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Interview: David Baldwin

by Hank Stewart on September 18th, 2006   Comments [2]

David Baldwin is Partner and Executive Creative Director of McKinney in Durham, NC. In his 20 plus years in advertising, he has worked for some of the industry’s marquee creative shops, including Della Femina, Travisano & Partners New York, Hal Riney & Partners in San Francisco, Cole & Weber in Portland, Deutsch New York, and Leonard/Monahan in Providence, Rhode Island. Along the way, he’s garnered hundreds of creative accolades, including a Kelly Award and 18 One Show pencils. He agreed to share his thoughts on advertising and its responsibilities with After These Messages in an interview held August 2006.

Does advertising have a responsibility to society?
Absolutely. We have a responsibility to make sure we’re not lying. And I think 90% of it doesn’t. I think a lot of infomercials don’t tell the truth. More seductive than lying is spin, and spin is a form of lying.

The effects of it are that our culture believes a pill will solve your problems. If you are an over-eater, you don’t have to not eat. If you’re stressed out, you don’t have to try to reduce your stress. I think that’s a dangerous form of spin. It allows people to think that you don’t have to take personal responsibility. It’s absolutely ludicrous.

What about deceptive communication from a mass brand?
Here’s an example of a mass brand that I found to be absolutely inappropriate, and jaw-droppingly amazing it went throught all these people. It was Kentucky Fried Chicken claiming it was a low-fat food. They had to pull the campaign after two weeks, because of public outcry. Everyone was like, “Are you kidding me? Are you crazy?”

The other questionable marketing campaign is the Army, because I don’t think they market it truthfully. I think they market it as this adventure…and cool things you’ll get to do, when really what that is is a way out for people who don’t have any other options. I think that’s unethical marketing, personally.

On not allowing his kids to watch TV commercials:
My wife and I really didn’t let our kids watch TV when they were really little. They would watch Sesame Street, or a Disney video, but never a heavy dose of TV. We sat down one time to watch TV, and we had this sort of nostalgic moment, and we said, “Hey, let’s watch Bugs Bunny,” and literally that morning, they started asking for stuff that was on the tube. It was amazing to watch how fast it happened.

We want our kids to stay kids for as long as possible before they become consumers. I do believe in personal responsibility, and this is a personal thing I’m doing. And I very much am coming from a low horse, and not a high horse when I say all of what I’m saying. I have no idea if I’m right, it’s just what we decided to do.

On applying the concept of personal responsibility to his work:
I have made some horrible mistakes. And once you have kids, you realize that some of the decisions you’ve made in the past may not be the best. Now when we [McKinney] do something that’s talking to 18 year-olds, where we might do something edgy, it’s something that’s on my mind. I don’t think it’s black and white, I think it’s about people using common sense.

What we try to do in our agency is make sure that what we’re saying is true, and we’re not doing that fake spin thing. I can’t say I’ve ever really been in a hard decision where someone was trying to lie. I’ve dealt with unscrupulous clients before, but that’s different.

About those “horrible mistakes:”
As a Creative Director, you have 100 things coming at you a day, and sometimes you make a misstep.

On humor:
I’ve learned if you’re going to have the butt of a joke in your commercial, it probably shouldn’t be a homosexual or a woman.

Why not?
It’s not healthy. It’s not right. It sends a bad message.

On working on alcohol accounts:
We do the work for Southern Comfort online. I’ve had people come and tell me they don’t want to work on it, and I’ll say, “Okay, fine, you don’t have to.” I refused to work on alcohol the first ten years of my career. But I’ve come to change my view of what alcoholism is, and that’s why I’m okay with it. I believe it isn’t marketing that makes alcoholics.

On ethical sensitivity gotten out of hand:
Remember the Nike spot with the serial killer? I thought that [the pulling of the spot] was ludicrous. It’s as Luke Sullivan says, “the letter comes pouring in.” You get one group protesting, and it catches like wildfire–without the facts. If you actually watch that commercial, the woman triumphs. And yet it was portrayed as being misogynistic. I actually remember seeing that spot, and thinking, “that’s so cool, that they did that.” And then this hysteria rose, and they had to pull the spot. I was flabbergasted by that.

On the television networks’ standards and practices departments:
It’s a severe form of contradiction–and I’m being kind by saying “contradiction”–but the networks have these people who determine what advertising is appropriate or not. And what they do is they will keep something off the air, but they’re keeping it off NYPD Blue, where I have to see Sipowicz’ ass.

It’s absolutely ludicrous. It just shows you the sort of double standard that’s going on. I think those people are despicable, personally. If they are really trying to have standards and practices, they’re not looking at themselves, they’re only looking at advertising, and it’s a false wall. I’ve had commercials with nothing wrong with them, and they get bounced back. And I go, “Wait a minute, you just showed my son a CSI promo, at 2:00 p.m.–of a dead child! Are you kidding me?” It’s really maddening.

Any final thoughts?
There was an article in Fortune about 10 or 15 years ago, and it was about how advertising was becoming kinda blue. It was about “pottymouth,” and they showed like two or three of my ads. I was like, “Oh, my God!” I never really realized it, but I had an ad out there for Doc Martens that had the word “bastard” in it, and another with the word “ass” in it. I was young. I’ve learned a lot. Like I said, I want to come at this from a low horse, not a high horse. I certainly do not have a spotless record. And I think it’s important not to kill ourselves as an industry, as much as just to have the conversation.

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