A Clio Health Initiative — Women’s Health Platform should be retitled Divertsity Dumpster, allowing predominately White advertising agencies to display performative propaganda and scampaigns professing faux concern for women’s health issues.
It represents another example of medical waste in marketing.
MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.
Muse by Clios spotlighted an International Women’s Day stunt—Decoding Women—designed to address gender abuse and sexual violence by helping predatory French men figure out women.
The 2,000-page book featured a single sentence repeated on each page: “If it’s not yes, it’s no!”
Quick! Somebody send copies to the skunks at Havas Paris.
To Combat Gender Abuse, This 2,000-Page Book Helps Men ‘Decode’ Women
It repeats a single phrase over and over
By David Gianatasio
There’s zero need to read between the lines.
Consentis, HandsAway and TBWAParis created a 2,000-page book that subverts expectations and crushes cliches to help men gain a clearer understanding of women.
“Courting women has always condemned men to hypothesis, trial and error, total doubt and sometimes even regrettable mistakes,” the tome’s synopsis says. “‘Decoding Women’ offers, at last, to lift the veil on feminine complexity by delivering exhaustively and without concession everything you absolutely need to know before embarking on the conquest of women.”
Of course, this isn’t about “complexity” or “conquest” at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. The book simply repeats these six words, over and over, page after page after page: “If it’s not yes, it’s no!”
A back-cover QR code guides readers to the HandsAway website and other resources.
Deployed ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, the book sells for 1 euro (about $1), with proceeds benefiting the two aforementioned nonprofits in their war against gender abuse and sexual violence.
The campaign follows a troubling report from France’s High Council for Equality Between Women and Men. That annual study found that 37 percent of women experienced “situations of non-consent,” while 25 percent of young French men believe it’s sometimes OK to engage in violent behavior to earn respect.
Those guys should pick up a copy of “Decoding Women” immediately. And make sure to read every single word. Commit them to memory. Maybe then the message will start to sink in.
Muse by Clios interviewed DDB Worldwide Chairman Emeritus Keith Reinhard, who shared his thoughts on the state of creativity, challenges past and present, iconic campaigns, client-agency relationships, and more.
Covering his 50+ years in Adland, Reinhard also wondered “if today’s advertising industry might be well advised to embrace or re-embrace generational inclusion along with the commitment to gender and racial diversity.”
Not surprisingly, racial and ethnic equality received less attention than the Hamburglar—and the alleged diversity dilemma of ageism against Old White Guys and Old White Gals emerged as an imperative.
In Adland, You Deserve A Break Today does not apply to people of color.
Keith Reinhard on Creativity, Agency-Client Bonds and the Hamburglar
Looking back, and mulling what’s ahead
By Amy Corr
Keith Reinhard serves as chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide. In a career spanning more than half a century, he has worked as a writer, art director and creative group head, and held key roles in agency management.
Transcending the Mad Men paradigm, Reinhard has shaped consumer tastes and stoked the engines of media and commerce on a global scale.
He’s father to the Hamburglar, and along with his creative team birthed McDonald’s brand-defining “You Deserve a Break Today” campaigns in the 1970s, plus the unforgettable “Two-all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions, on a sesame seed bun” mantra woven into copy and jingles. “Just Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There” was his idea, too. Keith also worked on Volkswagen, Polaroid, Amtrak, Xerox, Mars and General Mills, to name just a few. On the business side, Reinhard helped merge Doyle Dane Bernbach and Needham Harper Worldwide into the DDB network, which he led as chairman and CEO for 16 years.
We spoke with Reinhard about the challenges plaguing the industry today, the importance of agency-client trust, his favorite campaigns and the return of his beloved Hamburglar.
Muse: What’s your take on the state of creativity today and the trust between an agency and client?
Keith Reinhard: I’m sure it varies from those clients who see their agencies only as interchangeable suppliers chosen for the lowest price, to clients who value their agencies as trusted partners. It was encouraging to see some examples of the latter on stage at the Clios this year. In the long term, the only clients that will value their agencies as long-term partners are clients who understand the value of long-term brand building. I doubt that such clients represent the majority of advertisers today. In part, that’s because we have failed to make a convincing case for the value of building brand loyalty over time, which has always been a brand’s best defense against price competition.
As for the state of creativity in general, the fragmentation of media channels makes it difficult to establish and maintain brand integrity and instead, encourages one-off messages hastily prepared on a low budget, subjected to instant A/B testing, and placed by algorithms as interrupters on every available social media channel. While that seems like a condition more conducive to mindless repetition of breathless product claims than to brand building, there are notable exceptions. One of my favorites is DDB’s award winning apology campaign for Skittles—a prime example of contemporary creativity at its best. The brilliant multi-channel idea is absolutely on-brand and true to Skittles idiosyncratic personality. During a “press conference” on Twitch and TikTok, a Skittles “communications director” apologizes individually to thousands of protesters for replacing the lime-flavored green Skittles with a green apple flavor thirteen years ago. He promises to restore the lime flavor, at least for a while. The social media campaign was augmented by other media including a huge sign in Times Square where Skittles apologized to individual tweets.
I’ve also been impressed by Sakara Life, the plant-based food delivery service founded by two young women in 2011 that is now a $150 million powerhouse. They’ve given their brand a clear purpose with a distinctive brand personality that connects with viewers with advice like “make love, not dinner.”
I believe the level of creativity will rise in the future as young creators and their clients begin to realize the difference between a click and an emotional connection, the difference between creating a buzz and creating a brand, the difference between a one-off stunt and an enduring brand story and the big difference between big data and a big idea.
As for the state of creativity in television, I didn’t see any Super Bowl commercials I wished I had done. But then again, I’m not the target audience. At least the Rabbit Hole commercial for Tubi used storytelling to get my attention, built suspense and then paid off with a promise of free movies. All without borrowing interest from a celebrity. That in itself was refreshing.
What were some agency/client trust/bonds you experienced in your career?
When Tom Morrill, State Farm’s chief marketing officer in the ’60s and ’70s, was asked if he’d ever consider a new agency, he said he would not. Instead, he said if he needed fresh thinking, he would ask us for new ideas or even new people. But he had no interest in going through a search process or acclimating a new agency to the insurance business that we, his trusted longtime agency partner, knew so well. Tom’s confidence in us laid the groundwork for a relationship that lasted for more than 60 years.
To shake things up in the Washington-Baltimore market, Fred Turner, CEO of McDonald’s, once granted us the freedom to try any new idea we wanted if we stayed within the budget and didn’t do anything illegal. Turner startled us by saying, “Don’t bother to show me storyboards. I trust you. Just show me the finished work.” This level of trust motivated us to work even harder to deliver a remarkable product, which we did. Fred liked it and ran it with success.
A strong bond of trust with Anheuser-Busch figured importantly in that great client supporting the offbeat, off brand “Wassup” campaign for Budweiser, which August Busch IV said brought more value to the brand than any other single idea in the brewery’s history. It won the Grand Prix in Cannes in 2000.
What’s the biggest challenge facing the industry today and how can it be overcome?
It might be the lack of time. The time to think, time to shape an idea and let it grow, time to let it work in the marketplace, time to work together, time to care, time to rest and reflect. I have no idea how to overcome our obsession with speed.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in your career?
By far the biggest challenge I faced was merging two creative agency networks into one in the mid-eighties. I was CEO of Needham Harper Worldwide but my idol was Bill Bernbach, who had revolutionized the industry when he founded Doyle Dane Bernbach in 1949. After Bill died in 1982, my dream was to combine his agency with Needham to establish a new global creative force built on Bill’s legacy. As part of the creation of Omnicom, we found a way to do this but as an observer wrote in the New York Times after our announcement, “Mergers are hell!” I understood what he meant as we started to put the agencies together. Turf battles had to be resolved in major markets, client conflicts had to be dealt with and differing systems had to be integrated. But thanks to the resolve of a top management team that shared a vision, we were able to create a common culture grounded in a shared belief that creativity is the most powerful force in business.
What’s something that exists now that you wish existed earlier in your career or you’re happy it didn’t exist earlier on?
Google could have helped us earlier. Back then, finding answers to questions took a lot more time.
On the other hand, I’m glad we didn’t have the science and technology that today claims to instantly determine an ad’s effectiveness. As Bill Bernbach said: “However much we would like advertising to be a science, the fact is that it is not. It is a subtle, ever-changing art, defying formularization, flowering on freshness and withering on imitation.” Today’s instant A/B testing makes it impossible for a good campaign to “wear in” and would almost certainly have killed Volkswagen’s game changing “Think Small” campaign which, when launched, was met by skepticism from both consumers and dealers.
What were some of your favorite campaigns to work on?
There are so many—Volkswagen, Polaroid, Amtrak, Xerox, Mars, General Mills. But I’ll highlight three.
McDonald’s was a great client. They understood the value of making emotional connections with their customers. In 1971, we created their first national advertising campaign by focusing on the McDonald’s experience instead of just their hamburgers. Our kick-off campaign, “You Deserve a Break Today,” encouraged people to take a little respite from their daily routines and enjoy the food, folks, and fun at McDonald’s. We followed the initial campaign with another customer focused effort, “You, you’re the one,” which also made it into the Madison Avenue Songbook. The Big Mac jingle, “Two all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce- cheese-pickles-onions-on-a-sesame-seed bun,” created by my team in the ’70s, is still remembered today. While I personally gave birth to the Hamburglar, working with the team to create McDonaldland, home of the Grimace and all the other characters, was truly a blast.
I also loved working on all the Anheuser-Busch brands starting with “Head for the Mountains” for Busch Beer and then all the work we did for Bud Light and Budweiser. As with McDonald’s, great advertising is only possible when you have great clients. Anheuser-Busch was one of the best. They proved that big time when they bought and supported the aforementioned “Wassup” campaign for Budweiser, a campaign that went viral before we knew what viral even meant and won the Gran Prix at Cannes in 2000.
State Farm was one of my favorites. In the ’70s, new research pointed out that State Farm’s most important competitive advantage was the fact that their agents had their offices in neighborhoods where people lived, in contrast to competitor companies who often housed their agents in big buildings in a business district. This insight led to our creating a long running campaign, “Just Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm is There.” We contracted Barry Manilow to write the tune to which we wrote three verses—one for car insurance, one for home insurance and another for life insurance. The jingle is no longer used but I’m pleased that “Jake from State Farm” is still using our tag line.
As the person behind the Hamburglar, are you excited to see his resurrection in ad campaigns?
As the father of the little burger bandit, I’m pleased to see he’s up to his old tricks and still getting by with a limited vocabulary. Robble.
What “Mad Men” experience can you share with us?
Things were different back then. In the early ’70s, I was head of the creative department at the Needham agency in Chicago, and I noticed that a young woman had joined us as a trainee in the account executive department. I wasn’t directly involved in her accounts, so I had never met her. But I remember thinking it was good that we were finally going to see at least one woman become an account executive. Then one night when I was working late, this young woman burst into my office and breathlessly asked if she could hide under my desk! I said “Uh, yeah, I guess so, but why are you hiding?” She named a figure in agency management and said, “I think he’s been drinking, and he’s chasing me down the halls!” This promising young trainee hung out in my office until we could assure her that the halls were clear. She then went on to become the agency’s youngest senior vice president, heading up accounts like General Mills and McDonald’s. A few years later, the amazing Rose-Lee Simons, became my amazing wife.
Anything else you’d like to discuss?
In a recent meeting, Vincent Gardner, composer and lead trombonist for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, was asked by a young musician how to become great. Gardner advised the young man to “seek out the oldest person you can find who’s doing what you want to do. Tapping into that person’s experience will be the very best way you can become great.”
Gardner’s counsel made me wonder if today’s advertising industry might be well advised to embrace or re-embrace generational inclusion along with the commitment to gender and racial diversity. As a young copywriter, I learned a lot from mentors who were in their forties and fifties. Yet, as of a few years ago, an IPA Excellence paper stated that staffers over the age of 50 represent only 6 percent of ad land’s workforce. By comparison, 22 percent of professionals in finance were over 50 and a Writer’s Guild survey showed 50 to be the median age of Hollywood screenwriters. When last I checked, consultants range in age from 40 to 60 which may be why they have the kind of access to clients’ C-suites that is often denied to ad agencies. Does it matter that today’s advertising industry, unlike other professions, undervalues experience? I think it might.
Clio Entertainment is extending its entry deadline for a second time—perhaps realizing entrants are too busy gaming and binge watching TV…?
And what’s with the claim that the awards show is providing “Everything You Need To Create A Winning Entry”—wouldn’t you also need to first create great work?
Muse by Clios published a perspective from Sheldon Candis, a Director at Quriosity Productions, opining on the persistent prejudices in Adland that block Black directors from gaining access beyond “specialty market” projects—aka crumbs commercials.
These directors call, “Action!”—yet see no meaningful or measurable responses from the White advertising agencies acting like they’re committed to DEIBA+ initiatives besides promoting White women.
It’s a racist production that’s been playing for decades.
To Foster Diversity, Days of ‘But It’s Not on the Reel’ Must End
Opportunities must come from within agencies
By Sheldon Candis of Quriosity Productions
There’s an informal community of Black directors who get together on a regular basis to talk about the issues we all face working in advertising. And one thing that’s come out of our conversations is this perception we hear that, in general, the work of Black directors isn’t up to the level of white directors. We’ve even picked this up from people who work at multicultural agencies. It’s troublesome on a lot of levels, mostly because it’s not true. I know quite a few directors who are more than qualified to do almost all of the work that’s available today. And to hear that this stereotype still exists, it’s just problematic.
That this is still happening today is even more bewildering. Coming out of the burst of cultural awareness that happened in our country—and is still front and center, from George Floyd to Tyre Nichols—there was supposed to be this inclusive push for Black creative perspectives and voices in adland. A lot of agencies and brands released statements to that effect. But my peers and I haven’t seen real, tangible evidence of Black folks and people of color and women getting more opportunities. It was kind of here and there, but mostly more talk than action.
On the production side, a lot of Black and Brown directors do get a chance to work on the big brands, but it’s often for the minority or “specialty” market, not for the so-called general market. And the question we ask ourselves is, when are we going to be able to cross that threshold? It’s not uncommon to see the work of these directors elevated to run nationally, but the talents driving the production still don’t even get the chance to bid on the big budget, more highly visible spots.
Lots of things factor into this resistance. Agencies often opt for the same-old same-old, going back to people they’ve worked with over and over. And if you’re not in that club, you’re on the outside. What also factors into this is that typically, when you’re only given the opportunity to work on the “specialty market” jobs, you’re dealing with smaller budgets, and less resources to put up on the screen. And that’s not even addressing the elusive quality of the creative itself.
Within these structures, Black and Brown directors still have to find a way to craft for themselves a voice and a unique point of view—an aesthetic, if you will—by which all filmmakers, even in so collaborative a genre as advertising, are often judged.
What does boost these filmmakers to the next level, however, is to have a champion—someone on the agency side who’ll push for us to get these opportunities. Often, these are people of color like ourselves. And so as agencies themselves seek to diversify their creative, account and production ranks, there’s a great opportunity for directors like me to get our shot at working on the more prominent and influential projects.
Some agencies are looking at their vendors—production and post houses such as Quriosity, which represents me and other diverse talents—to help them show off their diversity chops. But it really needs to start internally. And so if you’re expecting to move the creative ad world forward with diversity and inclusion, then the only way that’s ever going to happen is you have to give opportunities to these people, because you’re never going to see it on the reel—which is always the excuse that people fall back on—if you never gave the person a chance to show they can do it in the first place.
Clio Health makes it easy to submit entries, offering a Best Submission Practices Guide—plus, entrants can even schedule a 1:1 meeting with an entry consultant.
Forget scam advertising—the entire contest feels like a scam.
Muse by Clio spotlighted a Smithsonian collection saluting UniWorld Group Founder Byron Lewis. Meanwhile, WPP exhibits UniWorld in its global collection of marketing firms. The politics of having UniWorld maintain minority-owned status prohibits the holding company from merging the multicultural shop with the largest White advertising agency—so don’t expect to ever see VMLUWG.
Smithsonian Adds Collection From Ad Pioneer Byron Lewis
Items from his personal and professional life are on display
By Amy Corr
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has added items from Byron Lewis’ career to its collections. Lewis, known as the “Godfather of Multicultural Marketing,” founded UniWorld Group in 1969.
Lewis and his agency created campaigns for Mars, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, AT&T, Stax Records, Avon, Ford Motor, Quaker Oats and Burger King, among others.
Donations to the collection include personal items, such as a Boy Scouts award, high school yearbooks and his Omega Psi Phi fraternity paddle. Items from his advertising career include awards, campaigns, scripts, artwork and an antique French desk and chair plus three swords used in ads for Mars’ 3 Musketeers. (Celebrating author Alexandre Dumas’ French and African ancestry, Lewis cast a Black actor as one of the musketeers in commercials during the 1990s.)
“This rich collection that includes archives and artifacts reveals a throughline of creative storytelling, both as reflected in his advertising career and in the materials that framed his interior office décor, and together, they characterize Lewis’ intersectional worldview,” says Fath Davis Ruffins, curator of the museum’s division of home and community life, in press materials.
The exhibition, “Byron Lewis, Ad King Extraordinaire,” is featured in the museum’s Consumer Era (1940s–1970s) section and spans two cases.
Now 91 and retired, Lewis was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 2013.
Muse by Clio spotlighted the “Spike Lee: Creative Sources” exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, featuring over 450 items from the iconic director’s personal collection. The exhibit was curated by Kimberli Gant, whose father is Phil Gant—an adman with a resume that includes serving as Chief Creative Officer at BBDO Chicago for many years. Of course, the art show offers Lee an opportunity to hype his promotional products alongside museum stuff too.
Brooklyn Museum Explores Spike Lee's Creative Inspirations
Show features Knicks jerseys, Prince’s guitar and Gordon Parks’ photographs
By Christine Champagne
Thankfully for the Brooklyn Museum—as well as all of us who are interested in what makes one of the world’s foremost filmmakers tick—Spike Lee is an avid collector. “People know him as a filmmaker, and that is an aspect of who he is. But he is also a preserver of history and culture,” says Kimberli Gant, curator of the new exhibit “Spike Lee: Creative Sources.”
Which means that Gant had a treasure trove of artifacts relating to Black history, Lee’s family story, Brooklyn, sports, music, film and photography to draw from as she crafted the comprehensive and thought-provoking show. It displays more than 450 items exploring the people, places and ideas that have driven and inspired the director throughout his nearly 40-year career.
Among the wide variety of notable objects featured are a cast-iron bank from the late 1800s depicting three caricatured Black baseball players; Toni Morrison first editions; a portrait of Aaron Copland, one of Lee’s favorite composers, taken by legendary photographer Gordon Parks; a football jersey signed by Colin Kaepernick; Prince’s “love symbol” guitar; and the hot pink, double-breasted suit Louis Vuitton artistic director Virgil Abloh designed for Lee to rock at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, where he served as the event’s first Black jury president.
An entire room of the exhibit is devoted to Lee’s New York Knicks memorabilia.
Also on display: the Oscar Lee won in 2019 for Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman, some of the director’s hand-written notes, as well as posters for his films Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Bamboozled, Malcolm X and 25th Hour.
Michael Jordan played a big role in Lee’s entrée into the ad world, and No.23 is duly represented by autographed photos. The exhibit also incorporates kicks Jordan gifted to Lee, who famously directed and appeared with the basketball legend in iconic Nike ads from the 1990s. Lee played Mars Blackmon, his character from the breakthrough 1986 film She’s Gotta Have It.
Reflecting on the significance of Lee forming Spike DDB and bringing his cinematic world into to the ad space, Gant, who reveals that her dad was “an ad guy,” muses, “I think it reminds us that creators have always had what we would call the commercial side of themselves and the more avant-garde side.”
In addition to learning about the prolific director's many influences, Gant hopes visitors will take a moment to reflect on the people, places, events and media that inspire their own creativity.
“When people come to a show like this, I want them to be inquisitive. I want them to be curious about their own inspirations,” Gant says. “You are a complex human with a lot that fuels you, and sometimes you need to just take a moment to remember that.”
“Spike Lee: Creative Sources” is scheduled to run through February 4, 2024.
Noting again how Ads of the World—part of the Clio Network—features a wide variety of Collections. In fact, the Collections continue to expand, adding 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, 4/20, Frito Lay, PepsiCo, and even Barbie. Of course, there’s ample representation for White women, neurodiversity, and LGBTQIA+ performative patronization.
Yet there’s nothing for Black, Latinx, Asian (besides Chinese/Lunar New Year Ads—featuring work mostly created by White advertising agencies), or Indigenous Peoples. Multicultural marketing is excluded from the festivities.
It’s a perfect reflection of Adland of the World.
Don’t mean to sound too critical, but aside from quick dunks via an alley-oop pass or air ball grab, most buzzer beaters involve jump shots or long-range heaves—not the type of hang time move depicted here. Also, if the deadline isn’t until September 8, is the buzzer beater term even appropriate?
Is this banner another example of award show advertising that’s not award worthy? Or simply the work of a creative team that should be benched?
This “concept” promoting 2023 Clio Health Awards presents a clear diagnosis: pharmaceutical advertising sucks.
Clio Collections continue to clearly represent the segregation and systemic racism in Adland. That is, the collections include obscure categories like Autism Awareness Month and Brain Health Awareness Month—as well as multiple buckets catering to White women and LGBTQi audiences. Plus, expect a collection for the upcoming Clio Cannabis Awards.
Yet besides Chinese New Year Ads and Outstanding Brazilian Illustrators, there are no collections for multicultural campaigns. Nothing recognizing Black History Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month or Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. No diversity recruitment campaigns.
Is it asking too much to create a Clio Crumbs Collection?
