Wednesday, September 30, 2009

A confession. And some reminiscences.



I grew up in advertising. My father was the noted copywriter credited with coining the phrase "a little dab'll do ya," for Brylcreem, and he loved his work. When we watched television as kids, we watched the commercials, we rated them, discussed them, argued about them.

We had a Bell & Howell projector in the house and my father would on occasion bring home 16mm films of "Sky King brought to you by Nabisco." The agency he worked for handled big portions of the Nabisco account and my father reckoned that "Sky King" would be right up the alley of his two young sons. It was a bit like "Lassie" only the hero was a guy with a plane rather than a collie.

I guess there's some point here somewhere about branded content. Just check out the clip above. But really, I was just thinking about my father and how he always kicked me in the ass to get me to try to make my work better. He'd also kick me in the ass just for the hell of it. It's just the way he was.

3 comments:

Tore Claesson said...

it would win an award today. if it looked exactly like that. It would win for it's retro style. Tongue in cheek.

Anonymous said...

I want some Chiparoons.

george tannenbaum said...

George,

Stanley Tannenbaum. He was Chairman of the Board of Kenyon & Eckhardt. Later taught advertising at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. As you might say, an academic wanker.