Green on Green

Grant Johnson: Well, let's get started. The sixties and seventies are often characterized as the creative revolution in advertising. How does that time differ from the advertising industry today?

Paula Green: Well, I think quite a lot. There's an enormous difference. First of all I think the agency structures themselves have changed enormously. Where they used to have staffs of people they have gone a lot to, especially in creative departments and TV production and things like that, to outsiders to freelance. They hire them on a . . . you know, what is it? "as needed" basis. So that what you're getting is work by nomads, if you will, who have no particular allegiance to either the company or the client. They're simply "guns for hire." And I think that's a different change because I think organizations establish culture and a feeling and certainly when we were at Doyle Dane Bernbach there was a fierce allegiance to what we were doing to the people who were running the shop and to our clients. It was very personal and there was great loyalty. Well loyalty has gone out the window in many places because companies have mad it difficult to be loyal. They hire and fire at will. So that's one enormous change.

Another enormous change is that agencies are on the stock market. In the beginning they weren't. The first I think to go public was George Lewis and his agency which was a small very vital offspring of Doyle Dane Bernbach actually. And they went public, Doyle Dane Bernbach eventually went public and I think the Wall Street . . . being on Wall Street changes a lot of things and which has also been accompanied by huge mergers so that agencies have been small agencies that established themselves as say even creative have been swallowed by larger companies. And while they are independent . . . sort of . . . they are still a part or division they are no longer in that sense entrepreneurial with that same kind o f need to survive and to kick and to (laughs) scratch. And I think that's been a very big change.

I think it's also different because of advertising today to me looks so mass-produced because of technology. There seem to be less personal advertising or less personal feelings about advertising. Oh, you get the occasional you get insurance companies telling you how much they care about you and stuff. You should go to the heart of things with something you can really identify with as a person. I don't think that exists, at least not to the same extent. It's become fractionated too of the numbers of outlets. There's so much more done all over the place and certainly so much more broadcast advertising and with cable and cyberspace, you know, you name it. There is just such a proliferation of advertising that it's sort of . . . and with zappers and you can mute it while you're watching and zap past it while you're recording . So you don't see commercials if you don't want to. There is enormous change, and I think that, however, that a strong idea, a great product, a new idea, a fresh idea will get noticed.

[Does that] answer your question?

GJ: Yeah, that's a very good answer. Alright, let's move on. many creatives, . . .

PG: You are recording? Aren't you?

GJ: uh, yeah, I am.

PG: Good. Then I want a copy, you know (laughs).

GJ: Uh, okay, sure. Okay, we'll just take the second question then. Many practitioners, especially creatives, burn out and leave after several years. What's you're secret to a long career?

PG: (Laughs). If there's a secret. I don't think I ever saw advertising as "instead of."

I didn't go into advertising "instead of" writing a book. I didn't go into it because some day I was going to leave and write the great American novel or such. I don't know what people had to write . . . the great American screenplay or whatever.

GJ: Yeah, I know a few people that think that way.

PG: Yeah, I mean, I loved advertising. I was very good . . . I am very good at advertising and I loved it. I think that helps longevity because if you look at advertising as what it really is which is artful selling, advocating something whether it's a product or an idea or whatever it's terribly stimulating because each problem, each product, each problem creates an excitement, a challenge to "How do I sell this? What I do? How do I get people to notice? What would I do about it? and How can I take this thing that seems to be dragging along, an old hat or whatever, and make it fresh again?" It's a constant challenge to your . . . at least to my abilities to think and to create if you will and go over the top to something new. And I think if you see it as excitement and if you see problems as interesting, not as barriers, but as something interesting to do, something that you want to get through then maybe you don't get tired of it. I have never gotten tired of it. I like it. I like the work. I like the people I work with. I like doing something for clients that does something for them. I like results, and in advertising you can get results.

GJ: Yes, that kind of leads to the next question is do you have a personal theory or philosophy on how to create effective advertising? How to get results?

PG: Well I guess I have a lot of theories . . . and I think some of these ideas run together because they are part of a whole. The first thing is like someone once said "Don't scratch where is looks good, scratch where it itches." Too many people look at a problem and they don't like the problem that is handed to them in terms of "how do I advertise this?", and they look around for something that is easier, is prettier, they like better. My philosophy or it's not really a philosophy but . . . my direction is to come to grips with a product and the problem, and actually once you define the problem, once you know where your market is, once you know what the problem is once you define it you really have come to your ad. Because that's where it all is. You have to come to grips with it and you have to be able to say, "Well now, what is the market? Who are the competitors? Who needs it? Who wants it? What do people feel about it?" And once you get to that then that's where you find your direction. I think a lot of the times I see so much, especially in broadcast, where people I'm sure could not write a headline if they had to. They don't really know how to focus on what is the real problem. What are you really . . . they will sometimes clothe it in wonderful graphics and dazzling array of effects and think they've solved it. Well, they've filled the time but they haven’t necessarily gone very far. I also think that advertising should reflect . . . advertising that I do has to reflect my client. The advertising has to be . . . is his public face. I have to give his public face a voice and it should be his voice not my voice. Even though, obviously, my underlying intelligence and input is there, but it has to his, not mine. And I think that you have to lose yourself lose self in it and let yourself be the client speaking. And I think on the other side of that you have to be always talking to somebody you have to say to somebody, "Listen to me. Hear what I'm saying. Isn't this interesting?" I've always thought that if I feel something and I think that I feel something if I can get someone else to feel it that way I have reached them. I always feel that what I feel, people feel too. So that if I can explain it, if I can communicate that I have already begun to reach them. I like to look people straight in the eye and I want my advertising to do that -- at least connect with their feelings or their lives in some way. It's for me a matter of reaching what they are experiencing in their life and saying, "Hey, look at this." And often times when you do that you take a look at it and say, "hey, of course, isn't that obvious." And, of course, it is obvious but not unless you (laughs) make it obvious.

GJ: Are you familiar with account planning . . . the current trend in research, because a lot of what you're saying sounds like account planning, like studying the product, finding a consumer insight, and building a brand image, it sounds like a lot what you were talking about. Obviously, it has been a part of good advertising for a long time.

PG: I've been doing this for a very long time. I very early on was able to take on something, for example early on at DDB, I did some something for Heinz. I did we had Heinz soups and Heinz were really number two on the market like number two but by such a wide gap. Campbell's was something like 85% of the market and Heinz had like 5 or 6%.

GJ: Really!?

PG: And my boss had asked me, Ned always said to me, "Gee, Paula, don't you wish we had gotten Campbell's?" and I said, "No, what could I do for Campbell's?" But the fact was that Heinz had an unknown, really an unnoticed, brand because Campbell's is not only so big but had really kind of gobbled up all of the shelf space which is the other part of advertising. You have to have product on the shelf and enough room for people to see it. And one of the things I suggested to Heinz at the time was that instead of going head to head with Campbell's on their most popular brands like chicken noodle and tomato soup, but Hienz had a wonderful array of different soups, more interesting that they could promote and by that get into somebody's kitchen. Not on . . . they could not compete with Campbell's tomato soup really, even though I went so far as to rename it California tomato to give it some distinction and talk about the California tomatoes that went into it. They simply didn't have the weight so that . . . what was your question? (laughs) Oh, this account planning. I have always worked . . . I have always done this, I have always looked at life and seeing what people were doing and thinking and relate it to what I was doing. So that if you don't know what they're doing how the hell can you talk to them.

GJ: Yeah.

PG: If you don't know what they want and even if you don't know what they want but you have something that they could want because you know what it can do. In other words, if you know a lot about the product . . . by the way essential, essential to know as much as you can about the product and the company and even to know what not to talk about, you know? But you have to know a awful lot. You should know. And to that end I think that visiting factories which I have done all my life . . . all my working life really since I was invited to by one of my early employers. It makes a very big difference, a very big difference.

GJ: Well, which it leads well to this next question about Avis. That was a campaign that was honest in talking about the company.

PG: Well that was very interesting because the most important thing about the Avis campaign, I believe, is the fact that we were talking to a particular market. We were talking to at that point certainly mostly business men. Men who traveled a lot. They were tired of getting dirty cars in the first place, for one thing. Tired of . . . kind of the break . . . the rent-a-cars that they had were really so inadequate and so badly kept up. And there were also people most of whom did not work for number one companies. They were people who understood that if you were not the number one company you had to do more. And that is what you offered your customers. "We can do more for you because we're not big and we really need your business." This is basically what we said at Avis, that we aren't the number one company and because we aren't we have to try harder. Because we have to do more than the number one company does because we need your business. So that I think it resonated with not underdog only but the fact is that you were fighting and trying very hard to get ahead. And I think there wasn't anybody who didn't understand that . . . that was so American.

GJ: Yeah. And it is an example of positioning that comes up in every textbook.

PG: Well it is because we had to find a place for it. When we took on the account they very proudly showed us at our first meeting a three-page logo that they had done in a magazine and they thought that was terrific advertising. A three-page logo! Avis across a double page spread plus a gatefold. And I was totally aghast because that wasn't advertising, that was a sign. But the sign didn't mean anything, the name Avis didn't mean anything. Rental cars were in terrible disrepute by the people who had to use them all of time. And what we did in creating the ads the first ads was really creating an operating manual for the company which said you had to have a clean car, it said your windshield wipers had to work, you had to have a full gas tank. You had to have all of these things that therefore the people who service the car had to do. It created a guide, not only a guide but an operating manual basically for people running the business. And at first, of course, it was resented because we were telling people they were going to get these things and the guys looked at each other and said, "yeah, and we gotta do it!"

But, the most important part about that campaign probably is in terms of research. We did not have everybody even in the agency who loved that campaign . In fact there were guys who thought that the number two was kind of a put-down. They didn't like it. So they sent the research department out with little 3x5 cards with the copy of the ads and they came back, they had gone to airport s and places like that, and they came back with the answer that 50% of the people thought that number two meant that "we weren’t as good as." And thank God for Bill Bernbach because he said, "What about the other 50%?" And if you think about that, you don't get 100% of people, but there are people who say, "Hey, that's interesting." Even on little file cards, I mean they didn't see the ads, they didn't see the type. You didn't get . . . they weren't in the medium they looking at. They weren't in the magazine. On little file cards! That's a terrible way to test something as fragile as a new idea, and it was so new. It wasn't new in people's operating really . . . business men and salesmen had known this all the time. It was certainly new in advertising to do something that said without apologizing that we are not the number one and how that was an advantage . . . to you . . . the user. Okay?

GJ: Yes, that was very interesting. Now let's move on to the next question. There is a higher proportion of women within advertising especially at the entry level but there's still very few women executives. What are your thoughts on this? I've read some other interviews where you've talked about this.

PG: Well . . . I think there are more women now in higher positions than there were. Many of us, of course, went out and started our own agencies . . . I don't know whether it was so much to be the president of my own agency but was to have a say in what the advertising was. I mean to be responsible to be really truly responsible for what was happening. Which you can't do at somebody else’s shop. You can . . . you're accountable to whoever runs the shop and that's as it should be. But I think I was anxious to be on my own to prove . . . no . . . to be responsible for the advertising I did and to get the credit and/or the blame. I think though in terms of women proliferating in advertising is there are many more. Because when I was at Doyle Dane Bernbach originally there were only a couple of women eventually who became account people. There are many, many more account women than there used to be. But I think that when companies, manufacturing companies, services companies, and so forth the more they have women in top management the more I think you will see advertising agencies having women in top management. I think its a matter of just changing the color, you know, the texture of the organization, and I think more women on one end will inspire more women on the other. It used to be that men were far more comfortable with other men in the business situation. I think, I would hope, I think it's changing. My clients have always been men for the most part . . . and they were always very secure men who could deal with a secure woman. So that I think all of these things add up. . . I don't know. That's simply my theory.

GJ: Yeah, but it is changing. I think.

PG: Pardon me?

GJ: It is changing quite a bit.

PG: Oh, I think so. I think so. I think that one of the things that used to bother me about something like This Week with David Brinkley, and I once wrote them a letter was that I kept seeing suits, all I saw was suits, suits, suits, suits, suits, the round table suits being interviewed . . . suits (laughs). Now they got Cokey. (Grant laughs) Well, its important, yeah, Cokey Roberts who I think is . . . who outshines them all actually I think in terms of her both intelligence and ease, her poise, and her . . . her incisiveness without being offensive. You know, she can be very strong without . . . being offensive in it. And you're beginning to see certainly with a . . .the Secretary of State being a woman. You're being able to see woman in more important positions and therefore being interviewed. So as that changes, as those things change, women come up in the world. That wasn't the question, was it?

GJ: No, but that's . . . very important as well. I just have a few more questions.

PG: Yeah, fine. What I didn't send you and I would like to . . . I did a campaign for Burlington industries when I was at Doyle Dane Bernbach and the logo, the weaving tag logo became very important and . . . I don't know if you've seen it or heard about it.

GJ: No, I saw it mentioned but I haven't seen the logo.

PG: Well what it was really . . . it had the sound of the looms behind it. I think we did it both loom sounds and, you know, and enhanced loom sounds. It had the sound of a loom going as it wove criss-cross across the screen and wrote and wove into a piece that said Burlington. And I did that, and it was funny because that one said "If it's . . . If there's anything to do with fabric, we do it at Burlington, and we do more of it than anyone else in the world." Now that came about pretty much just right after or just before Avis I guess sometime, and it was odd because one of the guys then who wrote the creative corner at Ad Age said that this was the most boastful slogan he had ever heard, and I thought it was very funny because the most modest one, what, "We're only number two, we try harder." also I wrote. So the most boastful and the most modest for Avis. I just wanted to mention that because I have some kind of wonderful looking stuff from there but not print. It's all commercials and TV spots. However, they did end up adapting their corporate logo from those spots.

GJ: I'd like to talk a little bit about creativity and what inspires you, and what is essential to a career based in creativity.

PG: Well, essential to a career based in creativity is stamina (laughs) along with talent is stamina and perhaps a little bit of terror. Ah, you need a certain amount of fear that "Gosh, can you do it again!" and a great interest in what's going on, I think the most important thing, is what's going on in the world. Being part of what's happening or at least being an observer of it and trying to work outside of the ghetto of your own insularity, which is the enemy of creativity. Insularity and isolation are the enemies of creativity, and as far as I'm concerned what inspires and keeps you going is exposure. Like in New York riding subways, shopping in the supermarkets, doing my own cooking, walking around, talking to people that I meet just in ordinary life . . . and finding out how they're thinking, what they're thinking about, because just being in touch with life basically. I have a son and now I have a grandchild and this is also part of learning what, you know, what's going on in that generation as well. So that's what's inspiring. Life is inspiring if you take part in it.

GJ: Yeah.

PG: And this for me this is not an ivory tower. It is not someplace I go or go up to be away from . I go out to be in. (pause) You asked what I considered to be my greatest contribution to advertising.

GJ: Yeah, that was the next question.

PG: Which is a kind of . . . well , you know, not to be bragging, but besides the campaigns that I've done that I think have created some history in advertising or historical landmarks say in advertising, I think perhaps one of my greatest contributions is that for example when I did work for the American Cancer Society, and I did a spot on breast self-examination and that was in 19. . . I got the award for that in 1970. Talking to women about, "If you're a woman what you're about to see can save your life." You talked about examining your breasts, and the most important thing beyond the fact that it saved documentedly saved 24 lives in its first airing, we know that, the most important thing was being able to get that spot on air. we had to fight all kind s of taboos. The networks didn't want to leave it on. They didn't want to put on "Examine your breasts." they these were this was language and talk that at that point was absolutely new and forbidden. So that I was able to break through that particular barrier of television taboo and allowed, maybe it was the thing that really allowed people to speak frankly and openly about public health issues on television, and I think that was a very very important change, and I think this was in a way perhaps in a large way responsible for that. The same thing actually happened when I was doing commercials for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. We had a very tough fight getting them accepted on television on several of the major networks. They called it advocacy, "This is issue advertising," they didn't want to take it, and we had to fight very hard to get our message on television, and the other thing it changed was certainly changed the way labor advertised because this was the first commercial that went out and delivered its message in a totally new and modern way. They were very straightforward very simple commercials , as you know. The chorus was part of this particular union's history, but to put them on air and to speak to them like your neighbors was absolutely new and breathtaking g for union advertising for labor advertising. I think we changed I changed a lot of that. They went form leaflets on the corner to more sophisticated more contemporary advertising on television.

The Avis contribution I think was to finally have someone stand up and say, "No, we're not number one." To say that , "We are not the biggest," and to give the reason for not being the biggest, why it's important to you ,because like people who understand we try harder because we need your business.

GJ: Yeah, I was just reading a Trout and Ries’ book on positioning, and they talk about Avis, and they said when Avis changed their slogan from the aspirational "We try harder" to "We're going to be number one" it was like boastful and then like their market share decreased.

PG: At that point (laughs) I wasn't even working on . . .

GJ: Yeah, it was after you were there . . .

PG: I would not have done that, but that's not the point. I think many times what happens in all kinds of advertising clients get tired sometimes. It's very hard to keep the client . . .

GJ: Yeah, I've looked at Avis' Web site . . .

PG: But they're still saying "We try harder" today. They are still using that. They are using that as a basis of their advertising. The advertising is different, but they are still saying "We try harder" and showing they are giving service. So that's a very long lived theme for a company. Most companies get very tired of their themes. They think they've seen it for a hundred years, and the fact is people cling to good ones. They like the good ones, and it becomes recognition, you know, like your package becomes recognition. It reminds me of when I first went on the Quaker Oats account , the first thing when I went out to Chicago to meet with them, the first thing they said to me was, "Well, Paula, I guess you’re gonna want to change the package," and I said, "No way, this is the most unusual box on the shelves. It has longevity. It’s been there forever. You’d be crazy to change that." I said, "We have to make what it says new, but we don’t change it."

GJ: Yeah, it’s important . . . building a brand and maintaining an image.

PG: "Know when to hold’em."

GJ: Yeah. Another thing I found interesting was your work with the State of Israel.

PG: Yeah, that was really fascinating. Well, what happened was that they wanted to sell . . . well it was 1990 right around the Gulf War time and what had happened was that they were in desperate need to sell bonds because they needed to free up, actually what they needed to do was free up their money into defense and they needed to have other money so they could go on with their work of building because Israel is in a constant state of building as you might understand. What was interesting is that I turned them out very quickly and I not only wrote them I produced them, I was the voice, I did the . . . It was on radio and I did the voice so that all of the things, and I think I turned on just about a dime to do it, and of course the best part was it was enormously successful and the other interesting part about doing that I did a series and I was very pleased with them because it also echoed a lot of history. Also calling things "school dollars" and not defense dollars . I spoke to Eli Wiesel who was good enough to do a spot for us and it kind of very exciting to work with him, and I asked he wrote his own copy of course and he read it to me and I said, "Gee there’s something I really like in it," and I pointed it out, and he said, "Oh , really!" and then he did a little bit more with it. So it was kind of fun being a kind of I would not say an editor to Eli Weisel pointing out certain things. So he did the voice-over for us. Then I did get I got an award, by the way, from the state of Israel called the Gates of Jerusalem, and its a lovely award with an medal. Of course it’s all framed I don’t wear it. I don’t go out with my medal, it’s in a frame. It was, I did that of course pro bono. We didn’t make any money on that at all. That was all free. As was, by the way, the ACS stuff was all pro bono.

GJ: What’s your view on pro bono work in advertising?

PG: Well I think a lot of people see it as a time when they can kind of flex their egos. I see an awful lot of pro bono things and I think, "You’re doing it because this is how you want it. You want to say something this way. I think that it’s good to do pro bono. It’s good to do it for things you believe in. I think that it’s very much in a sense the way political advertising is done or not done. I think that my feeling about political advertising is that I would not want to do it for a candidate I did not believe in because it’s not exactly like going to the supermarket and buying a can of cleanser and deciding you didn't really like it so you won’t buy it next time. This is far more important, and I think for myself, and I’m saying it for anybody else, it’s not like being a gun for hire, I have to want this thing. I have to believe in this thing as I do in the pro bono things, the things that I think are most important to do. I believe in doing it if you can. In fact, I did an awful lot of it when we were probably too young to do it in terms of building our own business. You know, it took a lot of time because you get devoted to these things, and I’m glad to have done them because I think they’ve done good. They‘ve done things. They’ve been important in peoples’ lives, and I think that’s, you know, you’ve got to give something back, and in way that’s how you give it back by doing something that will benefit somebody else.

GJ: What advice do you have for people just starting out in advertising?

PG: All of the above (laughs) all of the above. Get out in the world. Don’t be isolated. Don’t be insular. See what’s going on. Don’t just have lunch with folks just like yourself. Don’t just travel with tiny little groups that are ingrown. Don’t live in a ghetto of , an intellectual ghetto either. Just see what’s going on, and take a look and think when you do something how would you feel on the other end of it. How would you feel on the receiving end. I always try to think that , how would I feel if I heard this. Am I going to be turned off by it? Am I going to think it’s smart-ass? Am I going to think "Gee, they’re right," or "Hey, I ought to think about that." How honestly can you do it and how much how honest can you be in your ads. You can be as honest as you can and still do exciting ads. And I think people don’t think they can. I’ve seen so much stuff around lately that I simply can not believe because it’s so dishonest that even in its attitude. It’s not that it’s trying to cheat anybody, but it’s cheating the client. It’s not honest . . . it’s not good for the client. It’s self, you know, kind of flexing ones own ego and muscles and ha not necessarily to the benefit of the product or the client. So I would say, you know, be straight. Know what you’re doing. Know what you’re about in this place. Know your subject, and if you can write a headline you can If you can write a good headline then you can probably do a good commercial because so many commercials lack the core of what a good headline is. Of kind of focusing and directing all of your attention to the problem. I could go on (laughs). I don’t think I should.

GJ: That’s good advice.

PG: Also try to work at a good shop.

GJ: Really.

PG: Yeah. Try to work at a good shop where they really want you to think.

GJ: Would you suggest like starting out at a smaller agency . . .

PG: I don’t know . . . I don’t know these days. There are loads and loads of small agencies right now. There are those that are under the umbrella of a larger agency. That’s how I got to work with Doyle Dane Bernbach in the first place. I loved what they did. I had known some of them originally, and I thought "Gee, I can do that, and I loved doing that, and I’d like to work there." There the other thing I’d like to add to all the other advice is that you need a good ear. You need to know when something is rings true. You need to know what are you really hearing it right. Are you really hearing what the client says or are you hearing what he’s saying under it? You need a good ear.

GJ: Alright. Well, thank you very much for your time.