PURCHASE FROM AMAZON

Title: Funny Business: Moguls, Mobsters, Megastars, and the Mad, Mad World of the Ad Game

Author: Allen Rosenshine

ISBN: 13: 978-08253-0539-9

           10: 0-8253-0539-X

Today, Norm Goldman Editor& Publisher of Bookpleasures.com is excited to have as our guest Allen Rosenshine author of Funny Business: Moguls, Mobsters, Megastars, and the Mad, Mad World of the Ad Game.

Allen has been named among the one hundred most influential people in advertising in the twentieth century by Advertising Age.

In 1985 he became the CEO of BBDO and a year later he was instrumental in creating the world’s largest and most successful marketing communication company, Omnicom Group.

Good day Allen and thanks for participating in our interview.

Norm:

Allen, could you tell us when you became involved in the advertising business and what kept you involved for so many years?

Allen:

I joined an industrial ad agency called J. B. Rundle in 1962 largely because they offered me $25/week more than Prentice Hall.  I had no idea what I really wanted to do at the time.  What kept me in it for the next 44 years was the diversity of clients, problems, and people.  I can’t think of a business that, even without the huge technological developments of late, is so different from day to day.  I think it’s fair to say that while I got in it for the money (all $25 a week), money was never the reason I stayed.

Norm:

What is the difference between advertising and marketing?

Allen:

I’ve always thought of advertising as part of marketing -- the communications part to be specific.  In broad terms, marketing is the process of bringing a product to its customers and establishing it as a brand by developing a relationship with the customer base.  Advertising is the way we inform, persuade, and maintain a dialog with those customers.  Marketing entails much more than just communications - R&D, packaging, pricing, distribution, CRM, etc.  It’s interesting to note that advertising agencies have broadened their offering over time to include services aimed at more and more of the marketing mix.  And certainly, larger groups such as Omnicom have made marketing services companies as important to their offering as advertising agencies.

Norm:

Do you believe that television has gone overboard inundating us with ads every two minutes and has this been more prevalent over the past few years?

Allen:

If there was or is a “tipping point,” it’s hard to discern.  Clutter has been an issue for decades and never seems to have given clients much pause about the value of TV.  Certainly, the ability to time-shift, fast-forward, and the prevalence of the Internet and mobile phones is having a bigger impact, although the death of TV advertising is, to quote the old joke, greatly exaggerated.

Norm:

Where do you draw the line between legal and illegal advertising or false advertising?

Allen:

I think it’s acceptable that advertising exaggerates.  But it doesn’t lie.  As I believe Bill Bernbach said, the worst thing that can happen to a bad product is good advertising, which is another way of saying that advertising which significantly overstates a product’s performance may result in trial but not repurchase, not to mention a bad reputation.  There are ample legal and regulatory safeguards against outright lies in advertising, except of course in one category -- political advertising.  While I wholeheartedly believe in the first amendment of our Constitution, I regret that there seems to be no effective way to prevent the bald-faced lies of attack advertising in politics.  They are a disgrace to our profession and it’s a sad commentary on our electorate that they seem to work.  Probably the only way to stop it is for ad people to refuse to do it.  I should live so long.

Norm:

What do you feel about advertising on the Internet? Is it effective and does it have a future?

Allen:

I think it will have a great future if and when it becomes feasible to utilize the same creative tools we have available in film and tape.  I’d guess that can be done today but it requires a whole new level of creativity to get people to the messages since it is totally an act of wanting to see them, unlike TV, which still delivers messages effectively to a passive audience.  The advertising we see on the Internet today, largely banners and pop-ups, are in my opinion pretty much ignorable and ignored.

Norm:

What has been your favorite advertisement over the years and why?

Allen:

I’ll leave aside all the great advertising done by BBDO since I wouldn’t want to choose between “my children” anyway.  But among our competitors, I think the most brilliant campaign over time has been “Just Do It” for Nike.  To me, it is the perfect meld of a wonderful consumer insight about the athletes that lurk within all of us, a totally realizable emotional and physical exhortation that is within reach of everyone, and great creative execution.  My absolutely favorite commercial is the one where we see all the injuries that an athlete has accumulated over time and the indomitable spirit still raised by the theme-line.  Great work, period.

Norm:

What advice would you give to someone who is considering going into the advertising business?

Allen:

Live.  Get out in the world and see what makes people think, feel, and do as they do.  Advertising is still a melting pot of people from all kinds of different educational and experiential backgrounds, but what the good ad people have in common is empathy.  In any event, the creative aspects of the business -- finding new ways to deliver impactful, persuasive messages that build brands -- can’t be taught.  It’s instinctive, inherent, and developed personally largely through trial and error.  

Norm:

What does it mean to tell the truth? And what does it mean to tell stories in a work of non-fiction?

Allen:

As I said in the preface of my book, it’s fair to embellish the facts a bit as long as what you add doesn’t change the fundamentals of what occurred.  The truth is still what happened.  If you change that, it’s not the truth anymore.

Norm:

What has been your overall experience as a published author?

Allen:

Not much different than as a published copywriter -- unfortunately pretty anonymous.  I’ve done interviews and a few appearances about the book but nothing to alert the family about.  Actually, I didn’t expect much more since the book is hard to position at retail.  It’s ostensibly about advertising, for which there is a very small audience, but it’s really more about business life in what are humorous (I hope) and ironic situations, which is very hard to promote.  In any event, I had fun writing it and the people I care about seem to like it.  Happily, writing books is not what I’ve done for a living because if I had to live off this one, I’d be one hungry puppy.

Norm:

Why did you entitle your book Funny Business: Moguls, Mobsters, Megastars, and the Mad, Mad World of the Ad Game?

Allen:

Because I think it says what the book is about, which I assume is the purpose of a title.  Besides, my agent and publisher liked it and they should know better than me.

Norm:

Why did you feel compelled to write your book? Why do you think this is an important book at this time? How has the feedback been so far?
What are your hopes for this book?

Allen:

Actually, I felt no compulsion at all.  I had no intention of writing a book but decided to put down a few stories for my children to read.  After one or two, I made a list of others and found it long enough to make a book out of it.  My agent liked the preface and the first five or so stories enough to encourage me, although the usual suspects among the publishers had a hard time figuring out where it would fit in their categories.  Anyway, I enjoyed doing it and hoped that it might do something to humanize an unfairly derided and debunked profession.  I’m hoping that this interview will be the beginning of a huge Internet-driven groundswell that will lead to best-seller lists if not a Pulitzer or (as long as I’m hallucinating) a Nobel.

Norm:

Will there be any unique ways you'll be marketing your book that is different from how others authors market their books? Will you be using the Internet to market and promote your book, if so, how?

Allen:

Nothing unique but I have worked with a PR firm and am now with a company that specializes in promoting books on the Internet.

Norm:

How do you want to be remembered?

Allen:

By my ex-wife as a good guy who was wrong for her.  By my wife as someone she loved and who loved her more than any other man, in spite of the occasional fun I had at her expense in the book.  By my children as a dad who got it right eventually if not all the time. By my grandchildren as the funny old man who bought them things.  By my business associates as someone smart enough to usually help and honest enough to always trust.  And last, and yes least, in the literary world by anyone.

Norm:

Is there anything else you wish to ad that we have not covered and what is next for Allen Rosenshine?

Allen:

Professionally, continuing to work with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which I’ve been involved with since it began in 1986, with an organization called Business for Diplomatic Action which seeks to improve America’s declining reputation in the world through public diplomacy, and with the Democratic National Committee which I’ve started working with recently.  Beyond that, what’s next is more time on my boat (700 hours on the engines in the last 9 years is not exactly making waves), traveling and actually seeing the places I’m going, playing with my two grandchildren and hopefully welcoming a few more, and finally, as the song says, staying alive.

Thanks once again Allen and good luck with all of your future endeavors.

The above interview was conducted by:  NORM GOLDMAN:  Retired Title Attorney: Editor & Publisher of Bookpleasures. Here are  Norm Goldman's Reviews       

To read Norm's Review of: Funny Business: Moguls, Mobsters, Megastars, and the Mad, Mad World of the Ad Game CLICK HERE