Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Happy Hour Video: “Drive it like you hate it”

03.02.2012 by David Murray // 6 Comments

My dad's best friend was Carl Ally, a 1960s adman who made the madmen look like mice. Carl was the guy a client brought in when the client was in deep shit. (And once, when a client didn't accept his campaign idea, he told the client, "I ought to go to your office and shit in your drawer.") Carl and my dad both knew that the best client was a client in trouble, because that was the client that had to take your advice.

As Volvo did, when it was close to being driven off U.S. shores. Carl Ally came up with an ad campaign titled, "Drive it like you hate it." Straight from Ally's own raging gut and utterly against the grain of the auto-glorifying style of the moment, these ads saved Volvo. Because they were real, emotionally honest and slightly insane. (Wait for the last line.)

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // Campbell-Ewald, Carl Ally, Drive It Like You Hate It, Thomas Murray, Volvo

Comments

  1. Susan says

    March 2, 2012 at 4:05 pm

    Love, love, love it! Made my day.

    Reply
  2. Jeff says

    March 8, 2012 at 11:20 pm

    Great Ad from a great agency. But I’d suspect Jim Durfee probably had as much a hand in the creation of that as Carl Ally, right? Wasn’t Jim the head copywriter for those guys?

    Reply
  3. David Murray says

    March 8, 2012 at 11:48 pm

    Might have been, Jeff, I’m not sure. Did Durfee go back to ’63? Durfee v. Ally: One conversation I didn’t expect to have.

    Reply
  4. Jeff says

    March 9, 2012 at 8:29 am

    The One Club seems to think so:
    http://www.oneclub.org/oc/hall-of-fame/-jim-durfee
    Not sure if he’s being given credit because he was the head of copy, or because he actually came up with the campaign. Of course, it could be argued that in a creative team like that, the lines of who came up with what tend to blur past the point of attribution. Just wondering…

    Reply
  5. David Murray says

    March 9, 2012 at 9:11 am

    Well, all this was before I was born, so I won’t quibble. It’s just that last line about driving a car violently being cheaper than psychiatry that sounds all Ally–in whose car I did once ride.

    Reply
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