What do you think you would see if you came to visit a creative session at DDB? If you walk into a room to watch an art director and copy writer working-you would see nothing. The team is so used to working as two people locked in a room together that the moment you walked in the creative process would have to stop.
Mr.Len Sirowitz and Mr.Bob Levenson are in copy=art session for VW advertisement.
In America we have a saying-two's company, three's a crowd. So step out of the room for a moment and I will describe to you what goes on.
I would say that the most important effect or accomplishment by Bill Bernbach is creating an agency with an atmosphere of freedom. He permits people to come up with different kinds of ideas and employ different kinds of techniques even though he himself would not have done it quite that way. Within our basic philosophy of truth, believability, impact and freshness there are no rules. Anything goes. This kind of freedom is the atmosphere in which potentially great work thrives. If you, in your agencies cannot create a similar freedom of atmosphere, if you have to second guess somebody else's way of doing it, you will never do great work.
BETTER VISION INSTITUTE
About four years ago(1963), or better yet, 60 Better Vision Ads account came into DDB. I felt by instinct that this account had exciting potential. It had been with another advertising agency for about six years and had been advertising for ten years before that. Nothing exciting had ever been done with the account. But there it was. When I heard the account had come into the agency I quickly asked to work on it. I went to Bob Gage and I said, "Bob, there's a great account coming in that I'd like to work on -- it's called "Better Vision Institute." Bob said, "What's that ? I never heard of it." (This was after 15 years of spending money on advertising.) I said, "just let me work on it". He said okay. I was assigned to it as Art Director and Leon Meadow was the copy writer. Leon and I have done every BVI ad since. We went over to the Better Vision Institute and spoke with their people. We found out all about their problems. We learned everything there was to know about what makes up the Better Vision Institute. We were very surprised to learn, and I'm sure you will be too, that BVI as we call it, is a profit-making organization. The Institute is made up of the Optical Lense manufacturers (primarily Bausch & Laumb and the American Optical Co.), Eyeglass Frame manufacturers, Opticians and Optometrists. They pool their money into the Institute in order to increase eyeglass sale in the United States. This is a fine example ofcooperative advertising. The budget is not very much. It spends less than one million dollars a year. When it came into the agency it started at 600 thousand and it's still only 800 thousand now. In the U.S. that's a small account.
We came to the conclusion that we must never sell the eyeglasses, the frames or the examinations directly. We felt that through a public service campaign -- one that was truly in the interest of the public, our dollars could be put to best use. Which becomes our interest. We have never deviated from this premise, in spite of requests. Right from the beginning we felt that the best way to get people to have their eyes examined is to make them aware of their eyes, to make them aware of the importance of their eyes. Sometimes through fear, yes, but primarily through an interest in taking care of one of their most precious senses. So then we began.
The ads I'm going to show you represent not all, probably about half of all of the Better Vision Institute ads that have run.
I'm very proud to say that since the campaign began eyeglass sales in the U.S. have increased by over 33%. We attribute this to an improvement in eyeglass styling (which we learned from the Europeans) and our BVI advertising campaign.
This is Braills. It says:"You're got only pair of eyes. Have them examined every year or so." Better Vision Institute
You can go through life missing a lot.
(Body copy is abridgment.)
Don't hear so good?
Maybe you should have your
eyes examined.
Funny thing with the eyes. Sometimes you can have a slight vision defect---and the last place it will show up is in your eyes.
Fact is, you're seeing fine. But things re happening elsewhere. Like a general sense of discomfort, a feeling you've lost your verve. You're not function on all cylinders.
Or it could be something quite specific. Headaches, brow aches, tension, irritability. Dizziness, nausea. It could even be you're not hearing so good.
There's no reason foe you to suspect your eyes. Your vision is okay.
But get yourself a professional eye examination (time you did, isn't it?) and there's your answer.
Perhaps a tiny error of refraction. Or some slight, unsuspected muscular imbalance.
That's enough. Because, without your knowing it, your eyes and your nervous system have been straining constantly to compensate for that little defect. And it's this extra strain, this extra work that takes its physical and emotional tool elsewhere.
Correcting these slight, unsuspected errors frequently results in equally un expected and dramatic relief. Headaches go. Tensions let up. And suddenly everything starts looking better.
Now, of course, it doesn't work in reverse.
Don't go off and get an ear examination, for example. if you're not seeing well.
Because then you know where the trouble is. And what to do about it. Better Vision Institute.
refer to---
>>Interview with Mr. Leon Meadow(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
