1916 was the year Einstein birthed his theory of relativity. And inside that, the concept of the ripple effect. The idea was simple. Drop a pebble anywhere in a pond, and the resulting ripples will affect a larger and larger part of that pond.
1916 happens to also be the year that the first ripples created by Harrison McCann would be felt by the world and those ripples would one day topple a government.
1916 happens to also be the year that the first ripples created by Harrison McCann would be felt by the world and those ripples would one day topple a government.
Before we actually dropped the pebble of this story into the pond, we must go back to smack dab in the middle of the Civil War in 1862. Thomas Nast was a political cartoonist for the nation’s leading magazine, Harper’s Weekly. His job was to travel to the battlefields of the Civil War and draw scenes for the magazine.
He’d also submit political cartoons.
The magazine was pro-union, thus many illustrations were pro-Lincoln. Nast is largely credited for popularizing the images of Uncle Sam, the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey, and Santa Claus. Some even say his cartoons shaped the face of elections.
His caricatures of the left-wing New York City Tammany Hall official, William Magear Tweed, as the sleazy boss tweed, are credited as to why he lost the election. In 1873, Ulysses S. Grant is quoted as having said it was Thomas Nast’s illustrations that helped him win the election.
While Nast focused on politics, many of his contemporaries focused on businesses, especially Andrew Carnegie’s steel empire and John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. Standard Oil was also birthed during the Civil War, but grew to serve over 80% of the nation’s fuel.
Cartoonists took aim at Standard oil because of its size and its method of growth. Rockefeller tried to acquire every competitor and any company that would benefit him, shuttering the unprofitable and using the rest. His shrewd deals helped lower the cost of his gas heating oil and kerosene products by almost half.
He even found a way to make money in China.
By manufacturing and giving Chinese farmers free lamps, he could then sell them kerosene. He sold it under the name “Mei Foo”, which means mobile, a precursor to the future. Domestically, the product mix of Standard Oil grew to include a synthetic form of beeswax, Vaseline, boat fuel, bug spray, gasoline, heating oil, and kerosene.
Plenty of work for their marketing team.
That brings us to the pebble of our story.
Harrison McCann was born in 1880. He started his career at a very young age at Poland’s Springwater in Maine. Harry started as a bellboy at the Properties Hotel. At the time, the Poland Springs Company was a hundred years old. Back in 1797, Hiram Ricker had discovered a mineral spring on his land, and after consuming it for a while, he noticed his dyspepsia had been cured.
And from that point on, people wanted the curative properties of Poland Spring Water. Harry was able to move up to salesmen quickly and was actually relocated to their New York City office where he was lured over to join New York Telephone.
New York Telephone offered Harrison McCann a challenge. Could he develop an advertising campaign that prevented customers from leaving and going to smaller companies? He did and he did it so well, he grew the campaign to a staff of a hundred, which is where he came into contact with John Crawford of Standard Oil.
Crawford needed someone aggressive to market Standard Oil’s products. Harry was intrigued and took the job. But it was very short-lived. Standard Oil had actually gotten too big and the government knew it.
Unfortunately, in 1910, the government wielded the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and broke Standard Oil into 37 different companies, all mandated to have different boards of directors. Unsure how everything would play out, John Crawford convinced Harry McCann to start his own advertising firm, and he’d have the separate oil spinoffs hire him.
He himself pledged a $5,000 loan to help him get it started and actually became his first investor.
Harry had become personal friends with John Crawford and his wife Mabel. Mabel was the daughter of Thomas Nast, the Civil War cartoonist. With Mabel on board, her brother Thomas Nast Jr. also became an investor. And their sister Edith Nast and her husband Ralph St. Hill became investors.
And finally, Harrison’s friend Herbert Newton-Cassen joined the team. He was an efficiency expert and a writer for both a New York Evening Journal and New York World.
And on that day, in 1911, the H.K. McAnn Company was born. The pebble was dropped into the pond.
He’d also submit political cartoons.
The magazine was pro-union, thus many illustrations were pro-Lincoln. Nast is largely credited for popularizing the images of Uncle Sam, the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey, and Santa Claus. Some even say his cartoons shaped the face of elections.
His caricatures of the left-wing New York City Tammany Hall official, William Magear Tweed, as the sleazy boss tweed, are credited as to why he lost the election. In 1873, Ulysses S. Grant is quoted as having said it was Thomas Nast’s illustrations that helped him win the election.
While Nast focused on politics, many of his contemporaries focused on businesses, especially Andrew Carnegie’s steel empire and John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. Standard Oil was also birthed during the Civil War, but grew to serve over 80% of the nation’s fuel.
Cartoonists took aim at Standard oil because of its size and its method of growth. Rockefeller tried to acquire every competitor and any company that would benefit him, shuttering the unprofitable and using the rest. His shrewd deals helped lower the cost of his gas heating oil and kerosene products by almost half.
He even found a way to make money in China.
By manufacturing and giving Chinese farmers free lamps, he could then sell them kerosene. He sold it under the name “Mei Foo”, which means mobile, a precursor to the future. Domestically, the product mix of Standard Oil grew to include a synthetic form of beeswax, Vaseline, boat fuel, bug spray, gasoline, heating oil, and kerosene.
Plenty of work for their marketing team.
That brings us to the pebble of our story.
Harrison McCann was born in 1880. He started his career at a very young age at Poland’s Springwater in Maine. Harry started as a bellboy at the Properties Hotel. At the time, the Poland Springs Company was a hundred years old. Back in 1797, Hiram Ricker had discovered a mineral spring on his land, and after consuming it for a while, he noticed his dyspepsia had been cured.
And from that point on, people wanted the curative properties of Poland Spring Water. Harry was able to move up to salesmen quickly and was actually relocated to their New York City office where he was lured over to join New York Telephone.
New York Telephone offered Harrison McCann a challenge. Could he develop an advertising campaign that prevented customers from leaving and going to smaller companies? He did and he did it so well, he grew the campaign to a staff of a hundred, which is where he came into contact with John Crawford of Standard Oil.
Crawford needed someone aggressive to market Standard Oil’s products. Harry was intrigued and took the job. But it was very short-lived. Standard Oil had actually gotten too big and the government knew it.
Unfortunately, in 1910, the government wielded the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and broke Standard Oil into 37 different companies, all mandated to have different boards of directors. Unsure how everything would play out, John Crawford convinced Harry McCann to start his own advertising firm, and he’d have the separate oil spinoffs hire him.
He himself pledged a $5,000 loan to help him get it started and actually became his first investor.
Harry had become personal friends with John Crawford and his wife Mabel. Mabel was the daughter of Thomas Nast, the Civil War cartoonist. With Mabel on board, her brother Thomas Nast Jr. also became an investor. And their sister Edith Nast and her husband Ralph St. Hill became investors.
And finally, Harrison’s friend Herbert Newton-Cassen joined the team. He was an efficiency expert and a writer for both a New York Evening Journal and New York World.
And on that day, in 1911, the H.K. McAnn Company was born. The pebble was dropped into the pond.
John Crawford didn’t let Harry down. Standard Oil of New Jersey became Esso, now known as Exxon, and became McCann’s first client. Standard Oil of Ohio became Mobile and his second client. Standard Oil of California became Chevron. Of Indiana became Amaco. Of South Pennsylvania became Penzoil. And his Continental gas became Conoco. Atlantic and Richfield became Arco and then Marathon. And finally, Mabel Nast’s other brother, Cyril, was the director of New York Consolidated Edison.
He also became a client.
At the dawn of the automobile age, H.K. McCann was poised for success. And by year two, H.K. McCann needed a manifesto and a mark. Harrison’s experience led him to believe one thing about marketing. The only successful campaign rule he knew was that the consumer needed to be told a truth that they wanted and then experienced that truth after using the product or service.
He knew that in order to make an effective advertisement, they had to find the truest truth about the product. Ralph St. Hill suggested the moniker “Truthwell told” and Thomas Nast Jr. designed a logo.
Together, they did something that had never been accomplished prior. They trademarked the phrase “Truth Well Told.” No trademark had ever been awarded to a company that didn’t sell a physical product. And in so getting it, H.K. McCann opened the door for every dentist, financial advisor, and marketing agency to get federal production of their marks.
Before the days of air conditioning, every household was armed with bug repellent spray. Standard oils was called “Flit.” Because the bug problem was such a common nuisance everyone could identify with, it was an easy target for comedians and cartoonists.
Judge magazine was another of the premier magazines of the day. It was satirical and upscale. Its editor, Harold Ross, would take his experience working at Judge and would one day create the New Yorker.
In 1928, Judge Magazine featured a cartoon of a night in a castle about to go to bed, when he spied a large snarling dragon over head. The caption read, “Another dragon, just after I sprayed the castle with Flit.” The ad was seen by Grace Cleaves, whose husband, ran the Flit campaign at HK McCann.
She took the ad to him and urged him to hire the artist who created it, Theodore Geisel. Geisel had just moved to New York City a year prior to pursue a career in illustrations and was working hard to make ends meet.
His job at Judge was largely barter-based, and unfortunately, getting paid in water bottles and berries and cigarettes wasn’t paying the bills. So when he got a call from HK McCann, he jumped at the chance. That cartoon would lead him to a 17-year advertising campaign for Flit that paid him $12,000 a year.
With the tagline he created in each ad, Flit became a national sensation, repeated by comedians, TV personalities on the radio and in print. He signed all his ads with his pen name, one that would become famous around the world, and would be the second ripple of McCann Erickson.
Theodore Geisel’s pen name was Dr. Seuss.
His Flit campaign work led to other work at McCann, including Ford, NBC Radio and Holly Sugar. Though he worked for McCann for 17 years, he never worked in the office. In fact, all he wanted was a drawer at the office where they could leave his paycheck. That drawer was in the desk of copywriter Phyllis Cerf, cousin to Ginger Rogers.
The money enabled him to upgrade his life and travel. On his first European trip, he was inspired to write a poem that became a children’s book. Based on the main road in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts called “And to think I saw it on Mulberry Street.”
During the war, he drew posters for the Treasury Department and helped create propaganda films. After the war, he continued writing children’s books like “The Cat in the Hat”, “Green Eggs and Ham“, and the perennial favorite of “The Grinch Stole Christmas“.
His former college, Dartmouth, awarded him an honorary doctorate, which he jokingly said he would have to start signing his books now, Dr. Dr. Seuss.
He also became a client.
At the dawn of the automobile age, H.K. McCann was poised for success. And by year two, H.K. McCann needed a manifesto and a mark. Harrison’s experience led him to believe one thing about marketing. The only successful campaign rule he knew was that the consumer needed to be told a truth that they wanted and then experienced that truth after using the product or service.
He knew that in order to make an effective advertisement, they had to find the truest truth about the product. Ralph St. Hill suggested the moniker “Truthwell told” and Thomas Nast Jr. designed a logo.
Together, they did something that had never been accomplished prior. They trademarked the phrase “Truth Well Told.” No trademark had ever been awarded to a company that didn’t sell a physical product. And in so getting it, H.K. McCann opened the door for every dentist, financial advisor, and marketing agency to get federal production of their marks.
Before the days of air conditioning, every household was armed with bug repellent spray. Standard oils was called “Flit.” Because the bug problem was such a common nuisance everyone could identify with, it was an easy target for comedians and cartoonists.
Judge magazine was another of the premier magazines of the day. It was satirical and upscale. Its editor, Harold Ross, would take his experience working at Judge and would one day create the New Yorker.
In 1928, Judge Magazine featured a cartoon of a night in a castle about to go to bed, when he spied a large snarling dragon over head. The caption read, “Another dragon, just after I sprayed the castle with Flit.” The ad was seen by Grace Cleaves, whose husband, ran the Flit campaign at HK McCann.
She took the ad to him and urged him to hire the artist who created it, Theodore Geisel. Geisel had just moved to New York City a year prior to pursue a career in illustrations and was working hard to make ends meet.
His job at Judge was largely barter-based, and unfortunately, getting paid in water bottles and berries and cigarettes wasn’t paying the bills. So when he got a call from HK McCann, he jumped at the chance. That cartoon would lead him to a 17-year advertising campaign for Flit that paid him $12,000 a year.
With the tagline he created in each ad, Flit became a national sensation, repeated by comedians, TV personalities on the radio and in print. He signed all his ads with his pen name, one that would become famous around the world, and would be the second ripple of McCann Erickson.
Theodore Geisel’s pen name was Dr. Seuss.
His Flit campaign work led to other work at McCann, including Ford, NBC Radio and Holly Sugar. Though he worked for McCann for 17 years, he never worked in the office. In fact, all he wanted was a drawer at the office where they could leave his paycheck. That drawer was in the desk of copywriter Phyllis Cerf, cousin to Ginger Rogers.
The money enabled him to upgrade his life and travel. On his first European trip, he was inspired to write a poem that became a children’s book. Based on the main road in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts called “And to think I saw it on Mulberry Street.”
During the war, he drew posters for the Treasury Department and helped create propaganda films. After the war, he continued writing children’s books like “The Cat in the Hat”, “Green Eggs and Ham“, and the perennial favorite of “The Grinch Stole Christmas“.
His former college, Dartmouth, awarded him an honorary doctorate, which he jokingly said he would have to start signing his books now, Dr. Dr. Seuss.
Sadly, he passed away in 1991, having received two Academy Awards, two Emmys, a Peabody, a Pulitzer, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The second ripple continues today, every time someone hears “Green Eggs and Ham” for the first time.
One of H.K. McCann’s other clients was the California Packing Corporation. It started in 1899 when the fruit and vegetable canning industry was in disarray. To better manage supply and demand, 18 canning companies got together and formed this partnership.
To brand and market their company, they reached out to H.K. McCann, with the idea they become Del Monte. Among other things, they decided to announce the brand by creating a full page ad in the Saturday evening post.
All they needed was an appropriate artist. The post recommended a young artist that had just started with them. He’d actually only created one cover for the magazine, so he wasn’t well known yet. Hiring him would change his life forever.
Norman Rockwell had produced a few pieces for Boy’s Life magazine and got lucky with the post. He had recently moved and his next door neighbor was Clyde Forsyth, the Saturday Evening Post’s current cartoonist. Norman Rockwell was a perfect fit for McCann because he felt that honesty and integrity were paramount to his art.
His most famous piece for Del Monte was a mother holding an empty can and a child looking upon guiltily saying, “I cannot tell a lie, I opened it with my little can opener.”
During his career, he accepted commissions for more than 150 corporations, including Ford, Pan Am, Budweiser, Del Monte and Sun-Maid.
When World War II began, Rockwell enlisted and was inside the role of military artists. There he created works for the US Treasury, promoting war bonds, for which also became Saturday Evening Post covers. Over his career, he’d paint Presidents, illustrate books and draw hundreds of magazine covers.
In 1976, President Carter would award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award a civilian can earn.
McCann’s Third Ripple Each came and grew quickly, opening offices in Cleveland, San Francisco, Toronto, Berlin, London and Paris. All before, the 1929 stock market crash.
Fortunately, their portfolio was replete with utility and oil companies. But future uncertainty led him to conversation with his business friend, Alfred Erickson. Alfred had spent his early years in advertising working for the McCutcheon department store, but in 1902 left to start his own agency, A.W. Erickson.
Beyond advertising, Erickson also invested in companies he felt had profitable potential. One of those was a roofing company that he managed advertising for. One time an employee shared with him an idea to turn the roofing material into a cheaper form of linoleum, but expressed to him that the managers there weren’t interested in the idea.
Alfred liked it so much he bought a controlling interest in the company and pursued the flooring idea and then merged with a flooring company. By 1930 he was worth $48 million and had US tobacco, Congolian flooring, Technicolo film, and Bon-Ami as clients.
In 1930 Alfred and Harry merged to become McCann Erickson, the first spark of a coming empire. Within six months, they’d added 27 of Ford Motor Company’s 32 branches. And soon after that, opened offices in South America to better pursue Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson.
Unfortunately, Alfred Erickson would pass away suddenly within four years, which left McCann wondering who would eventually take over the business.
That leads us to Marian Harper Jr. Marian was born in 1916 in Oklahoma City. A superior student, he was, graduating from Yale in 1939. His father had been an executive at General Foods and then later worked at Compton advertising agency.
Once he took Marion to watch the recording of an NBC Radio show and Marion was hooked, he wanted to go into advertising. When he saw that the prestigious McCann-Erickson company had an executive training program, it didn’t matter that it had to start in the mail room. Marion wanted in.
And like any motivational movie you see about a young kid who turns out to be a superstar, Marion didn’t stay in the mail room. He spent time looking at research and learning how everything worked. Chet Posey, one of the McCann managers, was impressed with Marion’s tenacity. On one occasion, Marion had pulled research on the last three years of marketing data and compiled them into a rudimentary database, where he then crossed reference the ads with a readership to figure out which ads were really effective.
He was quickly promoted to the research department. Then, in under four years later, Director of Research. And then as Harry McCann’s personal assistant, and in only nine short years, Marion Harper Jr. became president of McCann Erickson.
Marion Harper was able to double the revenues of his first five years and double them again one year later. In 1957, Mcann became the first agency to bring in over 100 million in revenue. But one early experience would alter the way McCann Erickson and the advertising world would operate forever.
In 1949 General Motors let it be known that their Buick line needed an agency, Marion Harper, wanted to bid. But having Chrysler as a client, it precluded that, since agencies didn’t represent competing products. So on an unprecedented move, he resigned the million dollar Chrysler account to win Buick.
That moment would make him rethink the entire industry. And like the pioneering moment H.K. McCann had with trademarking their logo. This would be McCann’s Fourth Major Ripple.
In 1954, Marion grabbed an opportunity to buy Marschalk & Pratt. But instead of folding them into McCann Erickson, he left them to operate as a standalone unit. As a standalone unit, Marschalk already represented competing firms.
Harper had accomplished the impossible. Then he took it one step further.
He created a holding company called the Interpublic Group of Companies and made everyone a separate agency. The research department became its own entity, McCann Erickson, Marchalk & Pratt, in all future acquisitions and creations.
The holding company idea would at first be scoffed by other agencies. But then, when they saw how it worked, when they saw McCann Erickson could service Ford, while Marschalk & Pratt could service Chrysler at the same time, ethically, they began to do the holding company concept themselves.
The advertising world would have been changed forever.
Benny Goodman was born in 1909. He was the ninth of 12 kids. His parents were Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. Born poor in Chicago, his parents would take the kids to free concerts in the park on Sundays. That sparked in Benny, a love of music. He took music lessons every year, by the age of 13, had his union card and was playing on Lake Michigan excursion boats.
Two years later, he joined in orchestra and made his first recording. Excited for music, Benny moved to New York City and became a session musician. He got to play alongside greats like Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey. At the same time, Mcann Erickson was successfully using radio to market its clients.
They’d buy a slot, create a show, and feature a sponsor. One of those shows Your Hit Parade, a Vaudeville type show that used to advertise US tobacco. After acquiring the Nabisco account, they wanted to do something similar for Nabisco, but on TV. They surveyed 18,000 radio listeners and learned dance music was the most popular.
So they settled on creating a three-hour big band dance show and needed three bands to fill the stage. John Hammond was a McCann’s music director at the time. He decided to create his own band for the first hour. And then they chose Xavier Cugat’s orchestra for the second hour.
Xavier’s band was a very popular band in New York City as they played the Waldorf Astoria every night. And for the third hour, Joseph and his wife had heard a band at a local theater led by a talented clarinetist. They thought his music would be perfect.
McCann’s footprint grew larger than ever when they introduced this clarinetist, Benny Goodman, to the world. The show was a huge hit, and with a few weeks, Benny Goodman and Swing Music swept the country. Goodman would become an American legend.
A few years later in 1938 he would play Carnegie Hall to amazing critical and public reception. But it wasn’t until 1950 however, that the concert was released as a double LP by Columbia Records. The event is now described as the single most important concert in jazz history.
Its Jazz’s coming out party to the world of respectable music. It would be the first jazz album to sell a million copies. McCann’s fifth ripple.
The 1960s were a turbulent time in history, with the Vietnam War, racial tensions, Woodstock, and the assassinations of both Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
Coca-Cola wanted to be a message of unity and calm, and McCann Erickson was hired to lead that charge. In April of 1965, Time Magazine featured Charles Schulz’s peanuts on the cover. McCann had been the first to use the Peanuts on TV helping to sell the Ford Falcon, but as their popularity would rise, McCann pitched an idea to Coke to create an entire holiday show with the Peanuts.
Making sure sponsored by Coca-Cola Bottlers was mentioned as the sponsor. This would be similar to what they used to do on the radio. Coke agreed, and on December 9th, 1965, a “Charlie Brown Christmas” debuted to nationwide positive success.
In 1949 General Motors let it be known that their Buick line needed an agency, Marion Harper, wanted to bid. But having Chrysler as a client, it precluded that, since agencies didn’t represent competing products. So on an unprecedented move, he resigned the million dollar Chrysler account to win Buick.
That moment would make him rethink the entire industry. And like the pioneering moment H.K. McCann had with trademarking their logo. This would be McCann’s Fourth Major Ripple.
In 1954, Marion grabbed an opportunity to buy Marschalk & Pratt. But instead of folding them into McCann Erickson, he left them to operate as a standalone unit. As a standalone unit, Marschalk already represented competing firms.
Harper had accomplished the impossible. Then he took it one step further.
He created a holding company called the Interpublic Group of Companies and made everyone a separate agency. The research department became its own entity, McCann Erickson, Marchalk & Pratt, in all future acquisitions and creations.
The holding company idea would at first be scoffed by other agencies. But then, when they saw how it worked, when they saw McCann Erickson could service Ford, while Marschalk & Pratt could service Chrysler at the same time, ethically, they began to do the holding company concept themselves.
The advertising world would have been changed forever.
Benny Goodman was born in 1909. He was the ninth of 12 kids. His parents were Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. Born poor in Chicago, his parents would take the kids to free concerts in the park on Sundays. That sparked in Benny, a love of music. He took music lessons every year, by the age of 13, had his union card and was playing on Lake Michigan excursion boats.
Two years later, he joined in orchestra and made his first recording. Excited for music, Benny moved to New York City and became a session musician. He got to play alongside greats like Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey. At the same time, Mcann Erickson was successfully using radio to market its clients.
They’d buy a slot, create a show, and feature a sponsor. One of those shows Your Hit Parade, a Vaudeville type show that used to advertise US tobacco. After acquiring the Nabisco account, they wanted to do something similar for Nabisco, but on TV. They surveyed 18,000 radio listeners and learned dance music was the most popular.
So they settled on creating a three-hour big band dance show and needed three bands to fill the stage. John Hammond was a McCann’s music director at the time. He decided to create his own band for the first hour. And then they chose Xavier Cugat’s orchestra for the second hour.
Xavier’s band was a very popular band in New York City as they played the Waldorf Astoria every night. And for the third hour, Joseph and his wife had heard a band at a local theater led by a talented clarinetist. They thought his music would be perfect.
McCann’s footprint grew larger than ever when they introduced this clarinetist, Benny Goodman, to the world. The show was a huge hit, and with a few weeks, Benny Goodman and Swing Music swept the country. Goodman would become an American legend.
A few years later in 1938 he would play Carnegie Hall to amazing critical and public reception. But it wasn’t until 1950 however, that the concert was released as a double LP by Columbia Records. The event is now described as the single most important concert in jazz history.
Its Jazz’s coming out party to the world of respectable music. It would be the first jazz album to sell a million copies. McCann’s fifth ripple.
The 1960s were a turbulent time in history, with the Vietnam War, racial tensions, Woodstock, and the assassinations of both Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
Coca-Cola wanted to be a message of unity and calm, and McCann Erickson was hired to lead that charge. In April of 1965, Time Magazine featured Charles Schulz’s peanuts on the cover. McCann had been the first to use the Peanuts on TV helping to sell the Ford Falcon, but as their popularity would rise, McCann pitched an idea to Coke to create an entire holiday show with the Peanuts.
Making sure sponsored by Coca-Cola Bottlers was mentioned as the sponsor. This would be similar to what they used to do on the radio. Coke agreed, and on December 9th, 1965, a “Charlie Brown Christmas” debuted to nationwide positive success.
An estimated 15,540,000 people watched it that night. CBS immediately ordered four more Peanuts specials after day aired, and it became a holiday tradition on CBS from 1966 until 2000, and on ABC through 2019.
Sadly for the makers of aluminum Christmas trees, the special effectively killed the fad permanently, even they felt the effect of the sixth ripple of McCann.
But the turbulence of the 1960s weren’t over, and McCann again wanted to present Coke with an idea that would spread light and love. Bill Becker was the creative director for the Coke account. Like Marion Harper, he’d also started in the mailroom and worked his way up.
He was flying to London one day to join up with two songwriters to write and arrange some new radio jingles. Unfortunately, his flight got delayed and he got stuck in Shannon, Ireland, with a group of frustrated flyers. Tempers flew and passengers were anything but civil.
After a night’s sleep of sharing hotel rooms with strangers, Becker noticed something. Many of the most irate passengers were now sharing stories and laughing with others, while drinking Coca-Cola.
At that moment he realized a bottle of Coke was more than drink, it was more than a refresher. It was a tiny bit of commonality among people. It was an icebreaker of peace.
In London the next day, he met with his songwriters Billy Davis and Roger Cook. Both talented songwriters, Davis had actually been a member of the Four Tops before becoming a full-time jingle writer at McCann. Baker told them about his experience in Shannon, and Cook had a song in mind that exuded some of the tone Baker was looking for.
It was called Love and Apple Pie. Baker loved it, but wanted them to write new lyrics around the concept of “I’d like to buy the world a Coke.” And they did. On February 12, 1971, the radio ad aired. The response, however, was “tepid.” Not bad, but it wasn’t great either.
Backer then convinced Coca-Cola to give him $250,000 to turn the song into a TV commercial, the largest production budget for a commercial to date, and they agreed. The idea was to position children of all ages and backgrounds on a hill, singing the song while holding a bottle of Coke, and the camera overhead would film them all.
In July of 1971, the ad hit American television and was a major hit. In the first few months, Coke received more than 100,000 letters about the ad. And demand was so great radio stations were being asked to play it.
Billy Davis and Bill Becker wanted to capitalize on the momentum. So they had two separate groups released the song as pop singles. Changing the lyrics however, without referencing Cola, but instead using the name “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”.
Both songs hit number one on the Billboard charts. But this seventh ripple of “McKan Erickson” didn’t end at Billboard.
The commercial was an international hit as well. But when McCann attempted to buy airtime in South Africa, they hit a speed bump. The government mandated that if they played the commercial on South African TV, they would need to remove the black children from the commercial.
“Coke,” said No.
And for Coke, it was a wake-up call of sorts. South Africa was ruled by a system of Apartheid that kept black and white citizens apart, and kept rules in place to make sure the 20% white population stayed in power, and made sure the black population remained oppressed. There had already been demonstrations around the world protesting apartheid, and many companies had already pulled out.
But now, the laws of apartheid were affecting Coke. Coke decided to shock the world. They not only began their complete pull out of South Africa, but decided to put a stronger stamp on their message. They announced they would sell all their assets to black investors.
It wasn’t long before the international pressure would begin the dismantling of apartheid. Who knew that Harrison McCann’s leaving Standard Oil would create a moment that would help topple a government?
The Interpublic Group of Companies that Marion Harper created now has offices in over a hundred cities, serves over 4,000 clients and is made up of companies you know, like McCann Erickson, Weber Shandwick, Deutsch, and Mullen Lowe.
1911 was the year Harrison McCann left Standard Oil and started his own company. It was also the year poet Laureate James Foley, personal friend of Roosevelt, wrote this poem.
“Drop a pebble in the pond,
just a splash and it’s gone.
But there’s half a hundred ripples
circling on and on,
spreading spreading from the center,
flowing on out to the sea,
and there is no way of telling
where the end is going to be.”
Sadly for the makers of aluminum Christmas trees, the special effectively killed the fad permanently, even they felt the effect of the sixth ripple of McCann.
But the turbulence of the 1960s weren’t over, and McCann again wanted to present Coke with an idea that would spread light and love. Bill Becker was the creative director for the Coke account. Like Marion Harper, he’d also started in the mailroom and worked his way up.
He was flying to London one day to join up with two songwriters to write and arrange some new radio jingles. Unfortunately, his flight got delayed and he got stuck in Shannon, Ireland, with a group of frustrated flyers. Tempers flew and passengers were anything but civil.
After a night’s sleep of sharing hotel rooms with strangers, Becker noticed something. Many of the most irate passengers were now sharing stories and laughing with others, while drinking Coca-Cola.
At that moment he realized a bottle of Coke was more than drink, it was more than a refresher. It was a tiny bit of commonality among people. It was an icebreaker of peace.
In London the next day, he met with his songwriters Billy Davis and Roger Cook. Both talented songwriters, Davis had actually been a member of the Four Tops before becoming a full-time jingle writer at McCann. Baker told them about his experience in Shannon, and Cook had a song in mind that exuded some of the tone Baker was looking for.
It was called Love and Apple Pie. Baker loved it, but wanted them to write new lyrics around the concept of “I’d like to buy the world a Coke.” And they did. On February 12, 1971, the radio ad aired. The response, however, was “tepid.” Not bad, but it wasn’t great either.
Backer then convinced Coca-Cola to give him $250,000 to turn the song into a TV commercial, the largest production budget for a commercial to date, and they agreed. The idea was to position children of all ages and backgrounds on a hill, singing the song while holding a bottle of Coke, and the camera overhead would film them all.
In July of 1971, the ad hit American television and was a major hit. In the first few months, Coke received more than 100,000 letters about the ad. And demand was so great radio stations were being asked to play it.
Billy Davis and Bill Becker wanted to capitalize on the momentum. So they had two separate groups released the song as pop singles. Changing the lyrics however, without referencing Cola, but instead using the name “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”.
Both songs hit number one on the Billboard charts. But this seventh ripple of “McKan Erickson” didn’t end at Billboard.
The commercial was an international hit as well. But when McCann attempted to buy airtime in South Africa, they hit a speed bump. The government mandated that if they played the commercial on South African TV, they would need to remove the black children from the commercial.
“Coke,” said No.
And for Coke, it was a wake-up call of sorts. South Africa was ruled by a system of Apartheid that kept black and white citizens apart, and kept rules in place to make sure the 20% white population stayed in power, and made sure the black population remained oppressed. There had already been demonstrations around the world protesting apartheid, and many companies had already pulled out.
But now, the laws of apartheid were affecting Coke. Coke decided to shock the world. They not only began their complete pull out of South Africa, but decided to put a stronger stamp on their message. They announced they would sell all their assets to black investors.
It wasn’t long before the international pressure would begin the dismantling of apartheid. Who knew that Harrison McCann’s leaving Standard Oil would create a moment that would help topple a government?
The Interpublic Group of Companies that Marion Harper created now has offices in over a hundred cities, serves over 4,000 clients and is made up of companies you know, like McCann Erickson, Weber Shandwick, Deutsch, and Mullen Lowe.
1911 was the year Harrison McCann left Standard Oil and started his own company. It was also the year poet Laureate James Foley, personal friend of Roosevelt, wrote this poem.
“Drop a pebble in the pond,
just a splash and it’s gone.
But there’s half a hundred ripples
circling on and on,
spreading spreading from the center,
flowing on out to the sea,
and there is no way of telling
where the end is going to be.”
CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
To hear all the stories that hit the cutting room floor, you have to listen to the episode.
ABOUT THE SHOW
Let us tell you the story of the 20th Century, by tracing each event back to the original decisions that shaped it. You’ll quickly find out that everybody and everything is connected. If you thought you understood the 20th Century, you’re in for a treat.
Tracing the Path is inspired by storytellers like Paul Harvey, Charles Kuralt, and Andy Rooney.
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