‘Try it, you’ll like it.”
Those five words changed Howie Cohen’s life. He wrote them as the recurrent line in a 1971 Alka-Seltzer television spot. The commercial became one of the most famous creations on Madison Avenue, and the phrase became part of the public lexicon. Cohen followed up with a 1972 spot called “I Can’t Believe I Ate the Whole Thing” that also tapped into the popular imagination.
Alka-Seltzer has recently remade both ads, with the new “Whole Thing” debuting in December and the modern “Try It” in June. After running his own ad agency in New York, Cohen moved to Los Angeles in 1978 to head the office of Wells Rich Green. When client Hills Bros. Coffee asked him to take over its $10 million account, he left Wells Rich Green and started Cohen & Johnson. He and his partner sold the agency in 1997. Today, Cohen writes his ditties for The Phelps Group, an integrated public relations and advertising agency in Santa Monica with $60 million in annual billings. His latest catchphrase to hit the jackpot is: “Petco: Where the pets go.”
Question: You seem to have knack for thinking up these catch phrases. What’s your secret?
Answer:
One, connect on an emotional level with a human being. Too many marketers get caught up in the latest hip trend, the newest technology or style, and lose sight of what the product is, who wants it and how it will touch them. Those catch phrases are less important than the goal of emotional connection. I would say: Look for the big idea, whether it happens in words or images. Then, get around to every point of contact so your big idea is integrated. It’s not just advertising, not just public relations. Especially today, with 800 channels, you’re all fragmented. So you need to make sure they’ve seen a piece here, heard that piece there, saw something in the store, heard about it on the news.
Q: Can you give an example?
A:
Recently we launched a new campaign for City of Hope. Have you seen the poster ‘Canwser”? It’s one word that says so much, because it speaks to people who have cancer, or know somebody who has it. And what are they looking for? The answer. We’ve merchandised that in outdoor, TV, newspapers, radio, interactive even fund-raising.
Q: Isn’t there anything more to it than connecting on an emotional level?
A:
I broke it down to a system called the “Four I’s of Creativity.” They are: Intuition, investigation, incubation and inspiration. That’s the process most creative people follow, whether consciously or not. Let’s say Petco wants a new campaign. Based on nothing, I get intuition. Petco. Loving pets. I immediately start to get a feeling. It may be ludicrous, but generally by being a citizen of the planet, your intuition leads to something interesting. Investigation comes when the clients supply all the information.
Q: That would include the product itself?
A:
Experiencing the product, experiencing the store.
Q: Demos of the customer?
A:
Absolutely. What we call the sweet-spot process. What is the competitive environment? Who is the target audience and what do they want? And what are the product’s unique properties? That investigation leads to a positioning strategy. Now we have intuition combined with investigation and it’s time for incubation. That’s when you roll around at night, talk to a few people. It incubates and becomes this creative soup. You don’t know where it’s going yet. But then one day: “Ahh!” Inspiration.
Q: How has ad writing changed in today’s media environment?
A:
Things are getting more chopped up than ever, but the value of brand, a thing you can trust, remains. The most valuable property is still the big idea. It may be the positioning idea or the personality idea something that makes a connection with the brand. When I was growing up, it was all about USP Unique Selling Proposition. It’s still important to look for that. But in truth, anything can be copied. More and more, it’s not the selling proposition about the product that sells, but the unique connection you make with the consumer.
Q: “Try It, You’ll Like It” was the turning point in your career. Can you tell us about that?
A:
My partner (art director) Bob Pasqualina and I were one of four teams working on Alka-Seltzer at Wells Rich Green. The other three teams didn’t work out. Ours “Try it, You’ll Like it” seemed interesting, but not breakthrough. “We can get this on the air until we come up with the big solution” that was the thinking at the time. I think it was the first commercial to break that fourth wall, where the actor tells you (the viewer) the story. There were always spokespeople selling to you directly, but I don’t think anyone had shared a story one-on-one with the viewer. That commercial went on the air, and all of a sudden, people were walking around saying, “try it, you’ll like it.”
Q: Catchy phrase.
A:
It was a turning point because suddenly Pasqualina and I were stars. We were written up in the New York Times magazine section. Five pages. Followed up with a spread in New York magazine. We were the wonder kids.
Q: Where did your career go after that?
A:
Pasqualina and I started an agency that was hot for five years. We did the first rebate ever in the car business. We were flying, but we didn’t know how to run a business. We won accounts, we lost accounts. After five years, we were just kind of going along.
Q: So how did you come to Los Angeles?
A:
Wells Rich Green had opened an office in Los Angeles and it was booming. Charlie Moss called and said, “Boys, come back. I want to send you to California.” We signed a three-year contract.
Q: Then you went the entrepreneurial route again with Cohen & Johnson?
A:
Yes, we had a simple mission: To be the best agency for a handful of large clients. Because we had big clients, we didn’t need tons of them. We had Jack-in-the-Box, Mervyn’s, Bally’s, Nestle. We grew very fast and did a lot of good work. At one time we were listed as the largest broadcast producer in the West, doing about 100 TV spots per year. The flaw in our strategy was the when you lose a big account, it hurts you more. Jack-in-the-Box had its E Coli problem, and so they hired a new marketing director and agency. Mervyn’s decided to consolidate in Minneapolis, so we lost that. That got us to thinking, “Are we looking at the world broadly enough? And what about this integration thing?” We got together and Joe Phelps bought our agency in 1997.
Q: What are the challenges of managing a creative business, as opposed to manufacturing or retail?
A:
Find ways to get excited about the work. I’ve always been excited. When I started out, it was like show business to me. When my first ad for the VW Beetle was published in the New York Times, I had a party. And ads shouldn’t just be creative, but strategically creative so they get results. That’s what we stand for not just doing an ad but contributing an idea that’s going to make the cash registers ring and build the brand for the long term.
Q: Have you changed job titles or are you still a copywriter?
A:
I’m the chief creative officer, but a working copywriter by trade. The difference is that with my experience, I have more to offer people around here as well as the clients in terms of strategic thinking. I love writing and I’ve never stopped writing. I still get my most joy from solving creative problems.
Q: “Try it, You’ll Like It” was worth millions. Do you feel you received fair compensation for that brilliant moment?
A:
You bring up a source of frustration for creative people in our business: How do you put a price tag on great ideas? “Petco: Where the Pets go.” That plopped out of my head in the first 25 minutes of a discussion. If we were charging by the hour, we would have made probably $200. How many millions of dollars has that phrase contributed to our client’s wonderful business? In that extreme example, it doesn’t seem a fair way to deal. But having said that, we’re in a very competitive business. Any time you try to win business, you’re up against 25 agencies.
Q: So what do you do?
A:
Part of what they measure is how smart are you, how creative you are, and how much you cost. I would love a system that would reward us for the contribution to the client’s business, not the hours we spend, but no one’s come up with that system yet. So we are just very meticulous about the hours we spend. We make an honest day’s living and an honest profit. I’d like to find a way to make a hugely rewarding profit for an idea that can add bazillions to the client’s business. When you think of that, call me.
Howie Cohen
Title:
Chief Creative Officer
Company:
The Phelps Group
Born:
Bronx, N.Y. 1942
Education:
B.A., business, New York University
Career Turning Point:
The 1971 Alka-Seltzer ad: “Try It, You’ll Like It.”
Most Admired People:
Colleagues Paul Margulies (“Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz” for Alka-Selzter), Roy Grace and Evan Stark (“Spicy Meatball” for Alka-Seltzer), Charlie Moss (creative director, Wells Rich Green)
Personal:
Married; lives in Playa del Rey, vacation house in Aspen
Hobbies:
Paddle tennis, sailing, skiing
