Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
Ralph Hanson
Lecture Builders
Chapter 11
Lecture Builders
VIDEO HINTS: There are a number of television specials on the best commercials ever made. I use one
that the late John Ritter hosted. While the commercials throughout the program are interesting, the last
three—Coke’s “Mean Joe Green,” Alka Seltzer’s “Mama Mia, that’s a spicy meatball,” and Apple’s
“1984”—do a wonderful job of illustrating how good commercials can be memorable and creative.
As a counter example, I include Nissan’s “Toy Story” as an example of an ad that was memorable,
creative, and ineffective.
YouTube can be a great place to go find copies of favorite commercials. Here’s a link to several I like:
http://www.ralphehanson.com/2012/03/29/link-ch–11-fun-commercials/
Here are links to my Super Bowl posts, most of which relate to advertising:
http://www.ralphehanson.com/tag/super-bowl/
SLIDE HINTS: As a way of illustrating the pervasiveness of ads, I tell students at the beginning of the
advertising lecture that their tuition is not sufficient to pay for their education, and hence we will be
having commercial sponsorship of the lecture. This serves to highlight how advertising breaks up media
programming; it also gives me an opportunity to show some wonderful commercials from around the
world. I try to pick commercials that will illustrate the points that I’ve been making during lectures. I use
ads that I have collected off the Web within my slides.
You can find current award-winning commercials from around the world at
http://www.adforum.com/
Be forewarned, many of the international commercials are pretty risqué by American standards.
ADBUSTERS NOTES: Although the Adbusters Web link is in Chapter 14: Media Ethics, it can be helpful in
putting together your advertising lecture. Adbusters is a nonprofit organization devoted to fighting
consumer culture. Their website contains wide-ranging critiques of advertising and parodies of many of
the advertisers discussed in this chapter:
http://adbusters.org
19th CENTURY ADVERTISING
View a sample of magazine ads that ran in Harper’s Weekly in the 1800s:
http://advertising.harpweek.com/
Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
Ralph Hanson
Lecture Builders
NOTES: Harper’s Weekly was a major illustrated magazine that carried lots of advertising. This site
displays a wide range of 19th century print ads that ran in Harper’s. It also reprints a story from
Advertising Age that explains how the site came to be.
SLIDE HINT: This site is a good source of images of magazine advertisements from the post-Civil War era.
Spike Lee Advertising
Spike Lee is best known as the director of films, such as Malcolm X, Do the Right Thing, and
Inside Man. But he also has a lengthy record of directing commercials for clients, such as Levi Strauss,
American Express, and Nike. He has even formed his own advertising agency, Spike DDB.
Lee came to prominence in the advertising business with a successful series of ads for Nike
shoes that featured Lee not only as a director, but also as the character Mars Blackmon from his movie
She’s Gotta Have It. The commercials paired the Blackmon character with NBA superstar Michael
Jordan. Lee’s Blackmon was obsessed with Jordan and his Nikes and continually argued that the secret
of Jordan’s success has “gotta be the shoes.” Jordan would then respond, “It’s not the shoes, Mars.”
1
The ads, which mocked the entire shoe marketing process, were a great success with viewers, and they
sold shoes as well.
Lee started his own ad agency in the mid-1990s when he got frustrated with just being a
director. He wanted to be in charge: “I got tired of just being the hired gun. I wanted more creative
input. I tell young people, especially African Americans, that it’s about ownership.”
2
The agency is a
partnership between Lee and DDB Needham World Wide.
3
Lee says that his agency was hampered initially by its reputation for producing ads for African
Americans. “No matter what you do or say, they say Spike DDB is just a black agency that has expertise
in the black market,” Lee told the New York Times. “It’s just a shame and it hurts us, but we’ll just let the
work speak for itself.”
4
Lee wasn’t satisfied with going after only one segment of the advertising
business. “I don’t want any crumbs,” he told Marketing magazine. “I want the whole enchilada, the
steak, the wine, the beer, and the champagne on top of that.”
5
Lee argues that his agency creates
messages that transcend racial categories:
Race still plays a very important part in how we operate in this country and how
people perceive you. They see people who are called minorities and say they have no
universal appeal, they’re very limited, and if you want to reach everybody that’s not
the way to go. People who think like that have lost a lot of money. Nike would not be
paying Michael Jordan the money they’re paying him if only kids from the ghetto were
wearing his sneakers.
6
1
Dave Kindred, “NBA’s MVP? Here’s a Vote for Spike Lee,” Houston Chronicle, July 27, 1997.
2
Stuart Elliott, “Spike DDB Is Off to a Fast Start, but Obstacles Remain,” New York Times, July 9, 1997.
3
Lynn Hirschberg, “Spike Lee’s 30 Seconds,” New York Times, April 20, 1997.
4
Elliott, “Spike DDB Is Off to a Fast Start, but Obstacles Remain.”
5
Johanna Redtenbacher, “Spike Lee’s Once–Faltering Agency Does the Right Thing,” Marketing Magazine,
December 11, 2000.
6
Elliott, “Spike DDB Is Off to a Fast Start, but Obstacles Remain.”
Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
Ralph Hanson
Lecture Builders
Although Lee has his own agency, he still directs commercials for others as well. In 2005, he
reunited with Michael Jordan for the twentieth anniversary of Nike’s Air Jordan shoes while working for
the Wieden+Kennedy agency.
7
Drawing on his skills as a feature film director, Lee depicted people in
places that had special meaning to Jordan throughout his basketball career.
In 1999 Lee produced a series of commercials for the U.S. Navy that featured sailors talking
about their experiences and how the Navy changed their lives.
8
The commercials were shot with real
people telling their stories; no scripts were used. Part of Lee’s talent is his ability to listen to people.
Navy Seal Shawn Carrizales told AdWeek, “I expected him to tell us what to do, but we would tell him
exactly how Seals operate, and we would work together from there.”
9
The impetus for Lee’s campaign
came out of problems the Navy was having in recruiting enough new sailors. The ads ran during NFL and
NBA games, on cable networks, and even in movie theaters.
10
Recent clients include Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Topps baseball cards, and Nokia mobile phones.
He’s also directed a spot promoting Black History Month for VH1-Soul. For some recent examples of
Spike Lee’s advertising work, take a look at http://ralphehanson.com.
Why does a successful filmmaker produce commercials? Lee sees his ads, no less than his
movies, as an expression of his creativity:
I never saw a reason to limit myself to anything. And advertising always seemed like
something fantastic to me. You know, new, different, fast. What I do is about telling a
story. You can do that in three hours, you can do it in 30 seconds. . .. Being creative
means . . . you’re looking for a feeling, in advertising as much as in movies.
11
Of course, in addition to the creativity, there is also the money. As Lee says, “Commercials pay
well.”
12
Among the many feature film directors who also produce commercials are the brothers Ridley
and Tony Scott (we’ll talk more about Ridley Scott at the end of this chapter), Baz Luhrmann (Moulin
Rouge), and Michael Mann (Heat and Miami Vice).
13
One reason advertising agencies seek out talented directors like Spike Lee is to build and sustain
viewer interest in an increasingly fragmented market.
“What I do with my work is universal,” Lee says. “I’ve always felt the African– American
experience is universal. Minorities know a lot more about the majority than vice versa. You’re exposed
to it. You’re bombarded.”
14
7
Barry Janoff, “Mike and Spike Together Again,” Adweek, February 7, 2005.
8
“Journey Out to Sea,” AdWeek East 1999, 22.
9
Ibid.
10
Preston Turegano, “ ‘Do the Right Thing’ Navy Hopes Spike Lee Can Attract Recruits for a New ‘Journey’,” San
Diego Union-Tribune, May 9, 1999.
11
Redtenbacher, “Spike Lee’s Once–Faltering Agency Does the Right Thing.”
12
Melanie Wells, “Madison Avenue Goes Hollywood; Directors Break for Commercials and Top Pay,” USA Today,
November 1, 1995.
13
Ellen Groves, “Art and Commerce: Top Directors Go Commercial—Literally,” Women’s Wear Daily, January 12,
2007.
14
Hirschberg, “Spike Lee’s 30 Seconds.”
Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
Ralph Hanson
Lecture Builders
Learn more about how outdoor advertising is created and placed at
www.billboards.com/
NOTES: Outdoor advertising isn’t as glamorous as television or magazine advertising, but it is a big part
of the industry, especially in urban areas. The billboards.com site has a wealth of good information
about the range of outdoor media.
NOTES: I included Mountain Dew in the book for two reasons: The company has done a great job of
positioning and extending their brand to go after a specific, young audience, and secondly, the target for
Dew is your students. The website has a wealth of resources on it, including streaming ads,
Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition
Ralph Hanson