Advertising mogul Chuck Porter spoke as part of the Eric Mower Advertising Forum to a crowded Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday night. Porter, the CEO and co-founder of the renowned ad agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, discussed research through different mediums of advertising throughout the years.

Porter said that while the number of mediums available has increased, the power of the story today has not changed.

Porter insisted that he wouldn’t speak very much, instead displaying some of his company’s work. He began the lecture with a video that appeared to be a movie trailer, but was actually an anti-smoking public service announcement.

‘Consistency is good,’ Porter said. ‘But surprise is better.’

Many other advertisements were featured, including the viral Burger King campaign ‘The Subservient Chicken’ and Microsoft’s Windows cellphone. However, Porter’s resounding argument remained that research cannot create creativity.

‘No focus group in the world has ever written a good story,’ he said.

Porter used Hollywood as an example for his idea. He said that, according to research done in Hollywood, the 2006 movie ‘Akeelah and the Bee’ starring Laurence Fishburne was researched the most, while the 1994 classic ‘Pulp Fiction’ was researched the least.

Porter also said that a Burger King commercial he thought would be terrible was voted the best advertisement in Europe.

‘Research can’t tell you what will and won’t work,’ Porter said. ‘But it can tell you how you did.’

Porter went on to discuss the importance of digital and interactive advertisements. He said that for thousands of years humans have lived in a read-and-write world. But with the invention of the radio, Porter said that people stopped talking and started listening.

‘Media has been announcing to you and you are the listener,’ he said.

Porter said that 55 percent of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky’s advertisements are digital, representing yet another sign of the interconnected world.

‘We now have the technological capacity to have a conversation with the audience,’ Porter said.

One of Porter’s examples of interactivity was Domino’s Pizza Tracker, which allows customers to see who is preparing their food and who is delivering the pizza. Sales went up for Dominoes once the campaign began, Porter said, and the website became the fourth-largest economic commerce website on the planet.

Although today marks the dawn of the mobile age, Porter said he still sees television and the Internet as the two powerhouses for advertising. Porter said that companies spend $60 billion and $30 billion on TV and Internet advertisements, respectively. Mobile spending, however, is fourth behind newspapers at $1.2 million dollars.

Members of the audience found this idea astonishing, especially senior public relations major Zach Settembre.

‘It’s just a reminder that TV still dominates the media,’ Settembre said. ‘Mobile is the future, but I guess we aren’t there yet.’

However, Porter stressed that new mediums are not always better. His agency’s highly successful Molson beer advertisements were featured in a seemingly dying industry: magazines. The ads featured a male model with a puppy and beer and were placed in female-oriented magazines to present males in a more positive light, he said.

Crispin, Porter + Bogusky then created fake magazine covers, such as ‘Aspiring Groom’ and ‘Animal Rescuer,’ on the backs of real magazines to create a very comedic and viral campaign in a very old medium.

Porter said: ‘We throw stuff up there and see what cooks.’

tagreena@syr.edu 

Published on October 18, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Tyler: tagreena@syr.edu