DDB's Lee Garfinkel Speaks Out on Being Media Inventive, Creative Testing, and Agency Fees

Originally Published: November 2, 2006

There is little debate that the legendary ad executive Bill Bernbach is one of the great creative geniuses in the history of advertising, responsible for Volkswagen's "Think Small," "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's Rye Bread" subway ads, Life Cereal's "Mikey Likes It," "We Try Harder" for Avis, and McDonald's "You deserve a break today." Lee Garfinkel refuses to class himself in a league with Bernbach, but as chairman and chief creative officer of DDB New York, and as one of the most prolific and respected creative ad executives in the world today, he and his team are the Bernbach standard-bearers. Comparisons are inevitable.

"If Bill Bernbach started the creative revolution in the 1960s," says the veteran ad exec (who created the legendary Diet Coke ad with hunky construction worker Lucky Vanous and Heineken's "It's all about the beer" campaign), "we want to be at the forefront of what's happening today. Our goal is to continue the revolution and bring back the glory days of DDB New York. We want to cross the DDB way of doing business from the 1960s with new realities. We want to do non-traditional things in traditional media."

Lee also disdains "pushing the creative envelope before there is a basic idea to push," arguing "creativity in the wrong hands is a dangerous thing. Only 20 percent of ad campaigns," he believes, "have a great idea buried in them." But, he also acknowledges, only a small percentage of clients will actually buy something that's truly different. "Most stick with something they can test," Lee says. Lee recalls different attitudes when he started his career at legendary creative agency Levine, Huntley, Schmidt and Beaver. Huntley was then-retired NBC news anchor Chet Huntley, who "agreed to lend his name in return for some equity."

"At Levine," Lee comments, "clients were small and very few tested our ideas. Mostly, decisions were based on gut. When I went to BBDO in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we made decisions based on gut. Today when it comes down to making decisions, people want to test. But the success rate of advertising isn't necessarily any better. Where is the proof that testing of advertising results in more effective campaigns? It drives me crazy. Why do we have all these smart and creative people," Lee challenges.

Surrounded at Michael's Restaurant by ad legend Martin Puris, Maria Bartiromo, newly installed Hallmark Channel president Henry Schleiff, Steven and Howard Rubenstein, Jesse Kornbluth, Mark Rosenthal, and Reese Schoenfeld, Lee admitted he also has rules and philosophies he goes by, but says he can break those rules. "People always ask for groundbreaking and different, but it's all about insights and human understanding." The Lucky Vanous Diet Coke commercial was originally presented as part of a new business pitch. "We shot it on a Saturday with our own money," says Lee, "and there was no testing involved. New age beverages were selling well and we wanted to get Diet Coke back on the radar screen." Coke's marketing director Sergio Zyman (now a consultant) hired the agency and put the commercial on the air quickly. "Next thing I knew," Lee laughs, "I was on television speaking as a sex expert on the switching of roles between men and women."

Media & Creative Integration

To help find great ideas, DDB has created an Idea Wall of opportunity, where creative briefs are posted on the wall. Every creative person can review the briefs and contribute ideas. In the past year DDB added a wall of media opportunities, where the team can contribute media ideas. "Ten years ago we separated creative from media and now we need them all to work together again," Lee comments. He says he loves coming up with media ideas. "We're looking for any interesting way to tell a story and we get stale if we're not looking at fresh media opportunities. We want to inspire people to do things differently and we want the product and message to be integral to the medium."

Unlike many ad executives who are married to traditional thirty-second commercials, Lee believes "it's not about the length of the message. It's about how interesting it is. People watch videos from four-seconds to four minutes on YouTube," he points out. "We need to go with the flow. I don't know where it's going but I love that the business is changing. New media, old media. Four channels or 400. It's motivating to be able to work with new and existing media in different ways. I want to be media inventive. It puts added responsibility on the agency to go out and discover what's happening."

A good example, says Lee, is a "Real World Product Placement" campaign for the Subaru Tribeca. "In Texas," Lee explains, "people don't think they need a four-wheel drive car so we wanted people to think it's special. The local salespeople would park brand new cars in the best neighborhoods and leave them there. People would notice them and all it cost was a possible parking ticket. It was simple, low tech and real world product placement. People would come into the showroom saying they hadn't considered the Tribeca but they saw it parked in their neighborhood," he smiles. (At Levine Huntley, Lee began by writing classified ads for Subaru dealers and, in addition to Subaru, his clients at DDB New York include Diet Pepsi, Lipton Tea, American Cotton Council, Phillips, United Technologies and Electrolux.)

As our coffee was brought to the table, Lee shared his concern about the profit issues challenging creative agencies. In the 1990s, agencies began undercutting each other on fees to capture new business, taking them from 15 percent commissions to fees as low as three percent. "We're the only industry that gives our ideas away free and that doesn't retain creative rights to our work," Lee complains. "All we have is our creativity and we give it away. Agencies used to be experts on advertising and marketing, but they've given up much of that expertise to clients, consultants and newer marketing and communications organizations I still think we're experts on advertising and marketing, but we need to work harder to demonstrate it to clients. The lawn mower guy has more pride than some advertising agencies."

Lee and his wife Shelley have two daughters, Alisha, who recently joined Mammoth Advertising from Wunderman, and Jacki, an Editor here at Jack Myers MediaVillage. Lee graduated from Queens College where Jerry Seinfeld was a classmate.

To connect with Lee Garfinkel, write Lee.Garfinkel@ny.ddb.com