Incredibubble....

Marketing Age's piece on Salman Rushdie's recent speech at the IAPI's Advertising Effectiveness Awards is a great read. Here are some highlights. Of course we all know Sir Salman as an author and unwitting recipient of a fatwa from Ayatollah Khomeini but before that he was a copywriter - memorable campaigns like 'Naughty. But nice.' for fresh cream cakes and 'Irresistibubble' for Aero chocolate.

He talks about failing a copy test at JWT - including 100 words explaining how to make toast to a Martian who mysteriously spoke English (Charlotte one for the Monday workouts perhaps?)

He recounts working at Ogilvy's where you saw large numbers of people wearing red braces, because that's what David Ogilvy liked to wear - such sycophancy. “The other thing that we all knew about David Ogilvy was that when he was in the building you had to lock your desk before you left work because he would prowl around the agency and open people's drawers to see what was in there. Of course everybody there had sitcoms and novels and first drafts of plays, all kinds of unsuitable things, so you had to keep your drawer locked." So Dave, is that a film score on your Mac book?

But the story I really love is about Aero 'Irresistibubble' and how the campaign was born out of panic. He believes panic to be very helpful in the creative process. "The writer whose job it was to do this had frozen and was panicking and when he was panicking he'd begin to stammer". Rushdie was asked into his office to help as the client was due in that day. He describes the phone ringing and this poor chap panicking so much that his stutter became very pronounced and whatever he was asked he said he couldn't do - "It's impossib-ib-ib-ible". That was enough for Rushdie who thought ... ping! While the guy was still on the phone sweating and stammering he wrote down every word he could think of that ended with 'able' or 'ible' and turned it into 'bubble'. Hence, 'Adorabubble', 'Delectabubble', 'Irresistibubble' and 'Incredibubble'.

Rushdie says one of the most important things he learnt from his time in our industry was personal discipline. "One of the great things about advertising is you have to say a lot in very little. You have to try to make a very big statement in very few words or very few images and you haven't much time.

"Beyond that, it taught me to write like a job. If you have, as my sweating friend did, the client coming in that afternoon for his new campaign, you can't not have it. You have to have it. What's more, it has to be good. You can't afford temperament, you can't afford days of creative anguish; you have to sit there and do your job and you have to do it like a job, get it done on time and well."

Pretty inspiring stuff wouldn't you say?

If you want to know the story about 'Naughty. But nice' the read the article in full at http://www.businessandleadership.com/marketing/item/11676-a-writers-tale