Remembering Madmen + Better value beats them all

What you see is greatness from one of the all-time great Madmen. This is Leo Burnett (1891-1971) in his farewell speech "Take my name off the door" which is shown to every Leo Burnett employee since. 


His Dad was a dry goods store owner and sold apples. Hence, Apples are still in the reception of Burnetts to remind people where they all came from. But this is about his principles and change as he left the Agency he started.

My Dad made Ads too, but he was no Leo Burnett, except to me. Commercials, like "on the telly" and as a kid I always saw him as almost a  movie director, or so I told my school pals.

"Better value beats them all"; "Get on the scent of the Cookstown sizzle"; "Fiat fights running costs" were slogans consigned to my memory for when I was asked what he did. I would do it casually, like it wasn't really important.

“Yeah shucks, that’s what he does”, as schoolyard pals were captivated and I would swop my Peter Osgood football cigarette cards for two Norman Hunters. Cigarette cards aged 10, talk about advertising regulation....

Our house was full of Oatfield Sweets, left-overs from some TV shoot or other and we were dressed by Dunnes stores. Better value after all, beats them all.

I would crawl out of bed late and unbeknownst sat on the stairs listening to my dad and another agency man, rehearse some presentation in the "good room" where we were only allowed at Christmas.

A bed sheet was sellotaped to the wall showing 35mm slides from a carousel projector whilst making their way through a bottle of Chivas Regal the night before the big pitch.

They'd laugh, knock over the carousel (or casserole as I knew it) and spend the evening putting them back in upside down, a bit worse for wear. Tomorrow didn't really matter because they knew what they were doing. Down to their fingertips.

My dad would truthfully recount presentations where he picked up fellow presenters from the pub on the way to it. Like actors, it didn't matter, because when they performed, they were perfect. And perform they would.

However, only one ego can fit into any one room and ego, or confidence, they had in abundance.

He was a salesman for sure, but a great one and advertising ideas is the hardest sell of them all. Adpeople are all ultimately salespeople or so they should be.

But then it all changed.

When I started in the late seventies, of about 40 Irish advertising agencies then, only 2 were foreign owned. Today it's exactly the opposite.

38 foreign owned and in affect, there is no indigenous Irish advertising business anymore. Pity, in a sentimental nationalistic sort of way, but smashing for the Irish agency owners who collected cheques, most of whom were simply, nicely, stark raving.

Ad agencies then, were never run by businesspeople but simply by pure admen who just did it because they were able to, nor should they have been. Most couldn't read a Balance Sheet and no bad thing either, but they knew their advertising onions.

What happened to advertising since, is that the bean counters took over as they acquired these local agencies as they've done the world over.

The business formerly run by admen, quickly became run by plc's whose concern was share price rather than output. You don't make stock market gains if you do good ads but you do, if you do good numbers.

Saatchi’s acquired OKB Dublin in the 70’s and my Dad was there. What made Saatchi’s famous was that they saw that growth wasn't necessarily organic but rather by acquisition. In other words, you could simply buy the business, buy the clients.

Indeed we all know the Saatchi’s story but you may not know that their financial controller was none other than “shorty”, Martin Sorrel, who went on to buy WPP and now owns major agencies such as JWT and Ogilvy - probably the biggest agency owner in the world today. He had a point to prove that the Saatchi success was not built on good advertising but rather clever financial leveraging.

Agencies with great long track records dissolved into being run by a financial guy. The lunatics had left perhaps, but the suits had definitely taken over.

The lunacy is that the advertising suffered and the "lunatics" were the great Madmen characters - their departure marked the end of real talent.

My old man would tell me about visiting clients who brought him with great deference to their Boardroom, took out the fine china, Marietta biscuits and listened. Because they believed the adman had the magic dust in their pocket, which they could sprinkle on their product, and it would sell. Respect.

It can be great again.
If we apply ourselves - online.

(you might also be interested in this, the legendary pitch for British Rail: http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/madmen-they-were-greatest-pitch-of-them.html)