Is truth stranger than fiction? Here’s another dash of religious fervour – true this time

Curvin O’Riellly who used to work at Ogilvy and before that Y & R tells a true story relating to the one I posted earlier:

This reminds me of something that happened years ago at Y&R.

My creative director, Tony Isidore, and a couple of his partners, Bob Elgort and Marv Lefkowitz, had created an absolutely sensational campaign for the NY Urban Coalition. The tagline was famous: “Give jobs. Give money. Give a damn.”

Predictably, the network censors objected to the word “damn.” So the agency said, “Okay, tell you what. Go see Father O’What’s His Name (I was never told his name) at the archdiocese.”

The good father talked with the network censors, nodding his understanding of their problem with the word “damn.”

“You know,” he said in his brogue as he leaned forward, “I too have been having a problem with ‘damn.’ I think it’s completely inappropriate for a cause as serious as the Urban Coalition. I think the tagline should be ‘Give a shit.’”

What a pleasure to see idiot censors done down for a change.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

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