Dukakis’ Pick Is No Mere Pitchman, but a Humane, Intelligent Ad Executive
The Aug. 7 Viewpoints column, “The Selling of the President, 1988 Style,” predicted change in the nature of political advertising but missed the real significance of Michael Dukakis’ selection of Ed McCabe as his “creative chief.”
Ed McCabe is not a Madison Avenue “pitchman.” Nor is it either accurate or illuminating to characterize him as “no one of (Hal) Riney’s stature.”
Students of the advertising business know that Ed McCabe may be one of a half-dozen or so of the most brilliant copywriters ever. He is not only a member of the Copywriters’ Hall of Fame, which includes David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach and Leo Burnett, but is also its youngest-ever inductee.
What matters in the context of the fall election is not just the scale of his talent but the kind of advertising for which he is known around the world.
Over the years he has demonstrated a consistent standard for intelligent, relevant, humane advertising. He also has been the master of the art of tough comparative advertising that somehow manages to be not only truthful but tasteful.
This is evident in his work for Volvo, probably the most consistently intelligent automotive advertising during the last 20 years. The first Volvo ad Scali, McCabe, Sloves ran showed photographs of three 11-year-old Detroit gas guzzlers. The headline: “The exciting new cars of 11 years ago. Where, oh where, are they now?” Another in the series: “Fat cars die young.”
An ad he wrote for Hertz began: “For years Avis has been telling you they’re No. 2. Now Hertz will tell you why.”
As your column correctly argues, this year’s presidential campaign is going to contain a lot of tough, issue-oriented advertising. If Dukakis gets the real McCabe, he, and gratefully, the rest of us, may see messages that no matter how tough, are more intelligently conceived and more artfully conveyed than the column suggests.
As someone familiar with his work, I can safely say that McCabe has never resorted to the latest advertising wisdom (an oxymoron?) or “in-vogue advertising techniques.” No yuppie engineers solving problems that don’t exist. Nor will we see, at least from McCabe, meaningless one-line slogans. And lastly, no “advertising by association and context.” He has never done any of this and I doubt that he is about to start.
In fact, Dukakis in one more very smart campaign decision may have picked Ed McCabe precisely because he is not a pitchman.
RICHARD KELLY
Los Angeles
The writer is the former president of the Los Angeles office of the Scali, McCabe, Sloves ad firm.
