Advocacy Is New Trend at Ad Agencies : Marketing: Account-hungry firms are re-examining cause-related advertising, where spending nearly doubled between 1988 and 1990 to more than $65 million.

Babies fall through the skies into the hands of waiting mothers. “We must make adoption more equitable for everyone,” intones an unseen narrator. A Right to Life of Michigan phone number flashes on the television screen.

The striking ad is the work of Los Angeles-based Vic Olesen & Partners, an agency which has decided after 30 years of traditional product advertising to enter the advocacy business. By doing so, it joins a growing number willing to hawk controversial ideas such as abortion alternatives, gun control and condom use.

Until recently, most agencies flatly refused to take on advocacy clients because they feared that the resulting ads might upset their other customers. But today, account-hungry shops nationwide are re-examining this view and taking on once-taboo causes and clients.

Some agencies are genuinely concerned with these issues, while others see them as a way to make money in tough times. More often, it is a combination of the two.

Industry executives say cause-related advertising could become one of the ad world’s most lucrative growth areas in the 1990s. While spending in almost all ad categories has been decreasing for the past two years, advocacy ad spending nearly doubled between 1988 and 1990 to more than $65 million, according to Leading National Advertisers.

“The advertising business is reinventing itself. You have to look to where there is a use for your skills,” Vic Olesen said. “In the ‘90s, basic causal issues will be fair game for modern communications technology.”

His agency is forming a division that will specialize in creating advocacy ads. He doesn’t much care if his future clients lean right or left.

“We talk with whoever wants to talk with us,” said Olesen, whose company recently lost a substantial chunk of Chevrolet ad business. “But we won’t run either side’s agenda. We look for middle ground.”

Not only are advertisers and agencies more willing to tackle these sensitive issues, but special interest groups are also pushing harder to get their messages across, and TV stations are increasingly eager to accept the resulting ads. Only three of 14 TV stations in Michigan rejected the Right to Life adoption reform ads.

For years, stations refused to air any “issue” advertising that might upset viewers. But cable TV changed that, as more stations began to chase fewer advertising dollars. What’s more, below-the-belt political advertising began to make most issue advertising seem tame by comparison.

Some say the fast-changing ethnic and political makeup of America is spawning an entire industry of advocacy advertising.

“A cynic might say this is because of the fractionalization of the population,” said Paul Keye, whose Venice agency, Livingston & Keye, has created $16 million in anti-smoking advocacy ads for the California Department of Health Services. “It’s hard to get a national consensus on anything, but you can get small coalitions on anything. And they can be very powerful.”

At the same time, a fourth network with a more liberal advertising policy joined the fray. Fox Broadcasting aired the first condom ad ever broadcast on network television in November. Now, NBC and CBS have indicated that they will review their policies.

“When advertising stops being about ‘Buy one, get one free,’ and starts being about people’s lives, that’s when it gets interesting,” said Tim Oden, creative director at Ackerman, Hood & McQueen, the Tulsa, Okla.-based agency that creates ads for the National Rifle Assn. Last year, the NRA spent nearly $4 million to promote its causes.

For years, all the major networks refused to accept NRA commercials. But in February, during a TV special “Salute to the Troops” in the Persian Gulf, ABC considered airing an NRA commercial that featured Charlton Heston talking about gun safety. The spot was rejected.

Still, industry analysts say the loss of network viewers combined with the harsh economics of the 1990s could force networks to accept all but the most unseemly of advocacy ads.

Of course, for every NRA advertisement promoting the right to bear arms, there are gun control groups running ads that try to limit that right. And at the same time that anti-abortion groups run ads about abortion--and most recently adoption--there are abortion rights groups that try to advertise the opposite point of view. The National Abortion Rights Action League, for example, spent more than $2 million on advertising last year. Like most advocacy groups, it relied heavily on cable TV stations to broadcast its spots.

Convincing advocacy advertising by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, in part, recently prompted the liquor industry to create its own ad campaigns that promote drinking in moderation. And although no one has been able to find a solution to the tensions in the Middle East, that hasn’t stopped a multitude of pro-Israel and pro-Arab organizations from spouting their views in advertisements placed in newspapers--and occasionally on cable TV.

Sometimes the issues are as big as life.

Last Thursday, for instance, Converse debuted its $1-million national AIDS awareness campaign with a new commercial that ran first on Fox’s “Beverly Hills, 90210” and NBC’s “Different World.” The 30-second spot will be repeated during the next three weeks on the four major networks and MTV. The ad campaign was inspired by Magic Johnson, the company’s longtime spokesman, who revealed in November that he had contracted the AIDS virus.

“We spend a lot of time selling cereals and soaps,” said New York ad man Jerry Della Femina, whose agency created a condom ad six years ago that the networks still refuse to air. “With condoms, you’re talking about something that will save people’s lives. It’s rare that we in the ad business have an opportunity to do this kind of thing.”

Agencies face some big risks in creating commercials that deal with provocative issues. The ads can alienate clients, costing them business--or even upset their own employees. That’s why most major agencies refuse to create ads for politicians.

“If it really reflects the belief of the people at the agency, that’s great,” said Mark Johnson, president of the Los Angeles agency Cohen/Johnson. “But if you’re confronted with internal dissension, I’d say it’s not worth it.”

Indeed, there was intense dissension at Olesen shortly after the firm accepted Right to Life of Michigan as a client. “It’s certainly different than say, Chevy vs. Ford,” said Barbara Listing, president of Right to Life of Michigan. “We have had many national agencies that did not want us as a client.”

But Olesen did. The day the agency accepted the account, Olesen told all 25 employees that no one would be forced to work on the campaign.

A handful declined. But the rest cautiously went to work on it. And now, after nearly a year of research, executives at the firm believe that they may have uncovered some sort of salable middle ground upon which abortion rights advocates and abortion foes can mutually agree: adoption reform.

But such neutral territory is a matter of opinion, and finding it is one of the thorniest problems facing agencies that agree to create advocacy advertising. Early indications show the campaign has hardly mended fences between supporters and opponents of legal abortion. In fact, the National Abortion Rights Action League is preparing to respond in Michigan with its own commercial barrage suggesting that improved sex education and contraceptive research are the best ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Critics say the Right to Life campaign--which embraces adoption reform--is a shrewd attempt to dupe people into aligning with the anti-abortion camp by obscuring its real aims. Proponents, however, contend that it is an honest attempt to find a way that both sides can combine their efforts.

In November, two TV spots created by the agency--featuring cute babies and the slogan “Help make adoption an option”--began airing throughout Michigan. The $260,000 campaign, sponsored by Right to Life of Michigan, will run through mid-January.

If nothing else, the campaign has certainly led to plenty of discussion nationally--while locally it has caused strong dissension within the shop that created it. All five women--and several men--employed at the agency at one time refused to work on the campaign.

Both ads were created by Margaret Elizabeth Eldridge, a Los Angeles free-lance copywriter who was hired by Olesen specifically to write this campaign. Eldridge says she generally abhors what the Right to Life group stands for. Although she believes women should have the right to choose, she also strongly supports adoption reform.

“If you have $50,000 you can adopt a baby this afternoon,” said Eldridge, “But if you are just a nice couple with a reasonable home and income, you must often wait eight years--and then be told you’re too old to adopt.”

Eldridge created the ad featuring the falling babies, their eager new parents and the Right to Life phone number. Those who phone that number receive informational brochures on adoption. Some also receive lists of adoption agencies or lists of anti-abortion pregnancy counseling centers.

“Implicit in their marketing of adoption is that women should be forbidden to choose abortion,” said Kate Michaelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League. “This ad is saying that adoption is the solution to unintended pregnancies. Adoption as a choice is absolutely important. But it cannot be forced upon women against their will.”

Eldridge insists that the ads don’t force anything. Rather, she says, they offer an alternative. “It is a (pregnant) woman’s right to choose adoption, abortion or to keep her baby,” said Eldridge. “I wrote these spots because they say, ‘Let’s make adoption more accessible for everybody.’ ”

For Olesen, the decision to accept Right to Life as a client was not an easy one. As someone who “leans toward pro-choice,” he refuses to create ads that speak to the abortion issue. Both ads are about adoption reform.

An estimated 2 million qualified couples in the United States are waiting to adopt children, according to industry estimates. But in the United States there are only 25,000 adoptions annually. At the same time, there were 1.6 million abortions nationwide last year. “To us,” Olesen said, “those figures don’t jibe.”

“I believed we had the experience and strategic expertise to get them (Right to Life) to a higher ground,” said Olesen, whose agency has extensive background in polling and in devising marketing strategy. “Someone on the far left could say this is a red herring for a bigger agenda, but we don’t think so.”

Not all of his employees agree with that. In fact, three of Olesen’s four business partners initially objected to taking on Right to Life as a client. Today--nearly a year later--only one of those partners still refuses to work on the campaign.

“I have not and will not work on it,” said Eric Davison, partner at the agency. “I feel this issue of adoption and abortion is beyond my ken. I don’t feel that any group has the right to tell anyone what to do with their bodies. I believe that is the basic agenda of the Right to Life group.”

It also forced several women at the agency to make very difficult decisions. “I am a victim of being at an agency that is working on this business,” said Colleen Kelly, an account supervisor. “I went from refusing to work on it at all, to doing a few minor things. Right to Life is so one-sided and negative. But this may be the first positive thing they have ever done.”