Group Is Determined to Spread the Notion That Ads Should Sell Ideas

The actor who appears on the TV screen looks relatively normal. Except for one thing. Atop his shoulders, in the spot where his head would normally be, sits a TV set.

“Tubehead”--as he is called--spends the entire 15-second commercial trying to yank the TV set off his head. At the very end of the commercial, this message flashes on the screen: Can you switch off?

Don’t expect to see this ad on American television any time soon. But one major Canadian network has agreed to run it. Behind this commercial--which is scheduled to be filmed this week in Vancouver--are two Canadian documentary film makers who are also environmental activists. They say they are fed up with the ads on commercial TV. And they have decided to take on not only North America’s major TV networks--but advertisers, too.

“We’re going to redefine the advertising industry,” said Kalle Lasn, co-founder of the Media Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Vancouver that says commercials on television should sell fewer products and more progressive ideas.

At the very least, the organization says, if huge paper companies can run ads about how many millions of trees they are growing, there should also be room for groups like theirs to purchase air time on network TV about the sensitive ecological environments that these same paper companies are destroying.

“Our point is to break the trance that people get into when they are watching TV,” said Lasn, 47, a documentary film maker who at one time worked as a researcher for an advertising agency in Japan, compiling research for such clients as Coca-Cola and General Foods. “We’re all consuming like crazy people during a time of ecological crisis. We will offer anti-consumption messages in the middle of all those other messages that keep telling people to buy things.”

How to pay for the production and air time of these “alternative” TV ads? Well, last month the group printed its first issue of a quarterly magazine that it has appropriately named Adbusters. It hopes to get enough subscribers--and contributors--to fund a number of anti-consumption ads. In the meantime, Adbusters has received some financial backing from several environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the Western Canada Wilderness Committee.

“I never saw the film ‘Ghostbusters,’ ” admitted Bill Schmalz, the co-publisher of Adbusters who thought up its name. “But I think the name is quite catchy.” Schmalz, 49, has never worked for an ad agency, but has filmed several short movies that focus on the outdoors.

The first issue of Adbusters, which was printed last month, includes articles on subliminal advertising, how advertisers attract the attention of children and even an article on how to make and air your own TV commercial for under $2,000.

The organization does have some support from American advertising experts. Two mid-level West Coast advertising executives--who have asked not to be named--are quietly acting as consultants. And George Gerbner, dean emeritus at Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, has also spoken out for Adbusters.

“The networks discourage anything but mainstream advertising, and that is too limiting,” said Gerbner. “There is a long history of the networks refusing to accept certain ads because they are afraid it could cost them their major advertisers.”

Perhaps nothing better symbolizes the types of advertising that Adbusters supports than a print ad that appears on the inside of the front cover of its first issue. The “ad” is a parody of a former Winston cigarette campaign. In it, an attractive woman is holding a pack of cigarettes while she stands in the sort of natural setting typical of tobacco advertising.

But the headline on the ad is a shocker: “If it wasn’t for cigarettes, I wouldn’t have cancer.” The ad was included in a book of parody ads called “A Tale of Advertising in America,” published in 1976 by Terry Shukle, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based free-lance photographer.

“The trick is to create an ad that is humorous enough to attract attention but that doesn’t offend the very people you’re trying to reach,” said Shukle. “But I wonder if people can handle ads like this. There seems to be so many restrictions these days, that if you stick your nose out, you’re liable to get it whacked.”

Indeed, Adbusters has already had its nose whacked by the Canadian Broadcasting Network, which has rejected the “Tubehead” ad based on rough illustrations that it was sent. But Canada’s second largest network, Canadian Television Network, has agreed to run it.

Soon, Adbusters will be trying to get the ad aired on the major TV stations in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. But the prospects look dim. Executives at the three major networks say the ad sounds too controversial for them.

“Showing that ad would be like shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Harvey Dzodin, vice president of commercial clearance at ABC television in New York. “Make that, shooting ourselves in the tube.”

Dzodin said that ABC doesn’t accept any “issue” ads. He said the network believes that such issues should only be covered in news programs or talk shows. “Maybe they should call Sam Donaldson and see if they can get on his show,” said Dzodin.

“Let me ask you this,” posed Rick Gitter, vice president of advertising standards at NBC, which wouldn’t accept the ad. “Would the Los Angeles Times run an ad that suggested people use your newspaper for kindling?”

Although an executive at CBS declined to specifically comment on the “Tubehead” ad, he said CBS does have a policy about those ads it won’t accept. “We would not broadcast a commercial that denigrated television,” said Matthew Margo, vice president of program practices at CBS. “We also don’t broadcast commercials that take controversial positions on important topics. If we did, companies with the finances at hand could control the national agenda.”

Not surprisingly, the folks at Adbusters say that’s a lot of bunk.

“The networks have been using that argument for years,” said Lasn. “The people with the money are controlling the national agenda right now. We think we can counteract them with this $5,000 ad.”

Arco’s New Product Fuels Big Ad Purchase

While Arco may be helping to clear the air with a less polluting gasoline, it is also about to flood the air with plenty of ads promoting it.

In fact, Arco has made one of the largest media buys in Southern California history. And during the month of September it will spend nearly $5 million to air four TV advertisements--and another $2 million on various radio and print ads.

These ads will promote Arco’s new unleaded gasoline, called EC-1, which will replace leaded gasoline at its Southern California stations on Sept. 1. The new gasoline, for pre-1975 cars and pre-1980 trucks, would eliminate 20% of emissions if all vehicles without catalytic converters in the area switched from leaded gas, according to Arco.

During the month of September, the average TV viewer in Southern California will see the Arco commercials “between 60 and 70 times,” estimates Robert Kresser, chairman of the Los Angeles ad agency that created the commercials, Kresser/Craig. He said 99.9% of the Southland’s TV viewers will see the ads, which all feature actor James Earl Jones as narrator.

But will viewers be turned off by the flood of Arco ads? “I hope not,” said Kresser. “That’s why we made four of them.”

Clippers Give Up Seats for Perimeter Ad Space

Last winter, the folks at Great Western Bank saw to it that the Los Angeles Lakers stopped playing basketball at the Forum and started playing at the newly named Great Western Forum.

Now, the Clippers are about to cash in too. No, the Great Western Sports Arena is not in the offing. But the Clippers have given up an undetermined number of court-side seats for the sake of advertising.

Adtime, a company based in Spain that sells modular ad displays at stadiums throughout Europe, has struck a deal with the Clippers to sell ad space around the court’s perimeter. The ads will appear on sheets of rotating plastic vinyl, and advertisers will pay only for the time that their ads are in the eye of the television cameras.

“It’s very clean signage,” insisted Andy Roeser, executive vice president of the Los Angeles Clippers. “It won’t in any way reduce your ability to watch the game.”

An executive from the U.S. marketing arm of Adtime said the Lakers weren’t interested in the signs. It apparently would have required the elimination of some court-side seats at the Forum. “They can sell those seats for $300 apiece,” said Tom Valdiserri, senior account executive at Chicago-based Frankel & Co. “It wouldn’t make sense. What are they going to do, relocate Jack Nicholson for an ad?”

Shoe Firm Gears Up for Large Campaign

L.A. Gear has put its advertising budget in gear.

The Los Angeles footwear company says it plans to double its annual ad budget in 1990 to $50 million. What’s more, L.A. Gear ads will appear on national network TV next year for the first time ever, said Sandy Saemann, the company’s senior vice president. Although the ads are created in-house, Vitt Media, a large media buying company, has been hired to purchase the media time.

But L.A. Gear may have been caught a bit off balance in the lucrative back-to-school season. The company has created just one new commercial for the period--an ad promoting its “Brats” line of women’s shoes. It will also continue to air an award-winning, year-old ad that features former Lakers center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar meeting a fan in the locker room.