One-Upmanship

The shirtsleeved editor of Holiday Magazine stared pensively from the top of the full-page ad in the New York Times. "An open letter to Ted Patrick from 12 of Holiday's 3,263,000 readers," ran the caption. Underneath was a glowing testimonial to Editor Patrick, 62, and the signatures of Patrick's reader-admirers. The whole thing looked just like what it was: a promotion ad, bought and paid for by Holiday's parent, the Curtis Publishing Co. But that wasn't all it was.

To begin with, Editor Patrick knew nothing about the ad until he saw it in the Times--and his surprise was not altogether agreeable. "If I'd known they were going to run it," he said, "I would have tried to stop it." In the second place, the ad applauded Editor Patrick's "indifference to the pressures of advertisers and the heckling of publishers." Publishers rarely buy ads to confess that they heckle their editors, or to praise their editors for resisting.

The signers were the heads of some of the nation's most successful agencies, and the ad was conceived and written as a bit of sly one-upmanship by Madison Avenue Adman and Bestselling Author David (Confessions of an Advertising Man) Ogilvy, 52.*

Since Ogilvy's agency does not have the Curtis account, he was somewhat surprised when Curtis swallowed his ad whole. No objections were raised to the ad's suggestion that Patrick had been heckled by his publishers--perhaps because Patrick's publishers, if they ever were in a mood to heckle him, have since changed their minds. Of Curtis' four magazines for adults, Patrick's Holiday is the only one that has consistently shown a profit during the company's calamitous but recently checked decline (TIME, Dec. 20).

Pleased by public response, Curtis President Matthew J. Culligan called Ogilvy's ad "one of the great media ads of the decade." Others obviously agreed. Next day, by startling coincidence, Look Magazine ran a full-page paean to its editor, Dan Mich. Adman Ogilvy could harvest the rich rewards of having concealed from Curtis, to the very end, his true motives. "I belong," he said last week, revealing his purpose at last, "to the society for the enthronement of editors and the subordination of those space peddlers who get to be publishers. I've been nauseated by the way those fellows at Curtis have been kicking their editors around. There is only one good one left. And my ad said 'Hooray for him.' "

* Who not only signed, but was also responsible for preserving an error in the ad. In getting permission to use the signatures of Ogilvy's colleagues, Curtis ran into a willing Chicago adman, added his name to make the total 13. But Ogilvy refused to change the figure of 12 appearing in the ad's caption. He was superstitious about using 13 in ad copy, he said.

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