Great commercials, like pop songs, enter our collective consciousness (and sometimes our collective unconcious) and become cultural currency. Sometimes, and often, they are as annoying as a silly pop song with a catchy beat: think Mr. Whipple’s “Please Don’t Squeeze The Charmin.” Other times they cleverly catch on to a phrase that’s in common currency, an aphorism, and attach their name to it. I’m not sure how effective the latter is in driving sales, but I do believe this approach creates a deeper connection. And I think provides the work itself, when cleverly written and expertly crafted, with the power of any lasting work.
So my very first “Poet of Commerce” award goes to a Super Bowl commercial that first aired over a decade ago for EDS, by Fallon, Minneapolis, credited to Creative Director, David Lubars and Art Director, Dean Hanson. Cowboys Herding Cats.
This commercial is dear to my heart, and probably many others if over 20,000 hits on Google search is any indication, not just because it has cats. But because it celebrates the idea that small is indeed better, albeit as a parody of the cowboy ethos. Humans, like cats, have a tendency to want to go their own way.
Ironically, one of the greatest commercials of all time has outlasted its client. EDS. The electronic payroll processing company founded by Ross Perot was bought by Hewlett Packard in 2008 for $13 billion. And now it’s perhaps the biggest business story of the year that Hewlett Packard is breaking into two different companies, to become HP and Hewlett Packard Enterprises, according to a recent San Jose Mercury news story. I wonder if it was because running such a huge company was exponentially more difficult than herding cats.