Was it better before? At the time of the 80s, when a advertising does not hesitate to display on all the walls of France and Navarre, a pretty girl in a bikini, which promised that soon «it would take away the top». In an autobiography titled just I remove the top* , written in a tone of amused, Pierre Berville, one of the creative, the most inspired of the 1980s, tells the story of his odyssey in the world of advertising.
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In this book, sub-titled The bottom of the pub in the golden age , the ad explains how, after studying literature at Nanterre he penetrated almost as a dilettante, a middle that after 1968 is not prohibited anything.
With a sympathetic kindliness, would you agree with an air of mocking, Pierre Berville, reveals in Figaro how a slapstick joke launched at a lunch event was born a campaign that began at the end of the summer of 1981, France in an uproar.
LE FIGARO. – In your book, sub-titled The bottom of the pub in the golden age, you are sometimes critical vis-à-vis the advertising. Why this paradox?
Pierre BERVILLE. – Everything is in the sometimes. I hate the pub when it is taken too seriously, it becomes boring and especially that it forgets its primary calling, which is to entertain, to make sympathetic the brands express. Hate, no. Dislike, yes, when she comes out of this definition.
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It is believed to understand by reading you that may ‘ 68 was the year zero, the stumbling block of the golden age of advertising, and yet you seem to be severe with the ideology that is attached…
The harsh words are linked to my personality but it remains not less true that this period is synonymous with a liberation of ideas, an incredible bubbling spiritual. This bloom was one of the levers of the pub. I would like to stress that the most beautiful of the slogans has been: «It is forbidden to forbid.» But I also remember Nanterre where I was pursuing my studies. I was able to observe a human comedy, which were sometimes smile with his retinue of personal ambitions, baratineurs, beautiful speakers, which made me look at this phenomenon with a lot of backtracking.
What offset is it, according to you, the secret of the success of your advertising campaigns?
You answer » yes » would be a claim without a name and, moreover, I do not believe that there are secrets, or recipes that would find a compelling slogan. On the other hand I think that my personal education, which is oriented from childhood to writing and reading, combined with my penchant for observation amused by my contemporaries have served me well in the business of the pub. Hindsight and distance are certainly necessary qualities to the advertiser wants to avoid wallowing in political correctness.
You mention in I removed the top Federico Fellini and Georges Lautner. How do you explain that filmmakers have not signed of good commercials?
It is necessary to moderate this connection. This is completely true for Fellini, and a little less for Lautner. For the Italian Maestro, which I admire the engineering, it must be remembered that the pub Campari was a commissioned work. It may have been served by the formats of advertising in Italy, which were now endless. It was therefore necessary to furnish. Fellini is a master of the seventh recognized for its formal elegance, its know-how graph. The figure imposed from the pub was certainly the polar opposite of his talent. As for Lautner, he is better suited because it handled more easily, more naturally, humor. It is an asset to a campaign. But I must say that it is the advertising of know used these great soloists. A pub successful, it is the addition, even the communion of many talents.
Precisely how have you designed the campaign cult, with your team, I removed the top ?
Stay humble, this campaign remains a kind of miracle. We wanted to find an idea sassy that never disappears in the gravel. An idea that would grab the one who looks without the shock. Four decades later, we can say that it was successful as it is studied in the schools of communication as far as South America. It has become the symbol of the golden age of the pub but I can’t help thinking that today it would be simply prohibited.
* I remove the top, below the pub in the golden age of Pierre Berville, Editions Aquilon, 424p, 24,90€
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