When Mohammed Ali was young he was known as Cassius Clay.
He was also known as “The Louisville Lip” because of his arrogance.
He would predict, in rhyme, the round he’d knock his opponents out.
“I’m wise to his tricks,
so he must fall in round six.
But if he talks in jive,
I’ll put him down in five.”
At first everyone laughed at the arrogance of such a loud mouth.
But boxers started to fall in the rounds he predicted.
And pretty soon everyone stopped laughing.
This was something no one had seen before.
A man who was so supremely self-confident it wasn’t even a question of whether he’d win, just what round.
Other boxers were terrified.
The question came to be not, would they lose, but could they survive the round Clay had predicted.
They became so terrified of the accuracy of his predictions, defeat seemed almost inevitable.
His opponents’ confidence evaporated.
They were beaten and demoralised before they started.
Years later he admitted that his early opponents weren’t that impressive.
So, to make himself stand out, he would predict a round to win.
Often he could have knocked them out in the first round.
But he waited, and kept the fight going, until the round he predicted.
Because he knew it would have a greater effect on the better fighters who were watching.
The ones he’d have to fight next.
So he changed the rules of the game.
Frank Lowe did something similar.
As CEO of Collett Dickenson Pearce, he asked Mike Yershon, the head of media, to buy every 48 sheet poster within a mile radius of the agency.
Then he made sure that all CDP’s client’s posters ran on them.
So that any new business client coming in to see CDP would have seen all their advertising before they even got to the agency.
And when Frank Lowe showed them the agency’s work, they were impressed that everything seemed like famous campaigns.
Because, without realising it, they’d just seen everything on posters, on the way there.
Like Cassius Clay, Frank had won the game before it even started.
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Mohammad Ali used a lot of psychology, he was a smart man.
I guess its also like a pitch presentation, if you choose a unique venue that is relevant to the potential client and decorate the space to impress based on your big idea then you’ve got the account in the bag before they even sat down.
great story. that was the golden age of UK advertising wasn’t it.
has UK advertising lost it’s PT Barnum touch? or has holding company control stifled personalities?
who paid for the media, CDP or the clients? Quite an important distinction…
Vinny.
That’s a great question.
I think it will make another post. Thanks for that.
Scott.
The sites were part of the overall media spend.
The targetting was exactly the same as it would have been anyway, they just picked sites closer to the agency.
The agency benefitted, and it didn’t cost the client a penny, that’s what was really clever.
it’s well-known anecdote of a client who wanted huge poster campaign for unbelievably small budget. and threatened agency to lose the account if they don’t do it.
so the agency found out where client lived and put the majority of posters along the client’s daily route from home to office. so every morning and every evening client got the impression that his posters was all over the place.
and agency saved the account.
Riki.
That reminds me, when you travel from Heathrow to central London you see all the billboards along Cromwell Road are for Japanese electronics companies.
This is so that all the Japanese CEOs flying in for meetings will see their ads in and think the company’s doing well.
>>>has UK advertising lost it’s PT Barnum touch?
has Vinny lost it’s ability to make stupid and embarrassing mistakes? Clearly not.
Speaking of mistakes, hate to be a pedant but it’s Muhammad Ali. not Mohammad or Mohammed.
Clever stuff though. Ever seen this thing where Derren Brown tricks a creative team into writing a specific route to his creative brief by exposing them to subliminal stimulus on the cab ride over to see him. It’s like a planning masterclass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg