Would You Like Your Advertising Agency And TV Commercial On The Front Page Of The New York Times Because You Lost an $80 Million Advertising Agency Account? Not This Executive Creative Director. Not This Time.
Let’s just start with 1988’s The New York Times headline
Cigarette Maker Cuts Off Agency That Made Smoking-Ban TV Ads
Patrick Peduto was the ECD and I was the Management Supervisor on Saatchi’s Northwest Airlines account. We were just doing our jobs, even super well, when unbeknownst to us, RJR Nabisco simply got pissed off at one of our Northwest Airlines commercials.
SHOW LINKS
New York Times RJR Nabisco Article
Northwest Airlines No Smoking TV Commercial
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Earl Gandel says
Great story, details of which were new to me. DFS/Saatchi was full of good, principled people that created great work, not always recognized with awards but always recognized by clients for its effectiveness. I heard that sometime later, someone from RJR, (maybe Ross Johnson?) came to Stu to “explain” what happened, and Stu said, “Get the fuck out of my office!” True or not, I always admired Stu for that.
Peter: I was in Minneapolis once (my home town) and we had lunch. Were you there for Northwest? I always thought it was for General Mills.
Earl
Patrick Peduto says
According to a very “inside baseball” source, and my recollection, Stu never used language like that. And that was a different RJR story — NOT the Nabisco loss.
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