There’s No Idea Like Idealism: Advertisers Play on Guilt of the Ex-Hip

Some familiar signs have been popping up on the backsides of cars in California.

Peace signs.

This is no time warp. Indeed, the small print underneath these emblems says “Back by popular demand.” True, many baby boomers who once worried about their draft cards are now fretting about their American Express gold cards, but not all the old ideals are dead.

And don’t--for one commercial minute--think that Madison Avenue hasn’t taken note.

It isn’t just a matter of peace signs showing up on bumper stickers and necklaces. Nor is it simply ‘60s music being recycled in movies or ads. Rather, a few advertisers are beginning to latch on to the way we looked--and even the way we thought--during the anti-war movement of the 1960s and 1970s. And they are associating it with their products.

No, Abby Hoffman isn’t pitching Tide. Nor is Jerry Rubin hawking Diet Coke. But a few products and organizations chasing the lucrative “30-something” generation may have found the best sales tool of all: a mirror. Advertisers are discovering that an effective way to grab the attention of those in this market is to show them photographs of themselves--then and now.

“If you can get someone to stop long enough to look at themselves first, then maybe they will also look long enough to see your message,” said Monique Rura, promotions manager for the publication Mother Earth News.

In a direct mail promotional campaign this month, Mother Earth News is trying to get the attention of potential advertisers by juxtaposing pictures of flower children of the ‘60s alongside photos of these same people as successful business people of the ‘80s. “When people realize that they have changed,” said Rura, “they may also realize that we have changed, too.” The rock music magazine Rolling Stone devised a similar promotional campaign last year.

And, last week, the United Negro College Fund began a print ad campaign that also holds up a looking glass. This ad, developed by the New York ad firm Young & Rubicam, features two contrasting pictures. One picture shows a group of five people dressed as hippies beside the headline: “Remember when you said you’d do something if only you had the power?” The other picture shows the same people dressed in Wall Street garb, and the ad says: “Well, now you do. Give to the United Negro College Fund.”

“The point is,” said Therese Verhoogen, campaign manager for the Advertising Council, the New York organization that is sponsoring the college fund ads, “a lot of corporate executives are people who are now in their 30s and who were once part of the peace movement. The ads are an attempt to remind them that their commitments still hold today.”

Will these ads work? “I don’t agree that the peaceniks of the ‘60s have become today’s conservatives,” said Henry Assael, chairman of the marketing department at the Graduate School of Business Administration at New York University. But if the advertisers have guessed right, he said, “it could be a bonanza.”

A Tax of Beauty

Robert Rodriguez doesn’t remember how many drops of paint he used when he created a poster for the box-office smash “Jewel of the Nile.” And Andrew Zito is hard-pressed to recall how much ink he used on the ad he recently illustrated for a new line of Zenith computers.

But these Los Angeles illustrators--along with their peers nationwide--are complaining that the Internal Revenue Service wants them to keep tabs on every drop they dribble. And, they say, this laborious accounting procedure may eventually end up costing ad agencies more for free-lance graphics.

Behind all this is a tiny clause in the Tax Reform Act of 1986 that allows artists and writers to deduct only the costs of supplies and equipment actually used on sold projects. Until the act was passed, illustrators and graphic artists could deduct the cost of virtually anything they bought for business use.

“It’s a bookkeeping nightmare,” Rodriguez said. “Who keeps track of how many dabs of paint they use?”

The Graphic Artists Guild--an artists’ lobby group--is asking Congress to correct this portion of the tax code that they say hurts not just artists but also photographers and free-lance writers. “Whatever money Uncle Sam is making off of this law,” said Daniel Abraham, vice president of the New York guild, “the Pentagon could spend in five minutes.”

JWT / L.A.’s Big Year

It’s no secret that this has been a lousy year for the ad firm J. Walter Thompson. Since it was purchased by the British-based marketing firm WPP Group, the New York ad agency has lost $450 million in billings, along with such big-name clients as Burger King and Goodyear.

But there has been at least one ray of light: Thompson’s Los Angeles office. Just last week, the office snatched the $5-million Standard Brands Paint Co. account from local rival Admarketing. And, during the past year, the Los Angeles office has taken on more than $30 million in new business, including Vons, Conroy Florists and Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate Group. What’s more, the size of the office staff jumped to 210 from 150 last year. “Regardless how the rest of the company is doing,” said James K. Agnew, who oversees Thompson’s West Coast operations, “the Los Angeles office has had a super year.”

Harmon Holding Out

Now that Mark Harmon’s contract with Coors is about to run out, a slew of companies is serenading him. And so far he’s turned them all down--flat.

“Mark would have to follow the Coors campaign with something absolutely fabulous,” said Sandra Joseph, his Los Angeles agent. “Otherwise, he’d just look like every other pitchman.” She said Harmon had already turned thumbs down to requests from a cosmetics company, a car maker and a manufacturer of over-the-counter medicine. Harmon--whose contract with Coors expires Dec. 31--just completed filming “Stealing Home,” a movie about a baseball star. “I can assure you of one thing,” Joseph said, “he won’t promote another beer.”

Peace With Vodka

For years, it’s been like Russian roulette trying to mount any kind of U.S. advertising campaign for the Russian-made vodka, Stolichnaya.

After all, every time a new campaign takes off, the Russians do something outrageous like invade Afghanistan or shoot down commercial aircraft. But last week’s summit changed all that--at least for a few days. Executives from Pepsico Wines & Spirits--a division of Pepsico that owns the rights to sell the vodka in the United States--ran an ad in half a dozen major newspapers that played up the vodka’s Russian heritage to the hilt.

The ad, created by the New York ad firm Calet, Hirsh & Spector, is a drawing of an empty negotiating table that has on it a Russian flag, an American flag and an empty bottle of Stolichnaya. The headline reads, “Another thing both sides agree on.” Sure, Pepsico “took advantage” of the situation, said marketing vice president Tom McCarthy, “but it was a natural.”

Rave Review?

One of the top guns of movie making--Paramount Pictures--has placed its $50-million advertising account up for review.

And several Los Angeles agencies are said to be in the running for the much coveted ad business of the company that not only made last year’s box-office smash “Top Gun” but also this year’s big hit, “Fatal Attraction.” Among the local agencies jockeying for the account is Ogilvy & Mather’s West Coast office, which lost the Columbia Pictures account earlier this year.

Currently, the New York firm AC&R;/DHB & Bess handles the majority of Paramount’s advertising, and it will remain in the running for Paramount’s business, said Sidney Ganis, president of Paramount’s motion picture marketing group. Paramount has not set a date for a decision.

Ronald Red-Faced

That’s not egg on Ronald McDonald’s face--it’s tomato.

And the tomato has been lobbed by Ted Batkin, manager of the California Fresh Market Tomato Advisory Board in Dinuba, near Fresno. Batkin says he has “serious problems” with a series of McDonald’s commercials for the McDLT hamburger that shows fresh tomatoes being stored in refrigerators. “Years of research,” he said, “have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that tomatoes should never be stored below 55 degrees.”

Responded a McDonald’s spokesman, “You can tell the California Fresh Market Tomato Advisory Board that if we didn’t serve them this way, we wouldn’t be able to buy as many tomatoes as we do.”