{"id":237310,"date":"2022-02-17T13:15:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T21:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/divi.ameravant.com\/garykott\/?p=237310"},"modified":"2022-05-22T07:51:09","modified_gmt":"2022-05-22T14:51:09","slug":"more-about-madison-avenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/more-about-madison-avenue\/","title":{"rendered":"More About Madison Avenue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2022\/02\/shutterstock_432777325-1.jpg” title_text=”Street,Sign,On,The,Corner,Of,Madison,Avenue,New,York” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.16.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]
More About Madison Avenue<\/span><\/p>\n Before leaping into the inferno of Hollywood scriptwriting, and surviving relatively unscathed, my creative career began as a copywriter at powerhouse New York City advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Though I\u2019d never taken a course in marketing or film production I seemed to have had an intuitive knack for both and quickly rose between the ages of twenty-three and thirty from copywriter, to Creative Supervisor, to Vice President\/Creative Director.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>I wrote and produced many, many commercials that, until recently, were lost only to the archive of memory.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Back then there was no such thing as transferring film to digital disks or thumb drives.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The library of my advertising days was a box-load of sixteen-millimeter TV spots that was tragically lost during a period of personal tumult, transition, and chaos.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Decades later, while rummaging through a storage container, I came upon a metal film canister marked \u201cOgilvy & Mather.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>With no movie projector in the closet, I sent the canister to a digital transfer service; lo and behold there they were, a handful of surviving TV commercials I wrote and produced forty years earlier.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Memory Archive to Actual Archive.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Risen from the grave, my commercials rang out with all their Madison Avenue glory: \u201cNationwide Is On Your Side,\u201d \u201cReese\u2019s has gone nuts.\u201d \u201cGet fresh.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Get Yago.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Unfortunately, gone forever were long-lost commercials that never made it to the reel.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>During a seventies financial collapse that mass media dubbed \u201cThe War on Inflation,\u201d I created a campaign for Merrill Lynch called \u201cChoose Your Weapon.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>While primarily designed for print, full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, the client asked me to create a TV commercial that ran exclusively during the Super Bowl.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>A no-nonsense investment expert strode toward camera imploring the battle cry, \u201cDon\u2019t sit by idly and be ravaged by the war on inflation.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Fight back.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Call Merrill Lynch and choose your weapon.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Today it seems that a viable advertising strategy is to hire a famous movie star to represent your product.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Way back when the creative people I knew wanted their commercial to be the star, and thus searched and searched for unknown actors.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>It became a game of bragging rights for writers and art directors to boast about who they \u201cdiscovered.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>There was a commercial featuring a beaming young man showing off his new car near a broken fire hydrant in Little Italy, Robert De Niro.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>A woman producer I knew cast for weeks until she found baby-face John Travolta.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>My bragging right was a young actor playing the part of a tennis pro years before he won the coveted movie role of Superman, Christopher Reeve.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Alas, that commercial is available for viewing only in my fast-fading Memory Archive.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Now for the good news.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The resurrection.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The Actual Archive.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Click the link below to view some of my ancient TV commercials, transferred to black and white since the colors had permanently faded.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Please, try not to judge, try not to scorn, and, above all, try Yago Sangria\u2026<\/span><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_video src=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ON-0RZZBUe0″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_video][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]