This paper is to introduce three advertising practitioners, John Caples, Stanley Pollitt, and Jay Chiat and their contribution to advertising. John Caples has been called the founding father, the dean, the master of modern direct response advertising. He is a highly successful direct response advertising pioneer. Stanley Pollitt was an intelligent account director at Pritchard Wood Partners. Then, in 1968, he set up his own agency, Boase Massimi Pollitt Partnership, Inc., London (BMP). Pollitt is the inventor of account planning. Jay Chiat is the first person who introduce the concept of account planning to the U.S.

     John Caples was a copywriter. Stanley Pollitt and Jay Chiat worked as account persons. It is surprising that they all emphasized the importance of using research. John Caples insisted that copy testing guides creative thought into profitable channels. Stanley Pollitt developed the principle of qualitative research as an intermediate means of polishing up one’s creative ideas. Jay Chiat thought account planning provides the creative persons the consumer insight.

John Caples
John Caples’s life
     John Caples was born on May 1, 1900 in upper Manhattan. His father, originally from Fostoria, Ohio, was a physician, and practiced medicine in Madison Avenue. His mother was studying arts and literature at Barnard College when she became pregnant with John (Granville, 1990). She passed these interests on to John. John learned to read and write at an early age as a result of his parents’ relatively high educational levels. His mother read the classics aloud and encouraged him to write. In spite of this accomplishment, however, when John attended the Horace Mann School, a private grade school affiliated with Columbia University in New York, he did not stand out as a student, nor did he excel as a student at Columbia University, which he later attended (Cooper et al., 1994).

     The adolescent John was a "outsider". He began to rebel against his sheltered childhood. He escaped to the hills of the Palisades across the river in New Jersey each Saturday morning. When he switched to the very public De Witt Clinton High School, he was all of a sudden forced to deal with kids who had always struggled to survive and were more aggressive than he was. His grades suffered but somehow he managed to get into Columbia University (Granville, 1990).

     His freshman year was overshadowed by World War I. He became an apprentice seaman student training to become an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve. As a course requirement for freshman English, his professor decided that each student would deliver a two-minute speech to the entire class. John was so terrified of public speaking that he began to skip the class. As a result, he dropped out of Columbia and joined the navy for four years as an ordinary seaman. He decided that the navy offered a promising career, so he set his goals on passing the naval academy entrance exam. In 1924, he was admitted to the academy, where he began his education in engineering. Although the instruction at Annapolis was oriented toward engineering, John found a way to pursue his early interest in writing. He wrote for the college magazine, the Annapolis Log , and eventually became an associate editor (Cooper et al., 1994).

     At the end of his senior year, John’s fear of public speaking came back to haunt him. Each graduate had to give a short speech after graduation dinner. He was so scared that he smuggled a bottle of gin into a shower stall, and he and his roommate alternated taking swigs. After it is all over, John did not even remember giving his speech. He ended up with a passing grade. The navy offered every graduate in his class the chance to relinquish his commission in exchange for a B.S. degree. John gladly did so and received a B.S. from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1924(Cooper et al., 1994).

     After graduation, he accepted a position with New York Telephone as a student engineer for $27 a week. Soon becoming bored with the job, he sought the help of a vocational guidance counselor, Dr. Katherine Blackford. After 10 days, he got a written report from Dr. Blackford. John was stunned by its contents--except for its conclusion: "I would not discourage you in your ambition to develop yourself for a writing career." Then, he decided to consult Dr. Alvin Johnson, a editor at New Republic and active in launching the New School of Social Research. Johnson advised him that advertising would make him a better writer and would also make him more money. Therefore, John signed up for two different night school courses: advertising principles and advertising research to prepare himself for advertising career (Granville, 1990).

     In the summer of 1925, John took a course in advertising copywriting with Bill Orchard and gained the experience and samples he needed to get his first copywriting job. He went to work as a mail order copywriter at one of the leading mail order agencies, Ruthruff & Ryan. Two months later he wrote his most famous line, "They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play...". In 1927, he moved to BBDO, rose to vice president in 1941, became a Naval Commander in World War II and received a Letter of Commendation from the Secretary of the Navy in 1944. Upon returning to BBDO he completed a total of 56 years with that agency until an injury forced his retirement 2 years before he died, at age 90, in 1990 (John Caples Award home page).

John Caples’s contribution on advertising
     John Caples’ contribution was not only on copywriting, but also on direct response advertising. As mentioned on John Caples Awards home page, "he established the theory, method, and mathematical principles of response measurement behind all solid marketing" (John Caples Awards home page).

     John spent years teaching copywriting at Columbia Business School, and lecturing at the NY Advertising Club. He soon was over his fear of public speaking. He also wrote scores of articles including a regular column for Direct Marketing Magazine--and authored five famous books: Advertising for Immediate Sales, Advertising Ideas, Making Ads Pay, Tested Advertising Methods and How to Make Your Advertising Make Money (John Caples Award home page). Noted for his research into scientific methods of testing advertising’s effectiveness, John lectured extensively on these methods. Often ignored or ridiculed, the concept of testing eventually became an accepted part of advertising development (Cooper et al., 1994). He thought "copy testing also aids creative thought by permitting the ad writer to test a large number of highly imaginative ads at low cost" (Granville, 1990).

     Though John Caples projected the image of a hard-nosed businessman and advertising executive, few who knew him would have described him that way. Those who were close to him describe him as "having been a very personable man with a knack for understanding human nature" (Cooper et al., 1994).

     Throughout his career Caples influenced the minds and work of some of today’s greatest advertising executives, including David Ogilvy and Phil Dusenberry. For example, perhaps David Oglivy hit upon the best description when he called John Caples "an indomitable analyzer and teacher of advertising" and "a first-rate copywriter--one of the most effective there has ever been".

     John Caples was just a legend. His creative ads revolutionized mail-order advertising. His insistence on testing raised the consciousness of the entire advertising community to the importance of using research in developing successful campaigns (Cooper et al., 1994).

     For achievements throughout his career, his honors were many. Caples was the recipient of the annual award of the National Association of Direct Mail Writers in 1969 and the Hundred Million Club Leadership Award in 1972. His most significant accomplishments were his induction into the Copywriters Hall of Fame in 1973 (Cooper,1994). Four years later, he was elected to the Advertising Hall of Fame. In 1978, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the broad of trustees of Direct Marketing Day in New York (Granville, 1990). Andi Emerson founded John Caples Awards in 1978 as an enduring tribute to the warm and caring man who was also a highly successful Direct Response advertising pioneer (John Caples Award home page).

Stanley Pollitt
Stanley Pollitt’s life
     The newest concept in advertising is account planning, which is to bring the consumer insight to life within advertising agency. Account planning has its origins in the UK in the early 1970’s (Blackston, 1992). Stanley Pollitt at Boase Massimi & Pollitt (BMP) is the inventor of account planning.

     Pollitt was a intelligent man, but with an eccentric appearance. According to Cyrano de Bergerac’s description, he was "an elegant and exceptional mind in an eccentric body. He sported Eric Morecambe glasses, was a compulsive smoker and drinker, an inveterate mumbler and a bad dresser." (Twivy, 1993, p.21). Chris Poweel, BMP’s current chief executive, describes Pollitt as a "wholly honest, intelligent man" (Twivy, 1993, p.21). He abounded in presentation skills. Twivy wrote: "He was able to get clients to trust him in a way that few of us can any more—arguing passionately, but always prepared to listen." Pollitt became such an extraordinary magnet for talent that 3 to 5 percent the UK’s graduates applied for a planning job at BMP in the 70’s" (Twivy, 1993, p.21).

     Pollitt was a man with such a zest for the good things in life. Unfortunately, he died tragically at the age of 49 through a heart attack.

Stanley Pollitt’s contribution on advertising
     Pollitt contributed to advertising a lot during his short life. The most noted and important contribution is the invention of account planning. In 1960’s, Pollitt was a account director at Pritchard Wood Partners (UK) and responsible for both research and media (Kimani, 1996, p.9). He was asked to take over the agency’s four separate research functions. The change in advertising industry created a situation that more data relevant to advertising planning was readily available, but there are less and less people qualified to handle it left in the agencies. Because of the shortage of human resources, it is impossible for account persons to understand all the assessable information thoroughly. Pollitt, therefore, decided to put a trained researcher on every account alongside an account person. The trained researcher was charged with ensuring that all the data relevant to key advertising decisions was properly analyzed, complemented with new research, and brought to bear judgment regulating the creative strategy and how the campaign should be appraised (Kimani, 1996, p.9). That was the first phase of account planning. In 1967, J. Walter Thomas[sic.] (JWT)had adopted the planning idea and had coined the term "account planner" (Kimani, 1996, p.10).

     Account planners work as the consumer representatives in advertising agencies. In order to understand consumers well, Pollitt emphasized the importance of consumer research. He also pointed out five major faults in current execution of consumer research.

     1) Researching all the potential users of a brand was wasteful--one should research its loyalists and users only.

     2) The ability to get people to "parrot your slogans" has no connection with advertising effectiveness.

     3) People do not perceive a brand in parts, but as a whole. Pollitt described brand personality as "a complex mix of past product experience and the moods, symbols and impressions" of all the brand’s activities.

     4) People screen out messages which challenge existing behavior.

     5) You cannot divorce what you say from how you say it. There is no point in testing propositions or strategies in isolation, you must test executions of these strategies (Twivy, 1993).

     Pollitt developed a pre-testing system that was honest, effective, and friendly to the creative department at the newly formed BMP. It involved account planners. He also developed the principle of qualitative research as an intermediate means of polishing up one’s creative jewels. His view of advertising was summed up in the lesson he saw in Bill Bernbach’s work: "be simple, direct, essentially honest and credible and emerge as a sponsoring salesman" (Twivy, 1993).

Jay Chiat
Jay Chiat’s life
     Jay Chiat was born in the Bronx in 1930, but grew up in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After he graduated from Rutgers with a degree in education, he got his first job as an NBC guide at $37 a week. A year later, the Air Force took him to west to Mather Air Force Base in Sacremento, California. When his tour ended, he wanted to stay in California. That led to a job as a technical recruiter—and his start in advertising, doing recruitment ads. Then, he moved to a small Orange County agency and worked as a copy writer. After four years, he moved south and started his own agency. This agency survived for four years with real estate and technical accounts; then move into LA where he got together with Guy Day to form Chiat/Day (http://www.clioawards.com/b/wsj/chiat.htm).

     Jay Chiat, Co-founder and leader of Chiat/Day, California-based agency that has become a formidable competitor in the East. A New Yorker by birth, he came home to establish a Manhattan office for the L.A. agency-and quickly proved creative prowess works on both coasts (http://www.clioawards.com/b/wsj/chiat.htm).

Jay Chiat’s contribution on advertising
     Jay Chiat’s most significant contribution is to introduce the concept of account planning into the U.S. In Chiat/Day, their first major client was Honda. They did terrific work, but got caught in the middle of a battle between sales and advertising. The experience was traumatic-but, in retrospect, it was the best thing that could have happened to us. It forced them to recognize the need for sophisticated account handling. Best work has always begun with a marketing solution, not a creative solution. The ads flowed from the strategy, not the strategy from the ads. Then, they found a way to do it with consistency. (http://www.clioawards.com/b/wsj/chiat.htm).

     In 1981, Jay discovered account planning on a trip to Europe. He introduced the third discipline, account planning to represent the consumer in the agency, alongside account management and creative. He felt British agencies were producing advertising that was more innovative and focused, partly because of their use of account planning. He realized account planning could help ground his highly creative product and make it relevant to the target audience. Therefore, he hired Jane Newman, a U.K. planner with U.S. experience to introduce account planning to every account in Chiat/Day. Their work were very successful and helped Chiat/Day grow a lot (Kimani, 1996). He attributes much of his agency’s success to the way they use account planning to provide their creative department with the insights needed to create exceptional work (Fortini-Campbell).

     In Chiat/Day, every account have a team of equals-account planner, account manager, writer and art director. Together, they develop the strategy based on knowledge of the target audience. Creative people involved from the start so they buy into it. Once the strategy is well defined, the client has to approve it before creative work is done. There are few delays, fewer disasters, but it leads to better creative. Halfway through the process, they bring the client in. No effort to slick up the ads, just felt tip roughs. It is not about techniques, only about ideas. It is just a matter of telling the client, "Here is where we stand; here is how we got where we are." That gets the clients involved-and at a point where the client can contribute and also have a sense of ownership in the campaign (http://www.clioawards.com/b/wsj/chiat.htm).

     Jay was in charge of quality control. His other job is to keep the agency simple. As a agency grows bigger, it is easy to grow complicated. One of the toughest problems is assimilating new people. They come with a lot of mental baggage, but not the agency’s baggage. When Chiat/Day look for good account planner, they look for the people who understand advertising. The applicants should have energy for a passion about the business. For the last 25 years, Jay Chiat has made a career of keeping consumers, clients, the media and his extraordinarily motivated staff off balance (http://www.clioawards.com/b/wsj/chiat.htm).

     Jay Chiat’s most special concept is a virtual agency. He thought the architecture of the office influences the work a lot. He said "This is not about working at home. It is about making the office a more exciting place to be." (Rapaport, 1993) His iconoclastic advertising firm, Chiat/Day, is famous for the outlandish decor of its Los Angeles warehouse-headquarters. "In this agency’s culture," says Jay Chiat, "the architecture leads" (from Economist v327, 1993). He is determined to pump up the revolution by creating an agency without boundaries. With his plans for a virtual agency, he may just be the architect of the prototype. His plans, first of all, to replace the personal working spaces with elegant common areas and technically sophisticated meeting, editing and screening rooms (Rapaport, 1993). His ideal office is that "the office will be like a club. If you want to work, there will be a desk to use. If you want to do research, there will a terrific library and comfortable chairs. If you have something to do at 11, you will not have to come in of nine" (Rapaport, 1993).

     Jay Chiat is really a special practitioner in advertising industry. He will never be satisfied with the current accomplishment. Taking risks is his personality. He said "it is not a compulsion toward high risks, but the spirit of the entrepreneur" (http://www.clioawards.com/b/wsj/chiat.htm).

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