"Gribbin
was the best teacher I ever met in advertising. He was one of the few top
writers I ever knew who could break writing down and show you why he did
what he did. He would follow a long sentence with a short explosive one
that either drove a point deep into the readerÕs consciousness or
made one want to keep on reading."
- Draper Daniels, author of Giants, Pigmies and Other Advertising People. (Daniels 1974, p.67)
George Gribbin showed his great potential when he was still a freshman in the advertising business. He was assigned to the Packard automobile account when he had just joined Y&R. He was notified to imitate the writing style of Jack Rosebrook, his predecessor. Finally, he was withdrawn from the team after six weeks. In an interview, Mr. Gribbin told the story, "Well, maybe I can't write the Packard account. I don't know. But what I do know is that I can't write like Rosebrook. I've got to write like Gribbin. "(Mayer 1958, p.68)
His insistence on writing his own way finally gave birth to the well-known Gribbin's style. Mr. Gribbin's ad works looked like small "essays," but they never failed to be attention-grabbing. His writing was stuffed with well crafted and simple details that made the copy trustworthy and his subjects very personal (Madden, Cooper & Cole, 1994).
Mr. Gribbin always presented his ads in a humorous way without cheapening the advertising messages. He also wisely created empathy between the audiences and his advertising characters. Mr. Gribbin believed the well-written advertising will thrive all the time. He justify this by saying that, "A lot of educated consumers live in this country and a lot of clients who not only went to college but often read things of higher literary value than sales figures or each other's annual reports." (Bart 1963, p.53).
eorge
