Spray the Bear
Reminiscences From the Golden Age of Advertising
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Joy liquid detergent was one of the oldest and most important brands that Leo Burnett handled for Procter & Gamble. It was also a brand upon which I served as assistant account executive for a year and a half. In the course of handling any P&G brand, the agency and the brand group were constantly challenged to come up with new product ideas that could expand sales. One of the standard techniques was to develop what was called a "flanker brand." In Joy’s case, we decided to remove the yellow color and produce a clear product. The idea was that the clear product would somehow convey mildness. The name we came up with was "Crystal Clear Joy." Simultaneous with the development of the product and the name, of course, was the development of advertising copy. In this instance, the creative people decided that the way to convey crystal clarity and mildness was through the use of winter ice and snow references; specifically, they decided that a polar bear would be a very memorable device. In due time, a storyboard was created, the advertising was presented to the client, and the commercial was approved for production. The basic storyline took place in a winter setting with the presenter sitting in the front seat of an antique open car next to a polar bear. The polar bear was to hold a bottle of "Crystal Clear Joy," which the bear would hand to the presenter at the appropriate moment. (I know this sounds silly today, but at the time it seemed to make maximum use of the visual elements of television.) By way of background, the reader must remember that this was taking place in the early 1960’s before fax machines, the Internet, and even conference calls. We used the old-fashioned telex machine to communicate back and forth between offices. The pre-production meeting was held in the Hollywood office of the Leo Burnett Co. while the account group and brand group were in Chicago and Cincinnati taking care of our daily work. The first hint of a problem occurred when we received the following telex from the West Coast office. "Impossible to use polar bear – stop – they are much too vicious and untrainable – stop – tell us what you want us to do – end." After considerable discussion between the account group and the brand group we sent the following: "Can you use a man in a polar bear suit? – end."
"It will look stupid, ridiculous and phony – stop – no way will this idea work – end," they quickly replied. "How about taking a brown bear and painting it white so he looks like a polar bear – end," we helpfully suggested.
After two or three hours they responded. "We tried your suggestions – stop – we took a trained brown bear and painted it white – stop – unfortunately the paint matted up and it looked like a huge brown rat – stop – what is your next suggestion? – end."
To us it seemed extremely simple and the West Coast people seemed unbelievably stupid but that’s the way it is between the account group, the brand group, and the production people. We quickly fired off the obvious answer: "All you have to do is spray the bear and your problem will be solved – end."
Unfortunately at this time fate intervened and the secretary who was transcribing the telex made a fatal error. Instead of sending the word "spray" she left out a key letter and mistakenly typed the word "spay." The response from the West Coast was incredulous and immediate. "Suggest you reconsider your last recommendation – stop – we hardly see how this will solve our problem – stop – besides we are using a male bear – end."
In the end, everything was sorted out, the bear was returned to its trainer, the commercial was scratched, and Crystal Clear Joy had to be supported by a totally different commercial.
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About the Book
As the advent of television broadened the range of advertising's influence on the American public, the ad men became the glamorous elite of the corporate world. In this compulsively readable, anecdotal memoir, author Walter W. Bregman gives the reader a delicious glimpse into the rarified world of advertising in its heyday. The brilliant bad boys of advertising–who lubricated every business deal with alcohol–not only made the products of Procter & Gamble, Vick's, and Gallo household names, but also became the behind-the-scenes authors of popular culture. In a flow of colorful stories, Mr. Bregman describes successful campaigns for terrible products (Wally Cox as the pitchman for Salvo tablet laundry detergent), Redd Foxx's indirect endorsement for Ripple wine and why the consumer public never saw a polar bear in a commercial for crystal-clear Joy. The book’s one hundred and fifty plus anecdotes include stories about such well-known public figures as Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Peter Ustinov, Alice Faye, Raquel Welch and many others. This crisply written, interesting series of essays will evoke many memories for anyone who watched television during the sixties through the eighties and explains why the years covered were truly the "golden age of advertising".
About the Author
Walter Bregman began his professional career in the lowly entry-level position of a media research analyst at the Leo Burnett Company in Chicago and concluded it as President of International Playtex Inc. In between, Bregman worked for several multi-national advertising agencies and lived in Chicago, London, Modesto, California and Westport Connecticut. He worked with Procter and Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, Playtex, Clairol, Vick Chemical, Chanel, Phillip Morris, Gallo and a host of celebrities and corporate executives. Mr. Bregman is a graduate of Harvard College. He is married to his college sweetheart and they have three sons and three grandchildren. Today they live in Del Mar, California where he divides his time between golf, practicing the violin, traveling and consulting.