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Arnold on ethical marketing

Crazy People or just AdMad? 

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‘Porsche. It's a little too small to get laid in it, but you get laid the minute you get out of it!’ ‘Buy Volvos’. They’re boxy but they’re good.’ ‘Jaguar for men who’d like hand jobs from beautiful women they hardly know.’ Well they don’t write them like that anymore. These are just a few headlines from the only decent film ever made about advertising. Crazy People (1990), written by Good Morning Vietnam writer Mitch Markowitz and directed by Tony Bill (ads directed by Barry Young) is a great film and if you didn’t catch it on ITV3 recently I recommend you grab a copy on Amazon (or get your teen son to torrent it). Featuring Dudley Moore as a stressed out creative director Emery Leeson who decides he’s had enough of marketing spin and decides to write real honest ads (probably the first ethical marketing). ‘Forget Paris. French can be annoying. Come to Greece. We're nicer.’ For a movie, The Freak, he pens ‘It won't just scare you, it will f*** you up for life!’ This doesn't go down too well with the boss, Mr Drucker, his money grabbing boss. Emery is sent to a psychiatric hospital to 'recover' but soon bonds with the patients and turns the nuthouse into a creative department (not unlike most creative departments). Meanwhile, back at the office, Emery's work is accidentally sent to the printers. Suddenly New York is exposed to these real honest ads (one even featuring the word f***). His ads are a huge success, all the products sell out and everyone’s talking about this new style of ‘honest advertising’. Drucker suddenly wakes up to the fact that his CD isn’t nuts but a genius so tries to get him back while taking the glory for the ads. Of course Leeson get’s exploited and used. So fairly close to the real ad world then. The movie closes with a parody Sony commercial. In it a Sony executive claims the secret of the success of the Japanese in the electronics market is due to the fact that the Japanese are in general short. Therefore they are closer to the circuits while working, making them pay closer attention. The tagline of the commercial was ‘Sony - because Caucasians are just too damn tall.’ Almost as good as that other classic line, ‘From those wonderful people who gave you Pearl Harbour.’ See the Sony spoof ad on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93KrnZ0UJQk
Published Aug 27 2009, 01:48 AM by CHRIS ARNOLD
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by Chris Arnold
August 27, 2009 6:27 PM
 

Sorry about the block type with no breaks, it's a gliche in the BR software.

 
 
by Jason Hunt
August 28, 2009 1:07 PM
 

What a great film. Every time I talk about it, no-one's ever heard of it, which is a shame. I was lucky enough to see a test screening of it, and have loved it ever since. Did it ever get a UK cinema release?

 
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Arnold on ethical marketing

Ethics is the fastest growing area of marketing. From green campaigns to greenwash. It's hot. It's complicated. And most companies get it wrong.
 

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CHRIS ARNOLD

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Arnold on ethical marketing

Member since: 03 Jun 2008

Last login: 19 Nov 2009

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