David W. De Smith

DAVID WILLIAM DESMITHA right-brain that knows | what the left is doing.

BIOGRAPHY & RESUME |

CLIENTS |

| PRINT & OUTDOOR

| TELEVISION

| ONLINE

| COLLATERAL

| DIRECT RESPONSE

| PUBLICATIONS

|| BOOKS

DDDwDDD

B i o g r a p h y

I grew up in New York and Connecticut before heading off to college at Johns Hopkins University and graduate school at the University of Colorado. Since that time, I’ve worked in advertising and also as a writer, editor and publisher. My career in advertising has taken me to some of the most energetic ad communities in the country — including Richmond, Minneapolis and New York City. As a creative director, I’ve had the pleasure of working for some of America’s best-known companies — and with some of its most talented advertising people. Along the way, I learned how to interpret left-brain marketing plans and translate them into right-brain creative that engages and sells.

In 1992, I left Young and Rubicam in New York to join with four other ad guys in the creation of a new agency. We went from being five guys with one phone to an agency of over 100 people in just three months. The thirty-plus writers, art directors and designers who worked for me in the creative department were among the most talented I’ve ever known. We worked hard, but had a lot of fun.

That agency was born on the back of a dromedary — Joe Camel, the notorious spokes-camel for R.J. Reynolds’ Camel cigarette brand. A lot of my time at was spent serving as one of the engineers of this campaign, which was recognized as one of America’s most effective (and controversial). If the goal of a marketing effort is to get noticed, we certainly did that. In a highly restrictive category and battling against an adversary with nearly unlimited resources, Camel’s resurrection from a tired, old moribund brand to one of the nation’s most hip and relevant brand names made marketing history. Joe Camel became that most desirable of advertising inventions — the pop icon. And along the way, he made a great deal of money for R.J. Reynolds.

In 1995, my wife gave birth to our first son, Red, and nine months later my wife and I decided that New York wasn’t the best place to raise a kid. So we packed up and moved to Cousins Island, Maine, where our second son, Marcel, was born in 1997. In Maine, I’ve been doing advertising consulting work for both local and national clients, with brief time-outs to write two books on advertising and marketing. I also got into the publishing business here in 2000 when I began publishing a magazine that focused on one of my favorite hobbies — golf. I later sold that publication to News World Inc., at which point they changed its name from New England Journal of Golf to GolfStyles New England and hired me to help them with the transition. In 2006, I joined The VIA Group in Portland as creative director — a post that I held through the end of 2008.

Today, my sons are well on their way to manhood. My other baby, the golf magazine, has grown to the point where it can run without me. And I’m enjoying being back full-time in the advertising world that I never really left. My range of experiences as a writer, creative director and publisher have given me a strong background in the creation of commercial communications messages in many forms, and I’m eager to put that experience to work in new ways.

D A V I D W I L L I A M D E S M I T H

R e s u m e

P r o f e s s i o n a l

2009–Present Advertisingandmarketingconsultant

2006–2008 CreativeDirector,TheVIAGroup,Portland,Maine Accounts:DuPont,Unum,ColonialLife,ADI,Arrow

2005–Present AssociatePublisherandEditor,GolfStyles New England Magazine

2000–2004 PublisherandEditor-in-Chief,New England Journal of Golf

1996–Present President,DWDCreativeServices,advertisingandmarketingconsultingfirm Accounts:Gyro,DoeAnderson,MullenLHC,MMB

1990–1995 FoundingPartner,V.P.,CreativeDirector,Mezzina/BrownPartners,NYC Accounts:RJRCamel,WaltDisney,ChemicalBank

1987–1990 CreativeDirector,Young&Rubicam,Advertising,NYC Accounts:RJRCamel,KFC

1986–1987 CreativeDirector,McDonald/O’Meara,Portland,ME Accounts:BlueCross,LePageBakeries

1985–1987 AssociateCreativeDirector,LSM,Portland,ME Accounts:MaineTourism,BlueCross,LePageBakeries

1983–1985 AssociateCreativeDirector,Campbell-Mithun,Minneapolis.,MN Accounts:GeneralMills,BettyCrocker,NorthwestBanks,InterstateBakeries

1982–1983 SeniorCopywriter,Ford&Westbrook,Richmond,VA Accounts:GeneralElectric,Stihl,EskimoPie,H&K,ShadyBrookFarms

E d u c a t i o n

1981–1982 PostgraduateworkinEnglish,TheUniversityofColorado

1980 B.A.,cumlaude,CreativeWriting,TheJohnsHopkinsUniversity

1976 Diploma,WestminsterSchool,Simsbury,CT

P u b l i c a t i o n s

2001–Present New England Journal of Golf–Variousgolfarticles

2000–2001 Golf of Maine Magazine–Variousgolfarticles

1999 “The Colombian Coffee Story: How Juan Valdez Became a Household Name,”FortRowleyPress

1997 “A Camel Named Joe: The Illustrated Story of an American Pop Icon,” ElementBooks

1994–Present Numerousgolf-relatedarticlesinnewspapersandmagazines,includingGolfing, Met Golfer, Golf of Maine, New England Journal of Golf, The Portland Press Herald

1984–Present Shortstoriesandpoetrypublishedinsmallmagazines,including Hardball, Richmond Arts Magazine, First Blood, Continental Drift,andothers

C o n t a c t I n f o

141WharfRd.,Yarmouth,ME04096

H:207-846-1336•C:207-838-4361•E:[email protected]


C l i e n t s

AmericanMovieClassicscablenetwork

AnalogDevices

ArrowInternational(MedicalDevices)

BettyCrocker

BostonBrewingCompany–SamuelAdamsbrand

BlueCrossandBlueShield

ChemicalBank

ColonialLife

ColumbianCoffeeFederation–CafédeColombia

ConAgra–HealthyChoicebrand

DupontProfessionalProducts

TheEmpireStateBuilding

EskimoPieCorporation

GeneralCigarCo.ChattanoogaChewandCountryBlendbrands

GeneralCigarCo.–RedwoodSnuffbrand

GeneralElectric–MobileCommunicationsDivision

GeneralMills–breakfastcereals

GuardianIndustries

Heckler&Kochfirearms

InterstateBakeries–breads

InterstateBakeries–DollyMadisonbrand

KentuckyFriedChicken

LePageBakeries–CountryKitchenandBarowsky’sbrands

MinneapolisPublicLibraries

Newsweek–InteractiveDivision

NewYorkCityBoardofElections

Norfolk,VirginiaTourism

NorwestBanks

R.J.Reynolds–Camelbrand

R.J.Reynolds–Winstonbrand

R.J.Reynolds–WinstonCupRacingmarketingprograms

ShadyBrookFarms–turkeyproducts

SpringStreetBrewingCompany–WitBeerbrand

StateofMaineTourism

StateofVirginiaTourism

StihlPowerTools

SuburbanBank

Teleflex(MedicalDevices)

TimeWarnerCable

Unum

UniversityofMinnesotaArtMuseum

WaltDisneyCompany–DisneyVacationClubdivision

WellcraftBoats

Women’sArtRegistryofMinnesota


R u n n i n g t h e R i s k o f B e i n g N o t i c e d

It all starts with the concept — a picture and a headline working together, conspiring to communicate an idea, a selling message that compels the reader to take action. It’s where left-brain strategy meets right-brain creativity. Here’s a sampling of some of the print ads I’ve conceived and written. Some of them are long on copy; in others, the visual concept and brand name say it all.

In every case, standing out from the gray sameness of the print environment was the first goal; selling the product a close second. If there’s one thing that creating print ads or billboards has taught me, it’s that you’ve got to run the risk of being noticed. The world doesn’t need another self-serving ad. And nobody likes being bored.

P r i n t & O u t d o o r

P r e s t o P a s t a

L e f t- b r a i n

Pasta from a pouch? The food technologists at Betty Crocker had come up with a line of truly great-tasting pasta dinners that you could prepare in just 12 minutes. The strategy here was to communicate authenticity and convenience.

R i g h t- b r a i n

This ad used the tried-and-true, side-by-side comparison (along with inset visuals that comprised a quick product demonstration) to get its points across.

B e t t y C r o c k e r

C o n s u m e r A d

L e f t- b r a i n

The American Movie Classics cable network wanted image advertising that positioned the channel in the context of not just movies and movie channels, but the American way of life. AMC wanted viewers to know that the network had the same values that lovers of classic movies had — that they believed in holding on to cherished moments, memories (and movies, too).


A visual metaphor does the work — the old baseball glove, like the classic films presented on AMC , embodies an emotional tie to the past. Both are worth holding on to forever.

A m e r i c a n M o v i e C l a s s i c s

W i t B e e r

L e f t- b r a i n

Introducing a new local beer in New York City is not as easy as paying your slotting allowances and stocking a few thousand shelves. You have to arouse curiosity, create a buzz. This print ad (it was also a bus shelter one-sheet) served as an introduction to the new brand of Belgian-style witbier and also listed the places serving it.


After extensive packaging research, we designed the Wit label to communicate tradition — but tradition with a modern edge to it. The ad played off the central symbol of that design, the exclamation point, and challenged consumers to find out what “it” is. Restaurant listings comprise the border of the ad.

S p r i n g S t r e e t B r e w i n g

F r e e C h e c k i n g N e w s p a p e r A d

L e f t- b r a i n

The large Midwestern bank group Norwest had created a new free checking account that came with a long laundry list of benefits. But the biggest news was that it was really, entirely free.


The stop-you-in-your-tracks visual of the large asterisk worked well in the cluttered newspaper environment, and poked fun at other banks’ products in which there were limitations, exclusions and exceptions for every rule.

N o r w e s t B a n k s

M a g n u m S e r i e s M a g a z i n e A d

L e f t- b r a i n

When German chainsaw manufacturer Stihl introduces a whole new line of saws, you can believe that they have been engineered to outperform anything else on the market. Our job: to communicate the superiority of their new Magnum series saws to an audience that knows their tools.


Make it quick. Make it simple. Make it clear. Chain saw users are down-to-earth people who want the facts. Here we presented them in a compelling (and confrontational) way.

S t i h l P o w e r T o o l s

F o l d - O u t M a g a z i n e I n s e r t

L e f t- b r a i n

The job here was to create a magazine insert that would present the entire line of Stihl products — from chain saws and trimmers to industrial concrete cutters. Stihl is famous for its saws — we wanted to use that strength as a springboard for a message that would let people know they could find the same Stihl quality in a lot of other products.


Sometimes the child is father to the man. When we saw this amazing photo of a team working trees in the Pacific Northwest, we knew we had a visual with the stopping power (and vertical inches) to let us create an unforgettable fold-out catalog insert. Stihl’s full line of products was featured on the back. (In case you’re wondering, they did not cut down this old-growth tree.)


M o b i l e R a d i o Tr a d e A d

L e f t- b r a i n

The engineers at General Electric’s mobile communications division could (and often would) spend hours telling you about the ways their radios and networks were better. The police market was one of their most important audiences and called for products that were totally reliable, capable and conveniently reprogrammable.


This trade ad to the law enforcement community talked to them in their own language and pointed out all the reasons why GE radios would help make their police work go more smoothly. We found the hottest police car we could find at the time — a 140-mile-an-hour Mustang cruiser owned by the Idaho State Police — and used it to make our point.

G e n e r a l E l e c t r i c

E s k i m o F l a v o r s D i v i s i o n Tr a d e A d

L e f t- b r a i n

Eskimo Pie Company’s trade division, Eskimo Flavors, sells ingredients to dairies and manufacturers. When it comes to ice cream and frozen novelties, there was literally nothing they didn’t offer — and this was the point they asked us to make.


A stark and simple visual concept helped us make the company’s position clear in a heartbeat.

E s k i m o P i e

N o v a I I I M a g a z i n e A d

L e f t- b r a i n

For years, Wellcraft has been known for making some of the highest quality boats in the business. But innovation and performance aren’t the real reasons people buy boats. The challenge was to show the product in a way that communicated the romance of being out on the water and echoed the emotional reasons why boats are purchased.


A sexy boat deserves a sexy execution. The copy personifies the new Wellcraft Nova — she’s great looking, a kind of love-at-first-sight watercraft that’s truly something special.

W e l l c r a f t B o a t s

H K 91 M a g a z i n e A d

L e f t- b r a i n

High-end military and law enforcement weapons are a very specialized market. Heckler & Koch (H&K), a German company, is the foremost manufacturer in the business. Here the assignment was to position H&K to the consumer market — survivalists in this case — and to talk to them in a language that they understood.


Hunting magazines don’t generally portray paramilitary situations, but that’s exactly what we chose to do in support of the consumer introduction of the HK 91 semi-automatic assault rifle. To say that the ad stood out would be an understatement. Along with other ads in the campaign, it positioned H&K as a firearms manufacturer of uncompromising standards and depicted the kind of uncompromising user who would choose an H&K firearm.

H e c k l e r & K o c h

M a g a z i n e A d

L e f t- b r a i n

Infections are a huge problem for hospitals, and even more so since Medicare reimbursement rules changed in October, 2008. Arrow, a major manufacturer of catheters, wanted to position its Maximal Barrier Precautions Tray in the minds of hospital administrators as an easy way to combat infection.


Hospital administrators are generally not physicians, but they do respond to powerful scientific imagery like the graphic that anchors this ad. They also want to see themselves as smart, hence this headline.

A r r o w

M a g a z i n e A d s

L e f t- b r a i n

The Colonial Life “Benefits Guys” help all kinds of workers with their employee benefits – white collar, blue collar and even no collar. They wanted to dramatize this in a way that would make it immediately apparent to their human resources personnel audience.


Given that we were launching the “Benefits Guys” concept with these ads, we wanted to drive home the idea verbally as well as visually. Clearly, it’s a guy thing.

C o l o n i a l L i f e


L e f t- b r a i n

Bugs are big business, and nobody’s more innovative in their approach to pest control than DuPont. A relatively new division of the company, the DuPont pest control products division wanted their image to reflect the advanced chemistry they’re developing, while at the same time communicating their product advantages in an endearing way.


Pest control professionals (a.k.a. exterminators) are scientists with trucks. They want facts, want to know what the bottom line is—but at the same time they’re not looking to wallow in charts full of facts and figures, even when they’re reading a trade magazine. These ads are light-hearted, but they make the point.

D u P o n t

A d a n d B u m p e r S t i c k e r

L e f t- b r a i n

Kaspersky makes the world’s best anti-viral software. But to most people, the brand is an unknown. Kaspersky wanted us to help differentiate them from the Symantecs and McAfees of the world by focusing on their biggest asset: the tenacity and abilities of their people.


There’s only one fitting end for a computer virus: termination with extreme prejudice. This ad positions Kaspersky as the company with the people who are qualified to do that job best. The bumper sticker reinforces that equity (and will hopefully help reduce road rage, too).

K a s p e r s k y


L e f t- b r a i n

Accounting isn’t just about numbers It’s about people — and trust. McGladrey is a well known accounting firm that sells its services to mid-market companies who are looking for reliable accounting help without the bells and whistles.


What better way to underscore the things that McGladrey’s accounting professionals bring to the table than by having fun with the things that they’re not so expert at. It’s an awareness campaign designed to generate memorability — and smiles.

R S M M c G l a d r e y

E n v i r o n m e n t a l G r a p h i c s

L e f t- b r a i n

You’ve just been hired to let the world know that its most famous building is undergoing a renaissance — and you have a 12 x 900-foot space in which to do so, a space that wraps three-fourths of the way around the city-block-sized building.


It would’ve been easy to over-dramatize the $50 million in changes being made to the ESB, or drown the message in allusions to its historic past. Instead, simplicity ruled the day. Amazing what adding two little letters to a name can do.

T h e E m p i r e S t a t e B u i l d i n g

P R O/ E n g i n e e r M a g a z i n e A d

L e f t- b r a i n

PTC, makers of industry-leading CAD software called PRO/Engineer, had a problem. They’d earned such a widespread reputation as the first choice of enterprise-level companies that smaller businesses ($100 million and under) thought there wasn’t a PTC product suitable (or affordable) for them. Our mission was to correct this misperception.


Industrial engineering can be complex, but ads aimed at that market shouldn’t be. We used a simple visual progression to drive home the point that there was a version of PTC’s PRO/Engineer product for any size company.

P T C

P o s t e r

L e f t- b r a i n

Sometimes, an agency’s most important client is itself. But it’s hard to achieve greatness if everyone isn’t on the same page. This poster, which was introduced one commandment at a time in an internal email campaign, was created to educate the writers and art directors at The VIA Group about some of the paths to doing (and selling) great work.


I loved the mock-seriousness of the Presidential faces on these wooden busts; their solemn expressions fit the importance of the topic perfectly and worked well with the “commandment”-style headlines. In contrast, the body copy that was written to expand on each commandment, while equally didactic, adopted a lighter and more contemporary tone.

V I A

B o o k s t o r e N e w s p a p e r A d

L e f t- b r a i n

You don’t often see ads for libraries, but one way the Minneapolis Public Library earned additional revenue was through its periodic sales of used books. This campaign was designed to get people (and in particular women) to think about visiting the library’s bookshop when they came to the library.


The ads in this headline-driven newspaper campaign all talked to readers in terms they could relate to — in this case, equating the excitement of reading with the common practice amongst many women in the target audience to watch soap operas on television.

M i n n e a p o l i s P u b l i c L i b r a r y

P r o m o t i o n a l N e w s p a p e r A d

L e f t- b r a i n

A nonprofit gallery devoted to the support of emerging women artists, WARM (Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota) enlisted my help to generate publicity for their upcoming art shows — an effort that included this newspaper ad.


There’s a real “What’s That?” factor involved when you’re displaying abstract sculpture, and I relied on that — and a double-entendre headline — to make this ad memorable. The tagline: “KEEP WARM” was one that had particular significance in a place like Minneapolis, where the only thing more pervasive than winter is the presence of fried cheese curds at the state fair.

W o m e n ’ s A r t R e g i s t r y o f M i n n e s o t a

I m a g e M a g a z i n e A d

C a m e l

L e f t- b r a i n

The Camel cigarette campaign featuring Joe Camel worked for one simple reason: because Joe, the pop icon, functioned as the modern representation of a classic brand – one with pack iconography that had been a part of the American landscape since 1913. Without the link to the brand’s history, Joe would’ve been an irrelevant shill; without Joe, the brand would’ve remained an anachronism. Joe revived the Camel brand by putting a new face on an old favorite., and part of our challenge in creating and evolving this campaign was to always stay true to this underlying tenet.


Joe Camel could do anything — water-ski, scuba dive, play instruments, anything — and he did everything with style and flair. That’s what made him so popular with smokers; Joe fulfilled people by allowing them to see themselves, see their the playful fantasies, in him. This concept literally depicted the synergy between Joe and the classic Camel logo in a fun and offbeat way. No copy was necessary other than the simple Camel trademark.

U r b a n B i l l b o a r d

L e f t- b r a i n

The Joe Camel campaign was built on irreverence. “Smooth Character” described not just Joe, but the product, which R.J. Reynolds wanted to be seen as a smooth-tasting one.


The theory was, if Joe Camel played golf, he’d play it a little differently.

C a m e l

Peop le M a g a z i n e A d

L e f t- b r a i n

We ran a lot of ads for Camel in People Magazine, but this one was different. For this ad, we were asked to create an ad specifically for People’s “50 Most Glamorous People” issue.


The assignment was ultimately a simple one: the creative mimicked the format of the special issue’s editorial. By this point in time, Joe was easily as famous as most of the people in the magazine. What was nice was that the format allowed us to engage in some playful copywriting in our description of Joe.

C a m e l

Te l e p h o n e K i o s k P o s t e r

L e f t- b r a i n

This ad, which was placed only on telephone kiosks in metro areas like Manhattan, was part of an effort that we called “Joe Shows Up.” The strategy was to make Joe Camel ubiquitous and have him show up at every turn — in subways, at bus stops, on match books, etc. in addition to his usual print and billboard appearances.


This ad obviously depends on the double entendre of the headline, but its effectiveness is equally rooted in the depiction of Joe Camel himself: the leather jacket, branded T-shirt, and sunglasses just light enough to let you see the twinkle in his eye.

C a m e l

H u n t i n g & F i s h i n g M a g a z i n e s A d

L e f t- b r a i n

The concept for this ad was born of its media placement — the ad ran only in hunting and fishing magazines.


Joe Camel could do anything and wear anything — as long as it was cool. In this execution, the campaign had fun with camouflage — or as it was later called when camouflage Camel premiums were created, “Camel-flage.”

C a m e l

M a g a z i n e I n s e r t

L e f t- b r a i n

Up-selling smokers to multiple pack purchases at retail was initially accomplished through the use of on-pack premiums. Buy two packs, get a free lighter or T-shirt. But that got expensive, so we were tasked with coming up with an alternative way to encourage brand loyalty. The Camel Cash program lowered Camel’s cost of promoted volume substantially, while at the same time adding to the brand’s mythology a fun, new currency of the realm.


This four-page magazine insert featured Joe as George Washington sharing the wealth. Joe’s hand popped out of the ad and offered smokers free “C-Notes” which they could save and later redeem for branded premiums. On the back of each insert was a catalog of these premium items. The first of many Camel cash catalogs, this one spawned intense interest in the brand and forced category leader Marlboro to respond with its copycat “Marlboro Miles” and “Adventure Team” programs.

C a m e l

B i l l b o a r d

L e f t- b r a i n

Outdoor advertising was Camel’s television, the most public medium that the brand could utilize. So it was only natural that the Camel Cash message made its way to the realm of billboards.


Not only was this billboard a bit of a fun sight gag, it also served as a product demonstration, showing consumers where to find Camel Cash.

C a m e l

C a m e l L i g h t s M a g a z i n e A d

L e f t- b r a i n

The Camel brand was comprised of a number of styles, including the best selling Camel Lights, which often called for executions designed specifically for that smoother style.


This execution, like many of the ones created especially for Camel Lights, depicted the kinder, gentler side of Joe. It was also one of the first executions in which Joe Camel’s arms and legs were seen, allowing for creative range that didn’t exist in the earliest days of the campaign.

C a m e l

M u s i c M a g a z i n e s P r i n t A d

L e f t- b r a i n

As the campaign evolved, it could afford to include ads in which Joe Camel didn’t even appear — or barely appeared. Keeping the campaign fresh required executions that were more conceptual and involving, such as this one featuring a classic retro jukebox.


The campaign often drew upon classic and retro images and this ad was one example of the way in which Joe’s world merged with that retro imagery. The song titles were fun to write and in a few cases were created to address strategic goals, such as the song “Don’t Gimme No Cheap Cigarettes,” which was meant to discourage Camel smokers from trading down to less expensive, generic smokes.

C a m e l

M a g a z i n e I n s e r t

L e f t- b r a i n

Sometimes, an ad is more than an ad. As the campaign evolved, a decision was made to create periodic “magazines” around Joe and the Camel brand, which were inserted into magazines like Sports Illustrated, People, Playboy and others.


The first issue of Smooth magazine appeared in 1991 and featured items like “Joe’s Smooth Philosophies,” a bar scene showing a whole cast of camel characters, and a feature called “Monumentally Smooth” which showed statues of some of Joe’s ancestors such as Leonardo da Camel.

C a m e l

B o x P r o d u c t P r i n t A d

L e f t- b r a i n

While the Joe Camel campaign was certainly entertaining, it also had a job to do. Getting Marlboro smokers to switch to Camel wasn’t easy. The ones that did switch often purchased their Camels in hard packs — boxes, as opposed to the old-style soft pack. R.J. Reynolds asked us to come up with a way to increase sales of hard packs for Camel.


Camel wanted to push its box products, we wanted to give Joe Camel some pals to hang out with. The answer was a no-brainer: create Joe’s “backup band” and call them the Hard Pack. Sales of box styles soared, and the campaign acquired some new characters: Bustah, Eddie, Max and Floyd.

C a m e l

A l t e r n a t i v e C a m p a i g n B i l l b o a r d s

L e f t- b r a i n

One of my jobs as creative director on the Camel account was to be on a constant lookout for other advertising ideas for the brand. Like the Joe campaign, they needed to be somewhat irreverent and at the same time be true to Camel’s heritage as a classic brand.


This execution, one of many from a series of “Genuine/Impostor” ads and billboards we created, was based on pack imagery and poked fun at the idea of knockoff brands.

C a m e l

Tu r n i n g O n E m o t i o n s

Television advertising is about more than painting pictures and telling stories. It’s about stirring emotions. A smile, a frown, a nod — these are the signs that a spot is working. Thirty seconds isn’t much time. It’s got to be simple enough

to be clear, and emotional enough to be memorable. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your energy, the client’s money, and the viewer’s time.

T e l e v i s i o n

I n s u r a n c e

L e f t- b r a i n

Unum is a Fortune 250 company that sells voluntary insurance products like disability and long-term care to client companies of all sizes. But just because it’s a B2B sell doesn’t mean that TV advertising isn’t strategically smart. Unum wanted to let employers know that they’d score big points with employees and prospective employees by offering Unum benefits in addition to their health, dental and 401K.


Employees work hard, and companies that really care about their employees offer Unum benefits as a reward. That was the pitch; a retail fashion company served as the featured company. Using fast-paced time-lapse footage, this spot depicts the flurry of activity in the office prior to a meeting with a big buyer. By day’s end, it’s an emotional win-win for the company, the buyer and the hard-working employees who made it all happen.

U n u m

P r e s t o P a s t a

L e f t- b r a i n

Gourmet tortellini made convenient? Only the people at Betty Crocker could’ve come up with this one. The mandate was to introduce it via their time-tested (and much overused) problem-solution formula. We turned the formula on its ear and came up with a winner.


Mom doesn’t rush home from work to make dinner in this one — an Italian chef does. If it’s good enough for him and his family, it’s good enough for anyone. Just don’t tell anybody that he made it in 12 minutes.

B e t t y C r o c k e r

We b e r ’s B r e a d

L e f t- b r a i n

Bread is good for your heart, the people at Interstate Bakeries told us. It’s low in fat, has no cholesterol, and it’s high in complex carbohydrates (the good kind). Use that idea to sell our regional brands of bread. This spot, which featured different brands in different parts of the country, was so successful it ran for almost three years.


We’re talking to Moms here. The musical chairs concept was an eerie but effective way of reminding them to serve their kids bread, the food that’s good for your heart.

I n t e r s t a t e B a k e r i e s

C e l l u l a r P h o n e s

L e f t- b r a i n

In the beginning, all cell phones were created equal — big and clunky. It’s the ones that could put up with extreme temperatures and abuse that early adopters were looking for. Dramatize that, we were instructed, and the GE phones will sell.


One of a series of celebrity commercials that also featured Ted Turner and Leroy Neiman, this spot showed the Mayer Brothers high up in ski country. No one asked how they were able to get a signal way up there.

G e n e r a l E l e c t r i c

H e a l t h C a r e

L e f t- b r a i n

Choosing a health plan for a company is a thankless task — and a task it is. The people at Blue Cross wanted us to impress on corporate decision makers that they offered a wide range of pans and could help make the process simpler and easier.


Rather than go through a long, boring laundry list of the reasons why people should call on Blue Cross, we dramatized the alternative: an argumentative and almost combative business meeting in which the lack of progress in finding the right health care plan was being hotly debated.

B l u e C r o s s a n d B l u e S h i e l d

C h a i n S a w s

L e f t- b r a i n

When you make some of the most rugged and dependable power tools in the world, you don’t need to hide behind empty promises and platitudes. The directive was to show the chainsaw buyer how tough the Stihl 010 saw really was.


This is a product demonstration, pure and simple. Complete with dirt, mud, sand and a jeep driven by a madman. You can beat the hell out of this saw, and it will start up — every time.


B r e a d

L e f t- b r a i n

Country Kitchen was a brand without a face. For years, their products had been pitched on their individual merits, with no real brand-building happening on any level. The charge was to come up with a campaign idea that had legs — and in this case, arms and hands, too.


A six-spot campaign featuring two lovable bakers endeared Country Kitchen to its audience in an unprecedented way. The Head Baker and his Apprentice brought points about their products home through humor, and created a brand equity that endured for years.

C o u n t r y K i t c h e n

Vo t e

L e f t- b r a i n

Convincing young people anywhere to do something they don’t want to do is a daunting task. Convincing disenfranchised young voters in New York City to go to the polls and endure the long lines typically found there is an even greater challenge. The City wanted to increase voter turnout by 10%, from 36 percent to 46 percent. In the first year that these spots ran, the 18-34 turnout was over 60 percent.


We spent a week talking to New Yorkers about voting while filming them and the city. An award-winning campaign emerged which included this spot, “You Don’t Count.” In it, people stated their names and were immediately X’d out as a loud buzzing sound banished them to oblivion. Graphics edited into the spot said “You Don’t Count… Unless You Vote.”

N e w Y o r k C i t y B o a r d o f E l e c t i o n s

B u i l d i n g a B r a n d

The worldwide web is arguably the best thing to happen to advertising since the coupon. The online environment lets advertisers target their audiences with a bullet, not a shotgun blast. And no longer do B2B advertisers have to settle for trade ads and expensive direct mail drops to get

their points across; now they can run video banners that are as emotional as any 30-second spot. Best of all, the interaction that online advertising makes possible with consumers helps brands build equity and drive involvement like never before.

O n l i n e

D u P o n t A d v i o n A n i m a t e d B a n n e r A d

L e f t- b r a i n

If you’ve ever been attacked by fire ants, you know why there’s a big market for products that can eliminate fire ant colonies. DuPont’s new Advion product is a granular bait that works much faster than competitive baits and is more effective over the long term, as well.


It is fitting to equate the power of Advion to that of a storm. This animated banner ad made the point that Advion is to fire ants as tornados are to trailer parks: a fast and furious way to make things go away.

D u P o n t

I n t e r a c t i v e B a n n e r A d

L e f t- b r a i n

The job assigned to this interactive online ad was to engage hospital administrators, to force them to come to terms with the costs associated with catheter-related infections.


We chose a multiple-choice Q&A format that challenged administrators and got them involved in the advertising. A related landing page provided more information, both about the problem and about Arrow’s solutions.

A r r o w

V i d e o B a n n e r A d

L e f t- b r a i n

Analog Devices is a leader in the embedded processor market. The company’s semiconductor chips go into everything from gaming platforms and cell phones to automotive head units and pro audio systems. Their target audience is electrical engineers who design these products. To promote their Blackfin and SHARC chips, we convinced ADI to transfer its entire print budget to the online environment. These executions are three of many that appeared on websites such as eetimes.com.


The websites that serve the electrical engineering community are not known for their entertainment value. And it’s precisely for that reason that we always strived to run video banner ads that began with provocative, unusual and non-technological images that we’d then relate to the ADI product points of difference. Everyone likes pizza, right?

A n a l o g D e v i c e s

S p a r k i n g I n t e r e s t

If there’s one thing nobody needs it’s another brochure — or leaflet or pamphlet or take-one. Creativity is the price of entry in the world of collateral. These pieces also have specialized jobs to do — whether they’re catalogs or calendars.

Making sure they’re easy to read, look at and use is of paramount importance. Making sure they sell in a way that builds equity in the brand is always a top-of-mind concern.

C o l l a t e r a l

S p e c i a l P r o m o t i o n a l C a t a l o g

L e f t- b r a i n

How could Camel get away from costly retail pack promotions, lower its cost of promoted volume, strengthen the brand’s Joe Camel equity and expand the mythology of Joe’s world all in one fell swoop? With the introduction of the Camel Cash program and the catalogs that followed. Rather than getting a free equity-adorned lighter at retail for buying two packs, smokers now had to save “C-Notes” and order from catalogs like these ones. The program was and still is a huge success.


The Camel Cash catalogs — and the items in them — brought Joe’s world to life in a way that no print ad or billboard could. Having acquired C-Notes, the currency of the realm, you could bring pieces of Joe’s world home (and do your part to help Camel market the brand at the same time). Today, more than 17 years later, the program is still helping to promote brand loyalty and encourage trial.

C a m e l

F u l l L i n e C a t a l o g

L e f t- b r a i n

One of the largest boat manufacturers in the world, Wellcraft makes almost every kind of boat imaginable — from 48-foot, offshore high performance boats and lavishly appointed round-the-world cruisers to fishing boats of all shapes and sizes and runabouts for weekend family fun. The challenge here was to put them all together in one mammoth brochure in a way that shows why they belong together. The message: whatever Wellcraft makes, you can count on performance, workmanship, style and value that are simply unbelievable.


The design and production of this 48-page catalog was a monster — 36 boats, 14 locations, 50 models, and photography that called for helicopters to be in the air for 10 hours straight. This kind of catalog is all about selling the romance of being on the water — something it did very successfully.

W e l l c r a f t

N A S C A R -T h e m e d C a l e n d a r

L e f t- b r a i n

When you’re the sole sponsor of one of the most valuable sports franchises ever imagined, you make use of every opportunity to promote it. Here, R.J. Reynolds’ Winston brand leveraged its NASCAR Winston Cup sponsorship with a calendar that it gave away to smokers at NASCAR events.


It wasn’t enough just to feature the drivers — heroes though they may be. We looked for ways to tell their stories that echoed the brand’s positioning — “100% Every Time.” The look and copy were both no-nonsense. Just like the sport. And just like the brand.

W i n s t o n

D o n o r S o l i c i t a t i o n P i e c e

L e f t- b r a i n

What do you do when you’ve got a lot of priceless artwork and no place to put it? You build a bigger museum. That’s what the people at the University of Minnesota Art Museum decided to do — and then they asked for help in selling the idea to donors. This brochure introduced people to the Museum and showed why the Museum needed more space.


Showing great art isn’t as easy as it looks. You have to arrange them just so, in the way that a curator would organize a show — while at the same time making sure that the paintings and sculptures don’t overpower the request for donations message. I structured this brochure around the words of the Museum’s founder — his “dream” for its future. Today, that dream is a reality: the University’s Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum is stunning to look at and an adventure to visit.

U n i v e r s i t y o f M i n n e s o t a A r t M u s e u m

Ta r g e t i n g A c t i o n

Direct response used to mean direct mail: you knew where someone lived and you mailed him or her the most personalized sales materials you could come up with. With the internet, direct response opportunities have become more cost-effective, more prevalent, and even more

personalized. Getting someone to actually open a mailer or email is half the battle. It’s got to be really, really clear that there’s “something in it” for the consumer. Otherwise, you can bet that 99 percent of them are going to be ignored.

D i r e c t R e s p o n s e

C a m e l C a s h P r o g r a m S o l i c i t a t i o n

L e f t- b r a i n

The Camel Cash program was fueled, to a large part, by direct response. Through an extensive direct mail program, we were able to target smokers of competitive brands and send them special offers, which often included unique, one-time-only premium items designed to bring them into the Camel fold.


The Camel audience had a wide range of special interests that we could draw upon — motorcycles, nightlife, fishing, beachgoing, and especially music. This mailer featured a selection of items from the Camel Cash catalog and included a rare Camel Cash “10-Spot”.

C a m e l

S p e c i a l D i r e c t- M a i l P r o m o t i o n

L e f t- b r a i n

The 1992 Presidential election was just too good an opportunity to pass up. To commemorate it, and expand the Joe Camel mythology into a whole new realm, we created an extensive “Vote Joe” campaign. At the center of it was a direct mail program offering limited-edition items like the “I Like Joe” button. The idea was to get smokers to send in large amounts of C-Notes in return for some very unique items.


Once we decided that Joe should run for office, the rest was a cinch. “Vote Camel — the party that knows how to party” was the war cry. We created a whole series of items and offered consumers different levels of involvement. Camel Party “Bigwigs” got everything they needed to throw their own fund-raising party — ashtrays, napkins, bumper stickers, buttons, etc.

C a m e l

Aw a r d S h o w I n v i t a t i o n

L e f t- b r a i n

When I was asked to be the creative chairman of the Broderson Awards, the awards show of the Portland Advertising Club, I wanted to come up with a theme that would carry through the entire show, from the call for entries to the invitation to the set used on stage for the show itself. I seized upon the idea of judgment. It’s judgment that leads to the creation of good advertising ideas — and the elimination of bad ones. And it’s the process of judging that determines which efforts garner awards.


The invitation I created for the show is the only direct mail piece I’ve ever done that almost landed me in jail. Little did I know that imitating court documents is a felony. Nobody mentioned it when they gave me copies of these documents at the district court. People were surprised (some unpleasantly) when they received this “subpoena” in the mail. But when they attended the show, saw the stage set like a courtroom, and got to hear the show’s judges (on tape) explain why they chose certain ads as winners, all was forgiven.

P o r t l a n d A d v e r t i s i n g C l u b

I’ve always had a passion for golf. As Creative Director at Mezzina/Brown I even attempted to get Nike involved in golf back in 1993. (Today, of course, they’re a major force in the game, but back then, they weren’t ready to do it.)

When my first son was born in New York, and it seemed like I missed the first eight months of his life, my wife and I decided to make a life change and move to a small island on the coast of Maine. So in late 1995, after many years working as a copywriter and creative director, we packed up and headed north. I was ready for a change — and I wanted to spend time with my son (and later, with his brother, born in 1997).

One thing I quickly noticed was that there were no good regional golf magazines in New England. For an area with as rich a golf history as New England’s, this struck me as a tremendous opportunity. So in April of 2000, I got into the golf publishing business when I created and launched

New England Journal of Golf. The magazine covered all six New England states. It was well received, and along the way I acquired a whole new set of skills. Being an editor is not all that different from being a creative director — but taking on the role of publisher was an entirely new experience. Dealing with circulation lists, printers, mailing houses, the U.S. Postal Service — all of these required new skills that each underscored how challenging running your own business can be.

In January of 2005, I sold New England Journal of Golf to News World Inc., the Washington D.C.-based company that also owns the Washington Times. At that time, the magazine was renamed GolfStyles New England and I was asked to stay on to manage the transition to the new title. Today, it’s one of seven regional GolfStyles titles, with a total circulation of over 400,000 readers.

M a k i n g A n I m p r e s s i o n

P u b l i c a t i o n s

L e f t- b r a i n

The title I gave to the magazine was an intentional play on the well-known New England Journal of Medicine. I figured that golf was one of the few things in life as important as medical research, so it deserved a fitting title. Inside New England Journal of Golf, the magazine featured sections on each of the six New England states, along with interviews, course reviews, tournament coverage and other lifestyle-related items of interest to the New England-area golfer.


Golf can be a stuffy game if you let it. We didn’t. Creatively, we always attempted to bring energy, excitement and color to our coverage of golf in New England. Whether we were covering a local event, or profiling an international golf destination, the focus was always on doing it in a fresh way that hadn’t been seen a thousand times in national golf books.

Many of our cover stories featured people. We leveraged local celebrities like Boston Bruins hockey star Ray Bourque and PGA pros who hailed from New England like Billy Andrade and Brad Faxon. We also created more conceptual cover stories such as the instructional piece that led off the 2004 season.

N e w E n g l a n d J o u r n a l o f G o l f

L e f t- b r a i n

With GolfStyles, things changed. As part of a national network of regional golf magazines, we had to adopt a new look and a different sensibility. We still had a mandate to cover all six New England states, but it was dictated that the style of the magazine be more traditional and more transparently upscale.


Many people might think that if you’ve seen one golf course, you’ve seen them all. This is not true to a golf enthusiast. We placed a huge emphasis on sourcing the most artistic photos of New England area golf courses possible — photos that not only captured the essence of the courses but also conveyed the emotional pull that the courses exhibit on golfers. Not all of the cover stories and other editorial features were about golf courses, though. We endeavored to strike a balance between course-related stories and interviews, stories about people involved in the New England golf world, tournament coverage, golf travel features, and other topics.

G o l f S t y l e s

S p r e a d i n g t h e Wo r d

An island on the coast of Maine is the perfect place to write a book — especially in winter when the temperatures are hovering around freezing (if you’re lucky) and the nor’easters are dumping their snowy loads on you one after another. So when I was contacted about writing a book on the Joe Camel campaign, and later another one on the Café de Colombia campaign, I enthusiastically agreed.

Writing a book is nothing like writing an ad or magazine article. The length is the most obvious difference; when you’ve got 200 pages to get your message across, you can afford to take interesting detours that commercial messages just don’t have the time or room for. Still, it’s

all about making judgments, just like the ones required of creative directors and editors. Even with 200 pages at your disposal, a work has to flow logically (and hopefully gracefully) from one topic into another. And like an ad or feature article, there’s an argument being advanced that the writer is asking the reader to follow.

My background as a creative director and marketing consultant gave me a unique perspective for the writing of these two books. And in return, taking the many months required to fully research and study great campaigns like these has undoubtedly made me a stronger marketing and creative person.

B o o k s

L e f t- b r a i n

A lot has been said and written over the years about the Joe Camel campaign. From the pages of Adweek to the floor of the U.S. Senate, this campaign received more attention (positive and negative) than perhaps any in history. As someone who was intimately involved in its creation and evolution, I was natural choice to write the definitive book on the campaign. And I welcomed the opportunity — if only to right some of the wrongs that had been attributed to the Joe Camel campaign in the years that it ran. In all my days of working with R.J. Reynolds, I found the people there to be some of the most honorable I’d ever met. The bad press that Joe got was unfair, and in most cases entirely beside the point. Writing this book not only gave me the chance to tell the inside story about Joe and the Camel brand, it allowed me to stand on my soapbox a bit and tell the truth about a campaign that had been buried in so many mistruths over the years.


Joe may have been a cartoon camel, but there were never any words attributed to Mr. Smooth Character. In writing this book, the first task was to create and perfect the right voice for the narrative. The book was part chronicle, part analysis, but I didn’t want it to sound academic. In the end, I think the narrative strikes a nice balance between professionalism and fun. Organizing the book proved to be a different kind of challenge. We didn’t want it to be a straight, chronological look at things. But at the same time, the campaign had evolved in a somewhat organic way, and there was so much material to cover, from billboards to print ads to retail promotions to skywriting. By the time I was done with this book, I think I admired even more than I had the incredible creativity that went into the creation of Joe and his mythological world. There was a reason why so many smokers loved the campaign and the book touched on all of them.

A C a m e l N a m e d J o e

T h e 1 0 0 % C o l u m b i a n C o f f e e B o o k

L e f t- b r a i n

When the Camel book was published, it was well received — well enough that I was subsequently asked by a publisher to write another book concerning another famous ad campaign — the Colombian Coffee campaign. I’d never worked on this campaign or for its agency, but I’d always admired both. Talk about creating an equity character — is there anyone in America who didn’t know Juan Valdez and his story about picking 100 percent Colombian Coffee? This book had a particular audience in addition to everyone who loved the campaign (or loved the coffee): the people at the Colombian Coffee Federation who had been funding the ad campaign since its inception in the late 1950s.


The Colombian Coffee campaign was so strong graphically and conceptually that this book could almost have been published without any narrative elements at all. But the behind the scenes stories about the Colombian Coffee Federation, the genesis of the campaign, the three men who played Juan Valdez, and the evolution of the ads themselves all begged to be told. Great campaigns like this one don’t happen by accident, and it was a challenge to take in all the information about the campaign and present it with the respect and reverence it deserved. I promise you, many cups of 100 percent Colombian Coffee were consumed during the writing of this book.

David W. De Smith

Business

womens art

betty crocker

camel cash

camel cash

camel magazine

colombian

regional golf

joe camel