For Some Advertisers, Print Parodies Are Becoming Serious Business

Every year, Daniel Simons spends nearly a quarter of a million dollars on print ads targeted at bald men in search of nirvana. These ads are almost always the same: pictures of bald men before and after Simons’ hair replacement company has woven its magic on them.

But lately, the response to these ads has been wearing, well, thin. So Simons decided to do something about it. Although he kept the same “before” photo in the ad, he replaced the “after” shot with a photograph of a dog. An Irish setter, to be precise.

“The picture of the dog gets people to read the ad,” said Simons, president of Los Angeles-based Hair Care Replacement Center Inc. “That’s all we want.” What he didn’t want--or expect--was a deluge of phone calls. Some came from advertising aficionados asking him who created the ad. (Answer: He did). But others were angry calls from dog lovers, incensed that he “demeaned” the dog by placing it in the ad.

Marketing experts say parody ads--especially in print--are perhaps the most difficult ads to pull off. And parody ads are even more difficult when they satirize an entire category of advertising. In that arena, Simons has some company. These days, even missing children are not immune from advertising satire.

Who hasn’t received those throwaway post cards that have advertisements on the back and pictures of missing children on the front? Well, last week, a small Los Angeles radio production company sent its own version of the post cards to ad executives nationwide. In the right-hand corner of the cards, above the bold words, “Have you seen me?” they replaced the usual shots of missing children with zany photos of grown-ups who look, at best, deranged.

Why are some print advertisers turning to parody in pictures--something more commonly associated with TV commercials?

“The TV generation is better at looking at pictures than at concentrating on words,” said John O’Shaughnessy, professor of marketing at Columbia University in New York. “People view life through metaphors. A pictorial metaphor can be a dramatic way to make a point,” said O’Shaughnessy. “I’m certain you’ll see more of these.”

Certainly, parody ads are a hot item on TV these days. Some regional advertisers have already run parodies of the Zen-like Infiniti ads that show flocks of geese and crashing waves. It didn’t take long for McDonald’s to run a parody of those AT&T; commercials that show employees talking about the phone company’s business service. And in a new totally offbeat parody of familiar testimonial TV ads, Nexxus, which makes hair-care products, features a rancher praising how well Nexxus conditions hair--on his prize bull.

But ad executives say it is far more difficult to get the humor of parody across in print than broadcast advertising.

“A print ad doesn’t have as easily accessible a tone of voice as a TV or radio ad,” said Bob Hoffman, president of Hoffman Creative Services, a San Francisco agency.

“On TV, you have sight, sound and motion,” adds Leonard Pearlstein, president of the Los Angeles agency Keye/Donna/Pearlstein. “Clients worry about the subtlety of parody being lost in print.”

That didn’t stop Sarley, Bigg & Bedder from mailing out the missing children parody post cards. In the place under the photo that usually has the hot line phone number, the company substituted its own phone number.

“Everyone has received these missing children post cards,” said John Sarley, president of the production company, who co-created the mailer along with Jerry Leibowitz. “But when people start sorting through their mail, they look at our post cards and say, ‘What the heck is this?’ We figured if we can make someone smile, sooner or later they’ll call us.”

Even the national organization behind the real missing children ads is smiling. Sort of.

“Our first reaction was, this is pretty humorous,” said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “We are, however, concerned about something as serious as this is being parodied. But we are not offended. This is proof of the saturation that the program has had.”

But plenty of dog owners are offended by the Hair Replacement Center ads.

“We received about a half dozen calls from people who felt it was disgraceful,” said Simons. “But as far as I can tell, the only thing the dogs get out of this is fame.”

So, Simons now says he wants people to send him photographs of their dogs. And those dogs with the most homely looking mugs may be used in future ads. “You can’t please everyone,” said Simons. “But this is bound to hit home with some people.”

Hal Riney & Partners Says It Is Not for Sale

Despite rumors to the contrary, Hal Riney & Partners is not for sale.

At least that was the word Monday from Jim Travis, the New York-based president and chief operating officer of the San Francisco agency that created the original Bartles & Jaymes ads. Hal Riney, the agency’s founder, was unavailable for comment.

“We are not for sale,” said Travis. “We have not talked with anyone, we are not now talking with anyone, and we have no plans to talk with anyone,” he said.

The trade magazine Advertising Age quoted an unidentified source Monday who said Hal Riney had talked with a London-based agency about purchasing part of the company. “There’s nothing to that,” said Travis. “The bad part is, every time this gets reported, we have to call all our clients and tell them it’s not true.”

Here Comes the Bride’s With Lots of Ads Inside

Here’s one bride who came dressed to kill. The February/March issue of Bride’s magazine weighs in at a hefty 3.8 pounds--making it the largest consumer magazine ever published, according to Publisher Elliot Marion.

The magazine, which totals 1,040 pages, is fattened by 802 pages of advertising. The publication is nearly 100 pages larger than last year’s spring issue--the time of year when many couples plan their weddings. Marion has sent the issue to the “Guinness Book of World Records,” hoping that it will be officially recognized as the largest consumer magazine ever published.

Ilissa--a maker of bridal gowns--purchased nearly 100 pages of advertising in the issue, said Marion. Such ads can cost upward of $10,000 a page. And this one issue brought publisher Conde Nast more than $10 million in advertising revenue, Marion estimated.

What about the postage costs? Marion figures that it cost his company about $2.40 to mail each copy. Of course, 98% of the magazine’s circulation is from newsstand sales. “Thank heaven for that,” Marion said.

Graphic Safety Message in Poster Campaign

Larry Asher had all but given up on his task of creating a print ad campaign aimed at showing youngsters that kids who are hit by cars can be killed.

Obviously, he couldn’t show 4-year-olds pictures of dead children. But shortly before the campaign was due, Asher, creative director at the Seattle agency Borders, Perrin & Norrander, was walking with his 2-year-old daughter in the garden outside their home. There, his daughter found a dead bird--and she was totally baffled by it.

“It was the first time I’d ever tried to explain to her what death is,” said Asher. That gave him the idea to create posters directed at 3- to 9-year-olds that would link the death of small animals to cars. The posters were for the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center in Seattle.

In three graphic posters, the ads show what frogs, snakes and squirrels look like before and after they have been run over by cars. Unlike “before-and-after” ads for miracle diets, the “before” pictures look delightful and the “after” pictures look pathetic. Underneath the photos is the headline: Cars Kill.

No animals were killed to create the campaign, insists Asher. In fact, he said it took the photographer nearly three weeks to locate a frog, snake and squirrel that were already killed. Of course, the animals’ dead bodies were rearranged a bit to be positioned something like the live ones, Asher said.

Is all this a bit too graphic for youngsters? “Not all the schools in this area are using this poster,” said Asher, “but we feel it stimulates conversation. And if one less kid is run over by a car because of this ad, well, that’s a tradeoff we’ll take any day.”

Calling All Cars: Tattle on Air Polluters

The clean-air fink squad is looking for a few good tattlers.

And you can join by simply calling 1-800-CUT SMOG the next time that you see a car belching thick, black smoke from its tailpipe.

That is the message behind a new ad campaign for the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The group wants to double the estimated 130,000 calls and letters that it received last year from Los Angeles area residents who reported smoking vehicles.

Its new billboard campaign shows a picture of a car with thick smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe. “Report this Crime,” the ad says, above the special 800 phone number. The campaign was created by the Santa Monica agency Suissa & Associates. “It’s a tattle-tale campaign,” said David Suissa, president of the agency. “Now, you can do something about air pollution just by picking up your car phone.”