jay/day

This piece came to me via Bill Moreland, who got it from Bob Kuperman.

Hy Abady has been a copywriter for over four decades. This column, written for the East Hampton Star is a spot-on summation of what the industry was like and where it all went:

Doyle Dane ran an ad, a full-page ad in The New York Times. A cartoon, much like the ones that ran in The New Yorker by a cartoonist named Saxon.

The drawing was of the chairman of American Airlines, standing up, fists propped up on his desk, talking to co-workers. The caption/headline read: “We are not looking for another ad agency. We can barely stand the one we have.”

Is there a client today willing to be this clever and irreverent?

Is there an ad agency today willing to be this risky and even show an ad like this?

You watch television. You look at magazines. You tell me.

You can read the entire article here.

Posted by alburty at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ken Segall's new book has hit the New York Times bestseller list!

Posted by alburty at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Steve Hayden and Lee Clow spoke about their famous commercial at a recent 4As conference.

"The myth is that '1984' ran only once, on the Super Bowl," said Mr. Hayden. But it also aired at 2:00 a.m. in certain places "so that it would be eligible for award shows," he added. Oddly, it also ran in Boca Raton, Fla., which was then the headquarters of the IBM PC division 'just to piss them off,' Mr. Hayden said.

You can read the entire article here.

Posted by alburty at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As if writing the new JC Penny commercials wasn't enough (see entry below), Ken found time between takes to write a book! It's about his years of experience writing commercials for Apple, but it's neither a tell-all or a bio.

Ken says ....

Insanely Simple is about Apple’s obsession with Simplicity.

You can see Simplicity in everything Apple does: the way it organizes, innovates and communicates. In fact, one could argue that it was Steve’s unrelenting passion for Simplicity that helped Apple rise from near-death in 1997 to become the most valuable company on Earth in 2011.

My observations come from over 12 years of experience as Steve’s agency creative director, from NeXT to Apple. Also relevant to my story are the years I spent on the agency team during John Sculley’s rule at Apple. And then I had some interesting (and often excruciating) experiences in the worlds of Dell, Intel and IBM — which made me even more conscious of what sets Apple apart.

To Steve Jobs, Simplicity was a religion. But it was also a weapon — one that he used to humble competitors once thought to be invincible.

You can buy it right now by pushing the button below. How simple!

Posted by alburty at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ken, whose long career writing Apple commercials for Chiat/Day has made him a legend, is behind the new JC Penney commercials starring Ellen Degeneres. He wrote them with this creative partner, Michael Rylander, who is another C/D alum.

Posted by alburty at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My goodness! Thank you so much for some generous donations from Nat Whitten and Fred Goldberg. I'm proud that the jayday community cares enough about the site to share the cost of its maintenance. You will see their names over there on the right side of this screen.

Nat is a gifted creative director and copywriter. He's also written several books of humor. "Secrets of the Superoptimist," "The Do-It-Yourself Constitutional Amendment Kit," and "The Book of Extremely Common Prayer." You can read all about them here.

As for Fred, he is a marketing and advertising consultant in the Bay Area, but for 10 years he was founder, Chairman, and CEO of Goldberg Moser O'Neill. And, of course, for eight years he was President of the San Francisco office of Chiat/Day San Francisco.

Posted by alburty at 04:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NY alum Charlie Bidwell is an amazing photographer and now some of his images have been placed on clothing and are available for sale on fab.com. Click here to see his clothing collection.

(You can leave a message for Charlie by clicking on "Comment")

Posted by alburty at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)