Down but Not Out : Homeless Play Roles in a Pair of Advertising Campaigns
Madison Avenue has never been much of a home for the homeless.
About the only time homeless people appear in ads is around Christmas, when many charities try to raise funds by showing sordid scenes of street life.
But the homeless--who number 200,000 in Southern California and more than 1 million nationally, according to advocacy groups--are taking unconventional roles in two divergent ad campaigns that are raising more than a few eyebrows.
One is for a cause: The New York-based Coalition for the Homeless has a TV spot featuring homeless New Yorkers taking an active role by singing individual lines to an emotionally charged version of “New York, New York.” The other ad is for a product: Absolut Vodka, using a print ad of a vodka bottle drawn by a onetime homeless woman in San Francisco.
The coalition’s ad has raked in praise, new donations for the cause and a coveted award. But the Absolut spot has not escaped criticism. While finding a few redeeming qualities in the ad, some question the ethics of a vodka distributor turning to the homeless for marketing help.
“Certainly, alcohol abuse is a major cause of homelessness,” said S. Diana Roth, administrative director at the Los Angeles-based Skid Row Development Corp. “But ultimately, the homeless are a resource who are not being used. If they can get jobs making ads, that’s great because that’s what life’s about--being useful.”
Both ads clearly give new opportunities to the homeless. By playing key roles in the ads, the homeless gain visibility and at least some part-time work. The people who appear in the coalition’s ad were paid $20 each from the pockets of the two people who produced it. Jane Winkelman, whose painting appears in the Absolut ad, was paid $1,000 for her work.
Winkelman spent years feeling useless. She held odd jobs and lived with friends and relatives before landing on the street. She ended up on welfare in San Francisco, where she became a part-time street sweeper.
“I depended on others all my life and couldn’t figure out who I was,” Winkelman said.
But she has a talent for painting, and several years ago she started going to the Central City Hospitality House, where she was given free supplies, studio space and instruction. Her work was unexpectedly showcased on the cover of an art magazine. That cover attracted the attention of Michel Roux, president of Carillon Importers, the Teaneck, N.J.-based distributor of Absolut. For years, the vodka maker has commissioned top artists--including Andy Warhol--to paint pictures showing its bottle. The paintings are then used in print ads.
Roux met with Winkelman in San Francisco and initially decided that Winkelman--who signs her paintings “Jane In Vain”--was “too far out” for Absolut. But Winkelman continued to lobby Roux, whose firm relented and recently ran an ad featuring a painting by Winkelman showing an Absolut-bottle-like boat floating in the San Francisco Bay.
Although the ad--which unfortunately misspells Winkelman’s last name--has appeared in only a few publications in the Bay Area, Winkelman said it has changed her life by boosting her self-esteem and bringing in some money. “All of a sudden, I’m doing what I want to do and getting paid for it,” she said. She recently moved from a shelter into a modest hotel room in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District.
Roux concedes that he had reservations about using the Winkelman ad, specifically because of the link between homelessness and alcoholism. But he insists that his company did the right thing.
“It would be much easier for me to go visit famous painters and get great work from them,” Roux said. “I think it took some courage to do what I did.”
Courage aside, plenty of chutzpah went into the efforts behind an ad to aid New York’s homeless by Lowe & Partners’ Peter Cohen and free-lance creative director Leslie Sweet. The duo created an ad that has given new meaning to the Broadway tune “New York, New York.”
The ad for advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless features a dozen New York vagrants--men and women--who sing an irony-laden version of the popular song that speaks of all the dreams and success stories in the “city that never sleeps.”
Cohen and Sweet spent three weekends combing Manhattan’s streets, alleys and parks. They approached individual homeless people--explaining to them their ad idea--and filmed them singing the song right on the street.
“Unfortunately, there was no lack of homeless to choose from,” said Sweet, art director of the spot. He and Cohen invested $2,000 each in the ad.
Recordings of “New York, New York” were played for those who were unfamiliar with the song. In the spot, one homeless man, a bottle of wine in one hand, breaks into tears while singing the line “These little town blues are melting away.”
Another line is sung by a one-legged woman, whom Cohen and Sweet found alone in a wheelchair and begging in the pouring rain.
The ad has had such an impact on New Yorkers that two weeks ago it won one of the most prestigious ad awards on the East Coast: “Best of Show” at New York’s One Show competition.
“The homeless rarely even get spoken to,” Cohen said. “We empowered them to be in a commercial for a cause that directly affects them. It lets them tell their own story.”
Briefly . . .
The Brentwood-based agency Stein Robaire Helm has picked up an ad assignment for Los Angeles magazine and may soon be named the publication’s first agency of record. . . . The Los Angeles City Council will consider a resolution Wednesday to outlaw the use of graffiti by marketers in local advertising and promotions. . . . Wal-Mart Stores plans to open newly designed “eco-stores” that will recycle their own waste and provide in-store recycling centers for consumers. . . . The National Black Public Relations Society will hold its first annual national conference in Hollywood on June 24-27 at the Radisson Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. It will be chaired by Los Angeles-based Pat Tobin of the minority-owned PR firm Pat Tobin & Associates. . . . Dick Macedo, president of Wells Rich Greene BDDP/West for six years, has joined Irvine-based Kia Motors America as director of marketing. . . . Kosher Advertising, a full-service ad agency whose clients are all kosher food makers, has opened in Miami.
