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Advertising's dirty little secret is this: Some of the most clever, witty, eye-catching, entertaining, even revolutionary commercials have failed.
Take, for instance, Wendy's delightfully fresh ''Where's the Beef?'' spot, first introduced in 1984. Within weeks of 4'11'' octogenarian sour-puss Clara Peller uttering her line, the slogan was gracing T-shirts and providing fodder for late-night talk-show hosts and politicians. (In 1984, presidential hopeful Walter Mondale ripped into rival Gary Hart with the catchphrase du jour.) What it didn't do was make the food shack as popular as the slogan. Another classic campaign, Alka-Seltzer's ''I can't believe I ate the whole thing,'' caused bellyaches for Miles Laboratories. ''Everyone loved that commercial,'' says Donny Deutsch, chairman of the agency Deutsch Inc. ''But what everyone failed to realize is that when it comes to a person's health, they don't want to laugh.''
So what does work? ''Simple, pure messages,'' says Gary Steele, executive vice president at Bates USA, an ad agency that's known for creating safer, more straightforward ads with gripping slogans like ''Imagine life without allergies, inside and out'' (Benadryl). While drier ideas may not win many awards, they sell scads of product and make clients very happy. ''Ninety percent of advertising is boring, while 10 percent is creative -- and those are the ones that get the notoriety,'' says DDB Needham creative director Charlie Piccirillo, who worked on Alka-Seltzer's campaigns in the 1970s. ''When the [boring ones] fail, there's not much attention paid. But when creative ones fail, you've stuck your neck out.'' And when these often riskier efforts don't show them the profits, clients head elsewhere.
Wendy's learned its lesson by compromising: Take a more traditional spokesperson (big cheese Dave Thomas, the chain's founder and chairman) and frame him in humorous situations. Bates, the current ad agency for Wendy's, recently released its 500th commercial featuring Thomas (who has fully recovered from recent heart-bypass surgery). What these sweeter commercials lack in sizzle, they make up in ''record-setting gains,'' says Steele. Though no Brad Pitt, Thomas is ''impactful because he's honest. He's inviting you to have lunch with him.''
Compromising worked for Snackwell's, too. In 1995, their humorous and endearing Cookie Man campaign won one of advertising's highest kudos, the Grand Effie. (Unlike the Clios, the Effies, an annual industry award, reward sales as much as creativity; other recent winners have included Purina Dog Chow and the Rold Gold spots featuring Seinfeld's Jason Alexander). The put-upon Cookie Man's success may not be the stuff that cutting-edge dreams are made of, but it does prove that even when going for the hard sell, a little dab of creativity will do ya just fine.
