‘Luke’ who’s talking: Sullivan on advertising and advertising

They laughed at him when he was up on stage as a stand-up comedian. However, after spending 30 years in the advertising business, having worked with some of the top brains, and loads of success stories and awards to boot, no one’s laughing now. Luke Sullivan, creative group head, GSD&M Idea City, the Austin (Texas) based agency, is revered in advertising hallways as the man behind famous works on BMW, Miller Lite and United Airlines, among others.

In an email interview with afaqs!, made possible with help from industry peers, Sullivan answers questions on the world of advertising, award shows, the glitz and the underbelly. Read on:

afaqs!: From a stand up comedian to this…what brought you to advertising?

Sullivan: I did stand-up for about a year and a half in the early ‘80s. Whether I was good or not isn’t my point here, but it was some of the best training I ever had on how to present. To stand up in a room and command attention and reward an audience for giving you that attention is tough. I mean - tough.

afaqs!: Do you think New York continues to dominate the US ad circuit as the ‘Mecca’ of advertising?

Sullivan: No. It did when I started in the business in 1979, but not anymore. In fact, I would argue that no one agency dominates the shows any longer, not like they did in the old days anyway. A quick peek at the index of the One Show or CA (Communication Arts) should bear this out. There is no one agency in the indices in the back of the books with more than a few lines of page-number credits. The world is flat.

afaqs!: Tom McElligott, Mike Hughes, Pat Fallon, Jerry Della Femina. What are the things about life and advertising that you have learnt from some of your bosses?

Sullivan: Mike Hughes taught me how important it is to be a nice person in this business. He is a kind hearted soul and you work your tail off for him because you love him so much. Tom McElligott helped teach me to write, to build friction into your work so that your message doesn’t just lie there, but requires something of you.

afaqs!: Which global advertising awards show, in your eyes, is the most credible?

Sullivan: I happen to love the One Show and the Communication Arts December issue on the year’s best advertising. Both pick similar things and yes, there’s a lot of overlap, but for one reason or another they’re the only two I’ve ever really cared about.

As for credible – I don’t think any award is ‘credible’ in the strictest sense of the word, including the Oscars. Award shows are subjective. I’ve even seen good work die because of the way it was placed on a judging table – off to the side where judges had to crane their necks to look at it, and in so doing, did not give the work more than a second.

This is not to say that shows are total crap shoots either. No matter what the show, the best work usually rises to the top. But it took me years to learn that I cannot judge my talent or my commitment by counting my awards.

afaqs!: The way it is in award shows across industries, one finds admen, too, complaining about lobbying, scams or non-transparent judging procedures. Do they really have a point?

Sullivan: I’ve heard that with some shows – about all the politics. However, the only shows I can speak about with authority are the One Show (judged it four times) and CA (just once) and they were remarkably well-run shows with little or no behind-the-scenes nonsense.

afaqs!: Mother, BBH, W+K, Strawberry Frog, Crispin Porter – what do you make of these ‘hotshops’ started by ad folks? What do you think has led to their success?

Sullivan: I enjoy watching the success of these agencies. Having been around for a long time, I’ve seen everyone get their time in the spotlight, almost all of them deservedly so. I remember working at Fallon in the ‘90s and it seemed everything we did was pretty cool and made all the shows and the ad rags. Then it was Wieden, then Goodby. Today it’s Crispin. They are all great agencies. In the future, it’s going to be somebody else.

afaqs!: Have you ever been exposed to Indian advertising? (We add that contrary to some warped global perspectives, India is not limited to the Taj Mahal, elephants and poverty).

Sullivan: Oh, of course I don’t think that’s what India is about, and neither does anyone I know here (maybe George Bush did).

Yes, we see lots of your cool stuff in the ad publications and shows. Having judged a few international shows, I would give this warning: judges do not really believe that products like pencil erasers or nose drops really invest media dollars in, say, a 4-color double-truck newspaper ad. When savvy judges see this stuff on the table (and I’ve seen plenty of it), even if it is really a great idea, our eyebrows rise and often, we’ll keep these ‘fake media buys’ in the show, but will reserve the medals for smaller ads that look like they really ran as is.

afaqs!: Do copy guys in the US ever fight over doing TV scripts the way it was some years ago? One would think other media are more appealing/powerful to them now!

Sullivan: Sure. TV is fun. You get to go to L.A., eat Sushi and take phone calls by the pool on down-days. But I think what creative folk want most, however, isn’t driven by any particular medium but by the size and scope of a project.

afaqs!: Which is the one advertising idea that you saw recently which zapped you with its creativity?

Sullivan: My favourite of late was Crispin’s 'Whopper Freakout' for Burger King. What a great idea! I understand it also resulted in a huge increase in sales.

afaqs!: Which agency/network do you admire the most?

Sullivan: Like many people, I enjoy watching the work coming out of Crispin. They continue to surprise me with combinations of smart strategy and explosive creative.

afaqs!: What makes GSD&M Idea City tick? Any plans of expansion to other nations?

Sullivan: GSD&M was formed by some graduates of the University of Texas back in 1971. Four of the original five founders still report for work every day. I’ve been in the business for 30 years and have not worked in a warmer place than this one. The culture is very strong and democratic and that is a direct result of the top people.

We have an incredible roster of clients: Southwest Airlines, BMW, Norwegian Cruise Lines, L.L.Bean, United States Air Force, American Legacy and Kohler, among others. There are very few prima donnas here.

It’s a good place to show up on Monday mornings.

As for expansion – no – we tried that once. We’re sticking to our main HQ here in Austin, as well as a large office in Chicago where we buy lots of media for our clients.

afaqs!: Do you think the art of crafting fine lines for print is fast vanishing, if it isn’t extinct already? Is print advertising taken seriously at all, or is it ‘just another fuzzy old medium’ that clients use as a prop to aid recall?

Sullivan: As a writer, yes, I wish this industry as well as every other industry insisted on better, clearer, more compelling writing. But the ability to put a sentence on paper that says exactly what you mean to say, and conveys it in a surprising and compelling way – it is simply not as cool as it once was.

I sometimes wish our high schools and colleges would scrub down their course offerings, toss out all the ‘bullshit’ classes and force students to take a full year of reading and writing classes. We might see an upsurge in the ability of people to use a Parker pen, persuasively and elegantly.

afaqs!: How did the idea for ‘Hey Whipple…’ come about?

Sullivan: I thought of this when I gave a speech to two ad schools in Atlanta, Georgia. I had prepared a speech on simple things students could do to improve their work, after which I provided the speech as a hand-out. The hand-outs disappeared pretty quickly and for awhile thereafter, I continued to be asked to send it out. That led me to do it.

There are some good books out there which every student should read and I put all the ones that I really like in a ‘required reading’ list at the back of my book.

afaqs!: Is it more satisfying/easier to craft copy for ads, or to write a book?

Sullivan: Writing anything that turns out just the way I wanted it to is satisfying, whether it’s an ad, a book, a radio spot, or an internal e-mail to my team members here at GSD&M.

afaqs!: What is your advice to youngsters entering the ad business? Do you think they lose their way quickly or get disillusioned with the business early on?

Sullivan: The main thing I worry about in kids today is a hunger for fame: to get ‘into the books’. That’s a bad reason to enter any field. I do not want a dentist who is trying to get into the ‘dentist award books’. I want a really good dentist who does his/her research, knows all the techniques available to help me, cares about me as a client, and works hard to solve my problem.