the evidence on the desk in front of him. Today’s advertising people all come from Middle class families. Because of this, I feel the industry has lost the ‘Carpe Diem’ that keeps the industry alive. Its arteries are clogged with religious accountancy, research dogma and timesheets. Interesting to see whilst I was trawling through the cover pages: Your story is set in 1968, but Esquire did run a headline in 1966 “Oh my God, I hit a kid.” on the front cover, which must have been equally shocking at the time. I also read about the Vietnamese survivors, the children of My Lai who had another tragic perspective to share. So my big question is Was it right for Esquire to run with such a cover? My answer is yes. Why? Because I believe it may have helped to shorten a dreadfully brutal bloody war. It also made people think about what they stand up for and what they detest. It made people think. It pricked the nation’s conscience, and that is what a free press is all about. According to Seymour Hirsch, there were 100 guys in the group. 20 had been killed in attacks in the first 2 weeks and they had never met the enemy at that point. They were just a bunch of dumb kids. The Lieutenant had previously been involved in a major railroad accident in his previous employ proving his incompetence as a leader that was completely overlooked. So what was the benefit of running such a story in Esquire, one may ask? Well, there was something I read from an American soldier in Syria, complaining that they now put their lives at risk every day to make sure they do not harm or kill innocent civilians. They place their lives at risk every time to protect the innocent in impossible situations. No doubt the US Army has also reviewed its policy on recreational drugs since Vietnam too. Most ordinary people were not aware of the harm they did at the time. In fact Hirsch goes on to say one of the convicted’s mothers said: ‘I gave them a good boy and they sent me back a killer.’ Whilst trawling through the evidence, I noticed an interesting T Shirt Mr Lois was wearing. It said: “A great idea cannot be researched.” I kind of like that. It’s true, but it’s nice to understand the background to know where people are coming from and the situation at the time.
These days some people seem to be getting controversy wrong.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40652112
David, I completely agree with you on controversy! It’s just that many people think controversy has to be overt. On the contrary, if you look at Iranian films controversy is subtle.
4 years ago we launched one of the most talked about campaigns that sparked a national controversy in the U.S. We reframed Cheerios “From Lowering Cholesterol to Spreading Unconditional Love”and featured an interracial couple to make the point (African American father and whit mother). And we did it in a Cheerios way: warm, nurturing and optimistic. The response: a tirade of racial slants. We had to close down the comment sections on social media. Two days later came the backlash to the backlash: Oprah, Whoopie Goldberg, Barbara Walters, CNN, NBC… everyone came to our defense. The ad was frequently aired FOR FREE. Sales went up 5.3% in a shrinking category.We simply tapped into cultural tension but did it in a way that was on brand and subtle.