They are both subversives and establishmentarians, salesmen and entertainers, people who believe they are in the most exciting business on Earth. They are the giants of modern advertising, and they have some alluring tales to tell.
As recorded by Doug Pray in his dishy new documentary "Art & Copy," the men and women who created the most memorable ads of our time, such as "Where's the Beef?" and "Got Milk?," tell rich, meaty war stories that prove the point made by the legendary Mary Wells, who says that people like her were "born with a gift for sensing what will turn you on."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, September 19, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 47 words Type of Material: Correction
"Art & Copy": A photo of Lee Clow, chairman of ad agency TBWA/Worldwide, walking on a Southern California beach that ran with a review of the documentary "Art & Copy" in the Sept. 11 Calendar was credited to Michael Nadeau. The photo was taken by Phillip Badger.
A veteran documentarian, with films such as "Hype!" and "Scratch" to his credit, Pray gamely tries to expand this film beyond talking heads. He shows us satellites being launched and periodically peppers the screen with factoids, for instance listing the number of billboards in America (450,000) and the cost of a 30-second TV spot on the Super Bowl ($2.7 million).
The truth is, however, he needn't have bothered. It's the great talkers of the advertising world whom we want to see and hear. They couldn't be more different from each other, but they are all recognizable as members of the same irreverent, iconoclastic tribe, people who could make you walk a mile for a Camel and smile while you're doing it.
Advertising hasn't always attracted this kind of energy and enthusiasm. In the pre "Mad Men" days, the ad game was very much an old boys' network: where you went to school mattered more than the kind of copy you wrote.
It was the inspiration of the 1960s firm Doyle Dane Bernbach for the first time to put a campaign's art director and copywriter in the same room and unleash the kind of powerful creative force that led to such agency classics as the Volkswagen "Think Small" promotion and an American Tourister luggage spot that featured a gorilla attacking a suitcase.
Mary Wells was a Doyle Dane Bernbach alum, and she talks engagingly about how the "I (Heart) New York" campaign was born and what it took to convince staid Braniff International Airways to sign onto the "end of the plain plane" promo.
Dealing with reluctant clients who don't have the faith in their product that the admen do is one of "Art & Copy's" recurrent themes, but it's never related with as much brio as when another New Yorker, George Lois, and his client, designer Tommy Hilfiger, disclose their history.
