When Rick Davis joined MacLaren McCann as creative director three years ago, one of the first things he did was rearrange the desks in the creative department.

The new floor plan didn’t arise out of some unresolved longing to practise interior design. Rather, Davis saw a typical classroom setup which, in his opinion, was hurting the agency’s work – and ultimately one of its most important clients.

‘To be honest, I didn’t think our (General Motors Dealers Association) work was good enough,’ says Davis. ‘It was looking like everyone else’s.’

And that’s exactly what the agency and client wanted to avoid. Because its primary medium was newspaper, looking like everyone else meant fading into the background.

Davis points to a typical Toronto daily’s Saturday automotive section.

‘After three or four pages, you’re pretty well blinded by the seemingly endless array of look-alike ads,’ he says.

Davis blames the propensity to produce unremarkable car-dealer advertising on the creative community’s tendency to treat retail – particularly in the automotive sector – as second-class creative. That that doesn’t have to be the case, he says, one need look no further than the work done by Roche Macaulay & Partners for ikea or by Palmer Jarvis (now Palmer Jarvis DDB) for Save-on-Foods.

The ‘second-class’ stigma extends, says Davis, to the way the people who work on retail accounts are treated. This was true at MacLaren where, according to Davis, the creatives on the gm dealers account worked in a small corner of the creative department.

‘They were made to feel that their creative contributions were not as valued as those doing the nifty beer ads,’ he says. ‘I wanted to change that and I integrated those people into the middle of the creative department.’

Of course, an altered seating plan alone won’t generate breakthrough work. Davis also put some of the agency’s brightest – and youngest – employees on the case.

‘We owed the dealers the opportunity to have some of our better people working on their business.’

The result? Stand-out professional-looking ads that create excitement about the brand and carry it down to the offer, rather than busily shouting out the great deals to be had.

‘What we’ve tried to do is to create some stopping power,’ says Davis.

To that end, the agency avoided the Ed’s Warehouse school of advertising, where there’s lots of copy in different fonts – all screaming for attention – and focused instead on a cleaner look with a distinct personality for each brand.

‘You see a lot of typical automotive retail and your eyes don’t know where to go,’ says Davis. He says a more professionally art-directed approach shows respect for the brands – and the buyers.

To further reinforce brand character, says Davis, the agency strives for consistency in its newspaper ads.

‘It used to be that every time you put pen to paper you had to create an ad that had a different look and tone and feel to it,’ he says. ‘I want people to turn the page and say `There’s a Pontiac ad’ because of the way it looks, feels and sounds.’

Pontiac advertising relies on lots of color to emphasize the dynamism of the brand: reds, yellows and even purples are used to convey the ‘driving excitement’ that is Pontiac.

One execution, ‘The fastest way to introduce dust into somebody’s diet,’ features a bright red car against a solid blue background, upon which a few details are written in white and yellow. There’s a lot of clean space in the ad.

In keeping with the philosophy that retail doesn’t have to be dull, many of the gm dealer ads use humor. An ad for the Sunfire Sedan features the line, ‘You won’t have to drop off your kids a block from the party.’

Chevrolet, on the other hand, enjoys a more refined brand character. Chevy buyers are proud of the fact that they didn’t pay an arm and a leg for a well-built car, and Davis says they don’t buy a car to pose.

One ad for the Trail Blazer, for example, states simply ‘Blaze your own trails’ while another for the Cavalier brand says ‘Act now, or forever hold your envy.’ The backgrounds aren’t as bright as for Pontiac. But again, there is plenty of clean space.

Davis says the agency plans on continuing the effort for as long as it can because both the client and the creative people working on it are happy with the work. The ads appear in most daily newspapers across Canada, mainly in the front or weekend automotive sections.

‘We don’t want schlocky art direction and a schlocky ad to talk about the character of the vehicle,’ says Davis.

‘If it’s bad and ugly and it looks trite and silly and stupid and all of those things, how does that reflect on the professionalism of the corporation and the dealer?’

Also in this report:

– Andres on to a good thing: Uses newspaper to build image and convey news about its two wineries, Hillebrand and Peller Estates p.26

– Tourism Vancouver targets with timely message p.29

– Metro Works delivers the news: Campaign promoting composting and water conservation takes advantage of newspapers’ ability to tell a story p.30