DDB's Lee Garfinkel Speaks Out on Being Media Inventive, Creative Testing, and Agency Fees

Originally Published November 2 2006There is little debate that the legendary ad executive Bill Bernbach is one of the great creative geniuses in the history of advertising responsible for Volkswagen39s quotThink Smallquot quotYou don39t have to be Jewish to love Levy39s Rye Breadquot subway ads Life Cereal39s quotMikey Likes Itquot quotWe Try Harderquot for Avis and McDonald39s quotYou deserve a break todayquot Lee Garfinkel refuses to class himself in a league with Bernbach but as chairman and chief creative officer of DDB New York and as one of the most prolific and respected creative ad executives in the world today he and his team are the Bernbach standardbearers Comparisons are inevitable quotIf Bill Bernbach started the creative revolution in the 1960squot says the veteran ad exec who created the legendary Diet Coke ad with hunky construction worker Lucky Vanous and Heineken39s quotIt39s all about the beerquot campaign quotwe want to be at the forefront of what39s happening today Our goal is to continue the revolution and bring back the glory days of DDB New York We want to cross the DDB way of doing business from the 1960s with new realities We want to do nontraditional things in traditional mediaquot Lee also disdains quotpushing the creative envelope before there is a basic idea to pushquot arguing quotcreativity in the wrong hands is a dangerous thing Only 20 percent of ad campaignsquot he believes quothave a great idea buried in themquot But he also acknowledges only a small percentage of clients will actually buy something that39s truly different quotMost stick with something they can testquot Lee says Lee recalls different attitudes when he started his career at legendary creative agency Levine Huntley Schmidt and Beaver Huntley was thenretired NBC news anchor Chet Huntley who quotagreed to lend his name in return for some equityquot quotAt Levinequot Lee comments quotclients were small and very few tested our ideas Mostly decisions were based on gut When I went to BBDO in the late 1980s and early 1990s we made decisions based on gut Today when it comes down to making decisions people want to test But the success rate of advertising isn39t necessarily any better Where is the proof that testing of advertising results in more effective campaigns It drives me crazy Why do we have all these smart and creative peoplequot Lee challenges Surrounded at Michael39s Restaurant by ad legend Martin Puris Maria Bartiromo newly installed Hallmark Channel president Henry Schleiff Steven and Howard Rubenstein Jesse Kornbluth Mark Rosenthal and Reese Schoenfeld Lee admitted he also has rules and philosophies he goes by but says he can break those rules quotPeople always ask for groundbreaking and different but it39s all about insights and human understandingquot The Lucky Vanous Diet Coke commercial was originally presented as part of a new business pitch quotWe shot it on a Saturday with our own moneyquot says Lee quotand there was no testing involved New age beverages were selling well and we wanted to get Diet Coke back on the radar screenquot Coke39s marketing director Sergio Zyman now a consultant hired the agency and put the commercial on the air quickly quotNext thing I knewquot Lee laughs quotI was on television speaking as a sex expert on the switching of roles between men and womenquot Media ampamp Creative Integration To help find great ideas DDB has created an Idea Wall of opportunity where creative briefs are posted on the wall Every creative person can review the briefs and contribute ideas In the past year DDB added a wall of media opportunities where the team can contribute media ideas quotTen years ago we separated creative from media and now we need them all to work together againquot Lee comments He says he loves coming up with media ideas quotWe39re looking for any interesting way to tell a story and we get stale if we39re not looking at fresh media opportunities We want to inspire people to do things differently and we want the product and message to be integral to the mediumquot Unlike many ad executives who are married to traditional thirtysecond commercials Lee believes quotit39s not about the length of the message It39s about how interesting it is People watch videos from fourseconds to four minutes on YouTubequot he points out quotWe need to go with the flow I don39t know where it39s going but I love that the business is changing New media old media Four channels or 400 It39s motivating to be able to work with new and existing media in different ways I want to be media inventive It puts added responsibility on the agency to go out and discover what39s happeningquot A good example says Lee is a quotReal World Product Placementquot campaign for the Subaru Tribeca quotIn Texasquot Lee explains quotpeople don39t think they need a fourwheel drive car so we wanted people to think it39s special The local salespeople would park brand new cars in the best neighborhoods and leave them there People would notice them and all it cost was a possible parking ticket It was simple low tech and real world product placement People would come into the showroom saying they hadn39t considered the Tribeca but they saw it parked in their neighborhoodquot he smiles At Levine Huntley Lee began by writing classified ads for Subaru dealers and in addition to Subaru his clients at DDB New York include Diet Pepsi Lipton Tea American Cotton Council Phillips United Technologies and Electrolux As our coffee was brought to the table Lee shared his concern about the profit issues challenging creative agencies In the 1990s agencies began undercutting each other on fees to capture new business taking them from 15 percent commissions to fees as low as three percent quotWe39re the only industry that gives our ideas away free and that doesn39t retain creative rights to our workquot Lee complains quotAll we have is our creativity and we give it away Agencies used to be experts on advertising and marketing but they39ve given up much of that expertise to clients consultants and newer marketing and communications organizations I still think we39re experts on advertising and marketing but we need to work harder to demonstrate it to clients The lawn mower guy has more pride than some advertising agenciesquot Lee and his wife Shelley have two daughters Alisha who recently joined Mammoth Advertising from Wunderman and Jacki an Editor here at Jack Myers MediaVillage Lee graduated from Queens College where Jerry Seinfeld was a classmate To connect with Lee Garfinkel write LeeGarfinkelnyddbcom

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DDB's Lee Garfinkel Speaks Out on Being Media Inventive, Creative Testing, and Agency Fees

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