Most know O&M=Ogilvy & Mather. Many can tell DDB=Doyle Dane Bernbach. And BBDO? None.

Shocked?

No need. Because I only knew it 2 days ago. (And I'm pretty sure most ad practitioners today can't can't this right either.)

It's Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn.

Yet I used to be a Creative Director at BBDO, for around 4 years. The years of Triumph, to me and and my ex-partners.

-The campaign we made for a telecom client, SUNDAY, was a shock to the industry and the whole city;

- Every time when a SUNDAY ad was on air, it's for sure a talk of the town;

- People either hated it or loved it, never in between (Every time before an ad was run, a heated debate was sure to happen in the TV censorship bureau. So you can imagine how far we went.) ;

- One SUNDAY ad http://archive.adkungfu.com/longxi/sc/web/adsearch_details.php?id=899&JIANGXIANG=0 even initiated Epilepsy of a viewer at home (if the newspaper didn't exaggerate to boost sale);

- The BBDO by then was purely driven by creative;

- And it was the dream agency that every ambitious creative would die for.

Enough bragging. Yet our achievements are nothing compared to that of Bruce Barton, the second B of BBDO.

- Bruce Barton was so famous in his time in 1938 that every day there was a story on Barton - "Barton says, Barton suggests, Barton shakes hands, Barton laughs, Barton sneezes. Basically, it's Barton everywhere.";

- He was a visionary who predicted television before it was invented, a revolutionary who supported minority groups including Jews and blacks and women, an optimist who dreamed of prosperity during the Great Depression, a national leader who led America into a new modern era, and the original motivational speaker who created the genre;

- On top of being the first in the world to promote a presidential candidate, Calvin Coolidge, Barton himself was named as a possible candidate for the US presidency in 1932;

- It may sound weird to us nowadays, Barton was the one who truly believed business would save the world when the whole world believed business was corrupt;

- It's Barton who created the idea of TV sponsorship programmes;

- When everybody was selling burgers as burgers, Barton was the one who looked beyond the obvious. When he was handed the US Steel account, he could have written a relatively good ad with a line that read, "US Steel is the best in the business." Instead, he put, " Andrew Carnegie came to a land of wooden towns... and left a nation of steel." And this ad is now listed in The 100 Greatest Advertisements of All Time.

Genius.

And definitely more than a talent in advertising.

So, if you're asked to rank again 3 big names in advertising history in terms of greatness, what's your order?

For your information, my previous rank was 1) Bill Bernbach, 2) David Ogilvy. [And there was no third candidate on the list.]

Isn't it time to update yours?



-My big salutation to Bruce Barton (1886 - 1967). [And I was born in 1968...for Barton's incomplete mission?];

- Thanks to adkungfu.com for keeping my past works which I don't';

- If you want to know more about Bruce Barton, please read "The Seven Lost Secrets of Success" by Joe Vitale, published by Wiley.

Shyamalan, or not Shyamalan? That's the question.

Being the "Love Him or Hate Him" director is already a success.

To me, Shyamalan is a gifted story teller, esp. on teasing audience.

Every time I'm so drawn into the process, the controversial ending never bothers me.

Even when the mass think some endings suck, I really believe that's his intention -

To make some fun. With the audience.

Don't you feel the same in your home town? Every time when there's a Night's movie on, the disappointed audience are those who expect ending similar to the one of Sixth Sense. A big & witty twist without too big a logic loophole. But if every time the ending of Night's film is that expected, I don't think I'd appreciate him this much. And the mass would label him a man running out of ideas, or one who tries to replicate his own success ending up repeating himself.

If you buy in this, Lady in the water is not bad at all. At least he has heightened your curiosity for more than an hour.

And it's no easy task.