In a battered old book called The 100 Greatest Advertisements, the very first one (they’re listed chronologically) is this 29-word classic from the London newspapers of 1900. It reads:
Men wanted for Hazardous Journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.
– Sir Ernest Shackleton
Shackleton was not only a pretty good Antarctic explorer, he was a hell of a copywriter. Apparently he was deluged with applicants, a lot of them sane and hearty, and he didn’t even have the benefits of e-mail.
Since it worked for Shack, I’m going to try the same terse and straightforward approach here. (This is not plagiarism; this is inspiration.)
People wanted for (oh god) Committee Work. No wages, no beer served, meticulously detailed agendas often interrupted by committee members telling old war stories and trying to one-up each other. Nevertheless, hugely important to the future of our business.
– John Burghardt
To flesh out a few more details, the above recruitment ad is for the Advisory Board of the Humber College Copywriting Curriculum. This rapidly expanding educational opportunity, under the direction of Joanne Lehman and recently relocated to the superb new Humber Lakeshore campus in Toronto, has significantly helped to save Canadian advertising.
A lot of years ago, I was lucky enough to learn my craft on the job, as part of a Young & Rubicam NY summer program, followed by a paid internship with great mentors who literally had to tell me what a logo was. That kind of thing simply doesn’t exist any longer. For a whole bunch of reasons that are beyond my understanding, we are all today running so fast and chasing the dollar so hard that we don’t have the time or money to invest in our own future.
Humber has filled that gap. Their courses teach copywriting in all our modern disciplines, from direct response to Web sites, and they teach it well. The Bessies TV awards give a prize each year to the best student-written commercial, and the quick learners at Humber have walked off with the award in eight of the last nine years. Even the Yankees can’t buy themselves a win-loss record like that.
To produce the best students and the best work, Humber has to be in constant contact with what’s going on in our business. That’s where the Advisory Board comes in. We offer suggestions, troubleshoot problems, and generally try to make the academic world match the real one. And all this drains our precious time by maybe four or five hours a year.
We need some new blood. That’s partly because we skew a little grey-bearded, and partly because we’re under-represented among the large multinationals. (They have a bit of impact on the business nowadays, I’m told.)
I’m hereby soliciting some brave volunteers – not, perhaps, as brave as Shackleton’s, but pretty close. The existing board members are people who love this crazy business, who look back fondly at their early, struggling days, and who want to help others have half as much fun as we’ve had. If that job description fits you, let’s hear from you.
My contact numbers are in the italics below, which you’ll find in every issue. (I’m going to update that damn blurb one of these days, but somehow I can never seem to find the time.)
John Burghardt’s checkered resume includes the presidency of a national agency, several films for the Shah’s government in Iran, collaboration with Jim Henson to create the Cookie Monster, and a Cannes Gold Lion. The letterhead of his thriving business now reads ‘STRATEGIC PLANNING * CREATIVE THINKING.’ He can be reached by phone at (416) 693-5072 or by e-mail at burgwarp@aol.com.
