Top-Rated Ads Have Industry Execs Asking: Is Madison Avenue Dead?

NEW YORK —  Madison Avenue didn’t create the “Bo” show. But it sure wishes that it had.

Those oh-so-hip Nike ads--pairing Bo Jackson with Bo Diddley and Michael “Air” Jordan with Spike Lee--didn’t come from New York. They are the work of a relatively tiny Portland, Ore., ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy. Today, the agency and Nike have called a news conference in New York to introduce an off-the-wall campaign for a new line of shoes that could make an advertising superstar out of yet another top athlete--rookie sensation David Robinson of the San Antonio Spurs.

Forget Bo knows baseball. This time around, we’re walking through “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood”--a spoof of the children’s TV show, “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.” “Bo may know Diddley,” says an announcer in the commercial. “But Mr. Robinson knows Beethoven,” he says, as Robinson, who is also a pianist, plays some Beethoven.

But the new Robinson ads won’t air until the National Basketball Assn. playoffs begin later this month. In the meantime, a dozen, randomly picked top New York advertising executives were recently asked to name their favorite commercials of the past year. Ten of them selected the Nike campaigns with Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan.

“When I see those Nike ads, I sometimes ask myself: Why am I in this business?” said Donald Deutsch, executive vice president and creative director at Deutsch Inc. “To a young kid buying sneakers, these commercials are pure fun.”

“I love Bo,” said Amil Gargano, chairman of Ally & Gargano. “The whole campaign is brilliant. It sucks you in and doesn’t let you go.”

“Not only are the Nike ads clever, different and provocative,” said Peter Georgescu, president of Young & Rubicam, “they also stick with a theme. It’s not some new personality-of-the-week campaign.”

“Nike has the quintessential campaign,” said Andrew Langer, chief executive of Lowe Marschalk. “When you have a package that tight, you don’t walk away from it.”

The only other favorite commercial mentioned by more than half the executives was the Energizer rabbit spot created by Venice-based Chiat/Day/Mojo, which features the drum-beating bunny marching in and out of ads.

At the same time, executives were heatedly divided over whether those Zen-like Infiniti ads by the Marina del Rey office of Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, ranked among the best or worst spots of the year.

All three of the most frequently mentioned commercials were created by West Coast advertising agencies. “I can’t think of a really interesting commercial to come from the East Coast in several years,” said Dave Vadehra, president of the New York research firm, Video Storyboard Tests.

Have the advertising giants on the East Coast lost their edge? Or is there something in the water in Portland that creates great ads?

“Wieden & Kennedy has the ability to start fresh all the time,” said Elizabeth Dolan, a Nike spokeswoman. “They constantly make the campaign better.”

Dan G. Wieden, president and creative director of the agency, has his own theory. “On the East Coast, they’re all sitting in the midst of a bunch of banks,” said Wieden, whose agency recently turned down a request by a major TV network that wanted to snoop around and film the firm’s creative process. “The East Coast agencies seem to be more interested in leveraged buyouts than in creating great ads.”

Not that Nike and its agency haven’t taken some flack recently. The basketball shoes featured in Nike’s Spike Lee-directed ads can cost upwards of $125. And the ads have helped to create great demand for them. There have recently been some published reports of inner city teen-agers who were beaten and even killed while being robbed of their expensive clothes. One of the first things to go is often their high-priced athletic shoes.

“I don’t understand the criticism,” said Dolan. “We sell 60 million pair of shoes per year. And the way I look at it, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better role model for the youth of America than Michael Jordan.”

Unless, of course, that role model is Bo Jackson--or David Robinson. Nike is about to film a new ad with Bo Jackson in which he becomes something more akin to “Super Bo.” But Nike is tight-lipped about the ad, which will air during baseball’s All-Star Game.

Nike says it will also spend $5 million over the next year to air ads featuring Jordan, Jackson and Robinson advising kids to stay in school.

Meanwhile, the five new ads about “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” are likely to be the talk of the ad world soon. “Today’s word is rebound. Can you say rebound?” says Robinson in one spot, spoofing Mr. Rogers. Then, he adds politely, “And always be sure to use your elbows.”

Toyota Motto: We Love What They Do for Us

The agency that keeps trying to attract more business besides Toyota advertising keeps finding itself with an ever-increasing amount of Toyota business.

Saatchi & Saatchi DFS/Pacific, the Torrance agency that already creates ads for Toyota nationally and for 12 Toyota dealer associations, last week won the estimated $3.5-million account for the San Diego County Toyota Dealers Assn.

The agency will now create ads used by more than 500 Toyota dealers nationally.

Campaign to Take ‘Roger & Me’ Approach

Advertising does imitate movies. And soon, it will be imitating one of last year’s most widely discussed films, “Roger & Me.”

“After I saw ‘Roger & Me,’ I was overwhelmed by the sheer brilliance and humor of the film,” said Donald Deutsch, executive vice president and creative director of New York ad agency Deutsch Inc. The film is a loosely made documentary about General Motors layoffs in Flint, Mich., over several years. Much of the film features discussions with citizens of Flint about the problems there.

Deutsch has hired the unofficial king of TV documentaries, Gary Weiss, who directed numerous short films aired during “Saturday Night Live.” Weiss will direct a series of documentary-type ads that Deutsch expects to create for Ikea, a Swedish furniture chain. All of the ads will feature offbeat interviews with real people.

Said Deutsch: “I guess you can say the spots will be like the ‘Roger & Me’ of advertising.”

Half of All Junk Mail Gets Read, Firm Says

Everyone complains about junk mail, but a surprising number of Americans also open and read through it.

The typical American receives 14 pieces of junk mail every week--such as catalogues and general mailers--and reads more than half of them, according to Bruskin Associates, a New Brunswick, N.J., market research firm. “Not a bad percentage,” said Lou Bender, president of Bruskin Associates. “Assuming your mail is in the right half.”