THIS & THAT #27

THE SUN NEVER SETS
ON THE BRITISH EMPIRE

 “The Sun Is Setting on Honda’s Summerbration Sales Event,” were the words emanating from a television commercial this Sunday, September 3, 2017. Those same words headlined a two-page, full-color advertisement that has been appearing in national magazines. In 2016, the Honda spent 1.38 billion U.S. dollars on advertising in U.S. media.

The American Honda Motor Co., Inc. out of Torrance, California looked to the Magnani advertising group, who is big on slogans promising “Creative that connects, compels and converts.” Their webpage goes further promising that ”Our creative strategies are as distinctive as our clients and the customers they need to connect with. Our researched-based THINK-PLAN-ACT-INTERACT process ensures creative is founded on a solid understanding of who your audience is, and how best we can engage them.”

Putting the Zing

In Advertizing

Every advertising agency tries to create a raison d'être, and Magnani boasts that “Our agile team of 35 accomplished creative and account professionals ensures your creative shines and is on strategy the first time.”

All creative houses such as Magnani, look to first ensnare their potential clients, and then hold on to those clients by stimulating sales and profits with catchy advertising campaigns. In times of last-minute panic and the client is overly anxious, sometime advertising agencies sit their entire creative staff around a table, and threaten them with forced retirement if they can’t come up with usable campaign slogan for their top clients.

We Gather Together

That gathering may include the senior account executive, a junior account executive or two, the copy chief, numerous copywriters, art directors, and anyone else with an ounce of creativity left in their system from too many such “creative” get togethers.

When I worked in Detroit for the advertising agency handling, or at times, mishandling the Oldsmobile account, we had too many such meetings. If it were centered on a massive full line promotion, you’d hear the standard, inane event names bandied about. “Oldsmobile’s Sellathon,” or its “Sellabration,” or “Saleabration,” or even “Sale Into Summer with Oldsmobile.”

Remember, sitting around an elongated table were perhaps twelve ad men (no women allowed in 1963), with a combined hourly salary of more than $201.60. They were semi-passionately trying to come up with a winning name for a sales campaign for the deadly summer season, before the shiny, new, 1964 Oldsmobile arrived.

They tried even harder as lunchtime approached, to no avail.

There’s Even More Narishkeyt

Another sales event took place after the annual, independent comparative testing of makes in several categories including speed, acceleration, mileage, and braking. Although some of the 1964 models did decently against their competition, Oldsmobile had difficulty with their model's braking ability.

If you sat long enough around a “creative” table without any viable suggestions, contributions tended to become just words tossed out to fill the void, and allow all participants to go to their cubicles (or closets) and create on their own.

I had scribbled enough meaningless phrases on the Oldsmobile’s weak braking abilities while listening to those of our team, that I finally interrupted the magical flow of ideas, with my own favorite. Since the Oldsmobile had finished last in the competition, and in one instant had failed the test completely, I blurted out my suggested headline, “There’s no stopping an Oldsmobile.”

The account executives that would have to face their counterparts at Oldsmobile in Lansing with our ideas were aghast, but the rest of us smiled, and the meeting soon ended.


A Change in the
Weather or Not

Advertising success, like life itself, depends on timing, and there are occasions when you lose control of a situation. Such is the case with the American Cruise Lines four-color, full-page advertisement on page twenty-one of the September 18^th issue of TIME magazine. The ad was created and inserted long before the destructive weather hit the South, contradicting the ad's headline  “The Historic South, Smooth Water, Southern Charm.” A large photograph shows calm waters from Florida, through Georgia, and into South Carolina. When I called American Cruise Lines, a charming Southern Belle said they would be running as usual, as soon as they check the conditions of their docks.

THIS & THAT #3

Michigan Will Never Leave You

Even When You Leave Michigan

I begin every morning looking through the San Jose Mercury News, the sister paper to the Detroit Free Press, and it seems that Michigan has followed me west to California.

It’s especially true when I find a story or two on my old “home town.” Perhaps it’s because I still have a connection with Southeastern Michigan through family and friends who still live there, either full time or who evacuate during the cold and cruel days of winter.

It also might be because my wife and I have been paying $100 every month to Chesed Shel Emes — Hebrew Memorial — for adjoining plots 12-D-2 and 12-D-4. Since neither of us want to spend the hereafter in a frigid clime, the plots are a safety valve factor since they cost about one-third of what a similar plot costs here where the weather is a bit better. However, it will cost about $2,400 to ship a body back, and we won’t be able to use any of our hundreds of thousands of American Airline Frequent Flyer miles to do so in First Class. We were told that we would be relegated to cargo, with no amenities.

However, that’s another story, and recent stories about Michigan in the San Jose paper, are even more obtuse and diverse.

I’m Not Lion to You

A small, 2-inch story in the sports section told readers that the Silverdome is coming down next year. The Detroit Lions played there until 2002, and the team’s owners believe that the 127-acre site will be attractive to developers.

The Silverdome was the site of the 1982 Super Bowl, and the 2016 Super Bowl will be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, the home of the San Francisco 49ers. None of the 49ers, whose team record is at 2-6, or the Lions at 1-7, will be at that game unless they work as vendors or park cars.

I have never been at a football game at the Silverdome nor at Ford Field, but on December 29, 1957, I, and several fraternity brothers, attended the Championship Game between the Lions and the Cleveland Browns at Briggs Stadium, home of the Detroit Tigers. We could only afford seats in the windy, open upper deck, and when the game began, the temperature was hovering at thirty-two degrees. The starting backfield usually consisted of John Henry Johnson, Hopalong Cassady, and Gene Gedman, with Bobby Layne at quarterback. Layne was injured and was replaced by back-up Tobin Rote who tossed four touchdowns passes, and led the Lions to a 59-14 win in front of 55,283 shivering fans. Here’s a pre-instant replay, motion picture look at that game played fifty-eight years ago.

It’s Not Just A Game

Jim Harbaugh, the fired San Francisco 49er coach, was on the October 30^th “Stoney and Bill” show on WXYT-FM (97.1), and as Michigan’s leader, was still upset about the last second loss to Michigan State. Although he told his players to move on, he said on air, “There are people who can leave the game, and the game is over, and they don’t think about it. I’m not one of those people.” Keep your khakis well creased, Jim. We may learn even more about the little things that make you and your team unique during this football revival time in Ann Arbor, but only if we read the San Jose newspaper.

“Natives wary of Detroit’s revival”

That Mercury News headline was under a photograph of Tommy Bedway, owner of Ronnie’s Quality Meats in Detroit’s Eastern Market District. Tommy, who is a middle-aged white man, stands next to Luron McCrary, a black man, who is weighing meat. Bedway said that his property’s value has increased 30 percent since he bought it in 2013.

The story tells of how both property values and rents have recently risen in some places, and developers are moving in with money to spend. It was also noted “suburbanites are flocking downtown, and this is boosting business.”

Will this mean that many suburban dwellers will finally venture below Fifteen Mile Road, and visit Greek Town once again? Will they do so without taking a guided tour bus to get there?

It’s amazing what you can learn about Detroit, when you live elsewhere, but don’t know if South Florida’s Sun Sentinel newspapers carry such stories. Doubt if they carried the story about Mike Ilitch’s generous gift of $40 million, to build the new Wayne University Business School on Woodward and Temple that will bear his name.