Page 27 - AdNews magazine Mar-Apr-May 2023

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you like to be the publisher Russel? I reckon I was 20.”
Love of selling
He recalls watching a documen- tary about a publisher in New York. The camera was on him in a beau- tiful office, surrounded by books and he said "Sometimes I find myself getting so absorbed with my favourite authors that I end up signing my name just like they do."
Howcroft thought that was an interesting insight into the power of relationships. “That's a really powerful anecdote for me because I think you sell when you absorb yourself into the client's problem, working hard to under- stand where they sit in life, in business, in the marketplace. If you can end up signing your name like they sign theirs, then you've got half a chance of getting something good going.”
It’s understanding all the forces at work and finding a sweet spot. “That’s what you want to sell, what they're prepared to buy and what the consumer's prepared to con- sume. Three circles -- seller, buyer, consumer. And I think the very best advertising work clearly is what you want to sell. Tick all boxes, all circles. That sounds really easy but that's incredibly difficult to do. Those three circles are the same size and you've got to find your way into the middle.”
Gruen
Howcroft sees Gruen as being about society. “I think an impor- tant part of the history of the show is the simple pitch that Andrew Denton did to the ABC in that we're surrounded by advertising and yet no one talks about it.
“It's obviously an important insight, isn't it? And the other great thing about it of course is that every single day there is new advertising. So the marketplace provides new content every day. And that will be varying degrees of excellent to horrendous.”
Russel’s involvement came in a phone call from ABC studios, Ultimo. “We're doing a pilot and we'd like you to participate.”
He asked two people to come with him to the pilot: Linda Grey was the head of PR at the agency he was working at, Y&R Brands, and Lesley Brydon, who was then running the Advertising Federation of Australia.
“I asked Linda to come along to have a look at the pilot so that she could determine if it was going to be good for the agency. And I asked Lesley to see whether she thought it was going to be good for the industry. I had no interest in doing the show if it was going to be bad for my business and/or bad for the industry.”
Howcroft did the pilot, then asked Lesley and Linda what they thought. They both said: “You must do this.”
He received a phone call from a woman called Anita Jacoby: “We'd like to invite you to be a part of the show."
He said: "Yes."
Andrew Denton, the show’s cre- ator, then sent Howcroft a note: "Why did you say yes?"
His response: "So no other bas- tards would do it."
Why did Denton ask that question?
“He knew that I was anxious about it,” says Howcroft.
“The bit that has been forgotten is that there was a lot of anxiety around the show. It was the very idea that there would be a show on the ABC that was prosecuting adver- tising that created a lot of anxiety.”
It would have been easy to give the advertising industry a good, public kicking on the ABC and make a spectacle of it.
“I was very much of the view that everyone should know about advertising. Absolutely eyes wide open. This is what it does. Because the view is that advertising is the honest end of communication. There's nothing dishonest about advertising. I'm trying to sell some- thing and there's no distortion to it. And unlike the occasional head- line that might appear in a media outlet, you cannot write a false headline in advertising.”
Denton sent a note back: "Nothing will be the same again."
At the IVY in Sydney to accept the award.