Oct 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Larry Jaffee

Few art directors have had a career like George Lois.

He left Doyle Dane Bernbach in 1960 at 28 to start Papert Koenig Lois because he was convinced creatives needed to be in control of everything. That shop was the first major agency to have an art director's name on its door, and it was the first togo public.

But Louis regretted that move because his partners started playing it safe. He soon had enough, and in 1967 he went off on his own. (See www.georgelois.com for a sampling of his work.)

In between his groundbreaking ad work, Lois designed memorable conceptual covers for Esquire magazine.

Lois remains active in the business at age 76. At the time of this interview at his Greenwich Village apartment, he had just finished a campaign for a new cable network for baby boomers called American Life. Among the luminaries featured in the spots is Joe Namath, who often showed up in Lois-produced commercials and ads during the 1970s.

And on Nov. 6, Rizzoli will publish a new book by Lois: “Iconic America: A Roller-Coaster Ride through the Eye-Popping Panorama of American Pop Culture.” This time he shares credit with fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, whose career Lois kick-started with a 1986 campaign featuring posters on Manhattan telephone booths.

Promo: Your Tommy Hilfiger ad listing his initials alongside those of established designers like Calvin Klein, Perry Ellis and Ralph Lauren created amazing word-of-mouth. Have you been involved in coming up with promotional ideas for clients?

Lois: My advertising is promotion. It's the same thing. Great advertising has wheels of its own. The campaigns were always self-fulfilling prophesies. They became not only ad campaigns, but promotion ideas. I always did promotion pieces. To me, my advertising was always guerrilla advertising. You do it, and all the sudden it's all over the place. I do what I call ‘famous advertising’ with way, way less money than anybody ever spent. I do stuff that I know is going to get hot and picked up.

Promo: But doesn't it have to reinforce the brand?

Lois: Of course. I recently taught a class and [the students] were talking about how they liked that beer commercial where the girl walks by and the guy changes the drink, something like that. Everybody said, “Yeah, I love that commercial.” I asked, “What brand, what's the beer?” They argued for 10 minutes, and came up with four different beers.

Promo: So the spot failed?

Lois: Totally. Most advertising is invisible. They don't remember seeing print ads either. So the name of the game is to do famous advertising with a big idea.

Promo: Where do you usually find those big ideas?

Lois: [pointing to his head] It's in there. But you can't have marketing guys coming to you and saying, “You have to have these words in there and do this.” They give creative people this kind of directive to work off of. Marketing guys are so unambitious. My advertising says, ‘I want to change the world.’ And their advertising says, ‘Let's inch up the sales a little bit.’ What you're trying to get done is so different from what traditional advertising guys would do.

Promo: You're also known for easily working with celebrities. What's the secret?

Lois: I have a reputation for using famous people. Athletes would hear about it. All the agents knew, ‘If Lois calls, the stuff is hot. It's fun, not with [the athlete having] his thumb up his ass.’ I did the ‘I want my Maypo!’ campaign. Everybody thought it was a baby cereal. I had Mickey Mantle, Wilt Chamberlain, Johnny Unitas, Oscar Robertson all crying, “I Want My Maypo! All of a sudden it became the largest selling cereal for kids up to 16 years old. Maypo, the oatmeal cereal that heroes cry for.

Promo: How careful must marketers be when they align themselves with a celebrity who doesn't necessarily care about the product?

Lois: The first important thing is that you don't do a commercial where the guy looks like he's shilling. I did an Ovaltine commercial with Joe Namath, and he did it from his heart. I did another with him for Cutty Sark. He had a reputation for being a boozer. He was a Johnnie Walker drinker. You can't do advertising that is going make him look like a shill. A guy saying, ‘I want my Maypo!’ is a put-on of a put-on. It has to be something that has a charm and a wit.

Promo: Any advice for people starting out in the business?

Lois: If you're careful, you're dead. I'm not saying be reckless. Above and beyond your talent and a big idea, there's got to be a passion and a belief that you can change the world. You've got to believe what you create can make a product successful, breakthroughs. I don't think many agencies believe that. I had this client, Data General, that was dead. I had people delivering pizza boxes with mainframes. That was a promotion. Their stock went up 42 points in one day.

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