Excerpt #41 from the long-awaited book that Chuck Blore has almost finished writing ...

www.chuckblore.com

Okay, Okay I Wrote the Book

“The Remarkable Mouth" was an unbelievable hit. We had as many as three ‘Lips’ girls at one time and we were producing two or three spots every week. Then, immediately before ‘Ratings Week’, which was the time radio station audience size was being measured, we were actually producing more than five ‘Mouth’ spots a day. It played in every major market in the country and eventually, in every English speaking country in the world where there was commercial broadcasting. Boy! Another one of those and we could retire. As Don said, “We could become men of leisure with many lovely ladies hovering about, feeding us grapes.”

About that time, we were hired to do an Image spot for KABC TV in L A. They had an all new news team, two anchors, a sports guy and the weather man. We were asked to feature all of them in a single spot. The spot would be shown, naturally, mostly on their own air, so we convinced them to let us do a sixty second spot. “It will really stand out.” That was our promise. This was our premise:

No need to go beyond that point because when we presented this idea, the female anchor exploded ... “I will not have my face on an old lady’s body! Especially an old cleaning lady!!” So, instead, we did glamour shots of the four of them, each one making promises to Southern California about how much better Channel Seven News was going to be.

But Don loved the cleaning lady idea. He thought we could do it for a radio station, with the old lady doing the kind of lip syncing the beautiful girl did on The Lips spot. It could be really funny. I told Don to forget it. Radio station spots can only be thirty seconds long and there’s no way we could set up that premise and do all the rest of it in that time. “Yeah, I guess.” he replied.

Several day later, someone had called to ask about a TV spot for their radio station ... a talk station. Don took the call.

I walked by Don’s office and I heard him saying “...There’s this old Janitor in a radio station control room late at night. Your call letters are on the wall behind him. He’s looking at the microphone and an announcer is heard saying something like ...”The night janitor at WXXX eyes the microphone ... a fantasy forms ...” Don went on and on with great enthusiasm, explaining how the old janitor lip syncs the sounds of the station, sitting in front of the microphone, “But the whole thing is choreographed to the sounds of the station. The old janitor is almost dancing while sitting down.”

When he got off the phone, I said it sounded pretty good. But why a janitor instead of a cleaning lady? “Because,” said Don, “The Janitor .... is ..... ME!

He had a vision. And, boy! Did it pay off! Over the next several years, our recording studio control room became a ‘stand-in’ for the control room of over a hundred different radio stations. A beautiful part about doing TV for Radio was, the spots were always local. We could sell them again and again, which we did ... again and again, in market after market. And if you had a hit, you had a pretty good payday, again and again. The Janitor was a huge hit. Don even made personal appearances in many of the cities, talking to Ad Clubs in his Janitor’s outfit.

I have a great picture of Don about feet away from where I’m sitting as I’m writing this. He’s in his janitor costume, eye-glasses way down on his nose, his bright eyes full of wisdom, smiling over the glasses. His head is tilting a little and he’s giving me a big thumbs up! I look at that picture ten times a day and remember how much I loved him and how much he loved being the Janitor. One of the most intelligent men I’ve ever known, and he loved being that silly old character. Matter of fact, Don just loved being silly. Me too.

Every now and then, some of our silliness would pay off. I remember writing this following bit as a joke and then including it in a presentation we were doing for Ralph’s Supermarkets:

“... AND THE COW WAS RETURNED to it’s rightful owner. In other news, it was announced today, that the Chicken did come before the egg. Researchers were unanimous in their agreement, saying, ‘It must be so, because it is hard to imagine God sitting on an egg.’ But, when the eggs did start coming, they came by the zillions, and today they’re on sale at Ralph’s for 97 cents a dozen.”
Don and I would often write silly things like that and insert them into our presentation of the new commercial ideas. It was mostly just for fun, to keep a light tone on a presentation which often times could get way too serious. And there was a big plus. Once or twice a year, the client would like this left field approach and include it with his regular schedule. In the case of the Ralph’s spot, they liked that playfulness better than whatever else we presented. We ended up doing a whole campaign based on ... silly.

Even though ‘silly’ was a lot of fun, the stuff we loved to do most was that which “Elicited an ‘affirmative, emotional, response.” I used to say in talks to Ad Clubs, “I don’t care what the audience thinks about the commercial. I care how they feel about it.”

The single thing that gained us the most renown, if that’s the word, was the gut-to-gut emotional stuff we did which became ‘Reach Out And Touch Someone.’ The funny thing about ‘Reach Out’ was that it all started with something very negative.

AT&T had done a ton of audience research to learn what America thought about long-distance calling. Four fellas from New York showed up in our office one day, along with several big black books. Research. All of which said, America thinks of long distance calling, mostly as “A big bulge in their bill at the end of the month. ‘Get off that phone. It’s long distance!’ was a cry heard throughout the land.”
“What we’d like to ask you,” said the guy with the tie, ( The other three were ‘creative types’ and at that time, going to ‘the coast’ meant they could all wear shorts and sandals.) The tie-guy, obviously the ‘account exec’ asked us, “Can you do the kind of “touch-y, feel-y” stuff you do, and make people feel more positive about long distance?” (“Touch-y, feel-y.” I hated those words then, and they sound just as stupid today.)

“Oh, sure we can.” said Don.

“Absolutely.” I agreed.

They gave us an order for four spots. All with the same premise and ‘copy platform.’ A long distance phone conversation creating a positive emotional reaction to calling someone who is far away. “Calling someone you love who’s far away.” I suggested.

“Positively.” said the tie-guy.

Don had been having a semi-serious relationship with a lady whose father had recently died. “Imagine your father is on the phone and you have one last chance to tell him what he meant to you.” It took him a while to talk her into it. He took her back into a corner room, gave her a telephone receiver, and taped her conversation which in a few minutes became very personal, and in a few more, very tearful. Even after Will Scott, our aforementioned production genius, edited it down to it’s sixty second form, it maintained it’s emotional impact. So powerful ... and so completely unique. It’s fair to say, there had never been a commercial like it before.

What few people remember is that these emotional messages for AT&T were initially part of a campaign called, ‘Feelings.’ AT&T had purchased commercial rights to the big, beautiful hit song, Feelings, and that music was the background for all the spots. We were two years into the campaign before someone at N W Ayer, the AT&T ad agency, came up with the ‘Reach Out’ line.
“Feelings” became “Reach Out” Two years became eight. Four spots became close to sixty. All with a positive emotional feeling.

Yep. That’s a very good feeling.