log inhelp

 | 

  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Bob Levinson DDB ad Do This Or Die

This version was saved 14 years, 6 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by Itzel
on October 12, 2009 at 9:08:09 pm
 

 

In 1960, Bob Levenson from the DDB advertising agency (Doyle Dane Bernbach), submitted an ad for a contest organized by TIME INC. and won. The following is the complete text of that advertisement:

 

Do This or Die

 

Is this ad some kind of trick?

No. But it could have been. And at exactly that point rests a do or die decision for American business. We in advertising, together with our clients, have all the power and skill to trick people. Or so we think. But we're wrong. We can't fool any of the people any of the time. There is indeed a twelve-year-old mentality in this country; every six-year-old has one. We are a nation of smart people. And most smart people ignore most advertising because most advertising ignores smart people. Instead we talk to each other. We debate endlessly about the medium and the message. Nonsense. In advertising, the message itself is the message. A blank page and a blank television screen are one and the same. And above all, the messages we put on those pages and on those television screens must be the truth. For if we play tricks with the truth, we die.

Now. The other side of the coin. Telling the truth about a product demands a product that's worth telling the truth about. Sadly, so many products aren't. So many products don't do anything better. Or anything different. So many don't work quite right. Or don't last. Or simply don't matter. If we also play this trick, we also die. Because advertising only helps a bad product fail faster. No donkey chases the carrot forever. He catches on. And quits. That's the lesson to remember. Unless we do, we die. Unless we change, the tidal wave of consumer indifference will wallop into the mountain of advertising and manufacturing drivel. That day we die. We'll die in our marketplace. On our shelves. In our gleaming packages of empty promises. Not with a bang. Not with a whimper. But by our own skilled hands.

 DOYLE DANE BERNBACH INC.

 

 

 

 

 

References

http://blog.business-model-innovation.com/2009/07/get-a-good-business-model-do-this-or-die/

External Links   

http://www.ddb.com/

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.

Printable version