A Speech by Mr.Julian Koenig(2-2)
Julian Koenig
president of Papert Koenig Lois Inc.
to the Advertising Writers Association of New York
April 19. 1966
Mencken wrote that nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people and years of advertising devoted to nasal cross-sections and dainty deceptions prove him right.
There is another way to sell.
Many of us have seen that good taste can also be good business---
That pride and profit can go together.
That is why I ask you toponder the success of advertisements you may despise---the dismal demonstrations, the anvil-racked brains, the mnemonic devices, the slice of life become slice of unacy---not so that you can emulate them, but so you can do better.
What characterizes them? A vicious vitality--an inescapable devotion to idea that is the rock-bottom of successful advertising.
A good idea will survive inept layout and production as long as it is not obscured.
But whenever I am conscious of technique I know something is askew.
Ten years ago the art director was emancipated to work with copywriters.
It has meant a fusion of words and picture---graphic ideas that moved this business ahead.
It also started the rumor that adve rtising is an art form, and I suspect much of our trouble started there.
The brute fact remains that advertising is not an art form---though it uses the forms of art.
See.
All lipsticks are not alike.This one is Stained Glass by Fabergé.
Fabergé Eye Colour Kit.
A most remarkable discovery. In each little dish of colour: liner, shadow, pencil, mascara.
(The serret ingredient is water.)
The New Yorker, March 3, 1962
It is, as Hopkins wrote years ago, salesmanship in print.
That is the name of the game.
When design dominates ideas, you commit a crime against our craft.
Aesthetics without the cutting edge of ideas is merely self-indulgence.
Masturbatory.
What small boys are spanked for.
The hardest thing in this world to resist is applause, but that hat you must do.
Your job is to reveal how good the product is, no how goo yo are.
All men may have been created equal, but not art directors and copywriters.
The only equality is talent.
The art director with the idea is superior to the writer who only copies.
But temperament alone is not talent.
