The Pitch: Roy's trousers hold universal advertising law

By MICHAEL NEWMAN

Some years ago, as a young and naive copywriter abroad, I met Roy Grace, the legendary DDB New York art director, who was behind so many of the classic VW ads in the sixties.

When I somewhat naively asked him how he knew for sure that the idea he'd just come up with was a genuine killer - you know, the real thing, THE BIG IDEA - he answered with typical simplicity: "My balls tingle."

When the moment came back to me many years later, it occurred to me that until you peel back the layers, creative advertising still seems an esoteric exercise to many people in marketing.

I wondered if there could be a way of articulating the laws of recognising and producing great advertising, other than by checking Roy's trousers.

After all, never in its history has the advertising industry so needed to look to the stars for guidance.

Indeed, the advertising business has been struggling through its worst recession in 70 years.

Media have fragmented. Cynical and increasingly savvy consumers are rebelling and switching off mentally and literally.

Yet it's been proven time and again, all around the world, that great advertising allows a brand to punch well above its weight.

Great ad ideas transcend ordinary strategies, as well as inadequate budgets.

So, in the spirit of Trout & Ries, who published the profoundly influential The Immutable Laws of Marketing, (followed by The 22 Laws of Branding), I set out to find the 22 Universal Laws of Advertising.

At first I'd imagined that the words "law" and "advertising" might seem a problematic combination.

Advertising, surely, is maverick, thriving on the never-before-seen. Shunning formulas and dismissive of rules.

How can advertising creativity have laws in the practical way that, say, mathematics or physics do?

Unless it's the Law of the Jungle. Or Murphy's Law, some might say. Or worse, the Law of Diminishing Returns.

And, surely, the edgy world of the agency creative department would cringe at the notion of something as restrictive as universal rules?

Well, they'd be wrong.

I started in South America, as one does, where I found the Latin creative god Marcello Serpa, the man who has won 48 Lions at the Cannes advertising festival awards.

I asked him if there was a single, universal, underlying principle behind his most successful work.

"Yes. There is a law. It's simple," he said. "What is simple moves people. It is the revelation, almost sacred, of the obvious."

I decided to ask a few more luminaries around the globe.

The British legend, Dave Trott, was equally clear-eyed about his nomination of an irrefutable Law of Advertising (his chapter appears on the web: the22lawsof advertising.com).

In Singapore, resident Ogilvy & Mather guru Neil French was also happy to chat. He invoked Churchill and Kennedy as inspirations for his law.

South Africa's Graham Warsop called on the spirit of car designer Bugatti when laying down his law.

In Australia, Hall of Fame copywriter Jack Vaughan also had a hobbyhorse that he was pleased to name as a law, based in (folk)lore.

Al Ries talked about his Law of Positioning. It's become one of the most used advertising jargons in the world, but Ries feels too many marketers have misunderstood the concept and have all rushed to the same positioning.

Saatchi & Saatchi's resident Kiwi, Kevin Roberts, said the law was Love. His new book, Lovemarks, extends the analogy.

Other advertising luminaries MT Rainey, Allen Rosenshine, Jamie Barrett, Ian Batey, Jean Marie Dru, Jim Aitchison, and New Zealand's Mike O'Sullivan also nominated their own universal laws.

In total, the exercise gave a glimpse of the living bones that have shaped the greatest body of advertising work in the world today.

Was there anything they all agreed on?

Oh, yes.

The need to break laws.

* Michael Newman is creative director of Australia's DNA Agency Network. His new book is called The 22 Irrefutable Laws of Advertising (And When to Violate Them).


* The Pitch is a forum for those working in advertising, marketing, public relations and communications. We welcome lively and topical 500-word contributions.
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