Making The Big Pitch -- Seattle Ad Agency Wins Competition For Alaska Seafood Industry Promotion

Last week, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute awarded its $15 million advertising account to McCann-Erickson of Seattle and its two partners, Bradley Communications of Anchorage and Anderson/Rothstein of San Francisco. The battle for the account offered the rare opportunity to see McCann and two other Seattle ad agencies, Evans/Kraft and Elgin Syferd/DDB Needham, in competition.

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ANCHORAGE - It is 8:15 p.m. on a Monday night and some members of McCann-Erickson's advertising team are grumbling about yet another rehearsal for tomorrow's presentation to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. They've been trying to fine-tune their performance since before noon and nerves are fraying.

With 16 hours to go before McCann and its partners take center stage, some of the poster-sized magazine ads the agency has created haven't yet arrived from Seattle. During a rehearsal, McCann Creative Director Jim Walker gestures towards an empty easel.

Then there's the burly, bearded, tattooed Anchorage actor hired to give a two-minute soliloquy about the hardships and rewards of an Alaska commercial fisherman's life. McCann's campaign calls for turning Alaskan fishermen into folk heroes - the kind of real guys with the guts and brawn needed to catch real Alaskan seafood - and the actor is supposed to drive home the message. But during the last rehearsal he needs prompting three times from Ron Klein, the McCann copywriter who wrote the speech. As the actor finishes, Klein, balancing a warm soda on one knee and looking nervous, tells the actor to ``go home and memorize. Just memorize.''

And there is at least one technical glitch: Every time the video equipment used to show some of the commercials the agency has produced is turned off, it screeches like a needle scratching across a record album. ``This has gotta go. This is ----,'' mutters Klein, pushing the equipment toward the edge of the room.

But tomorrow's presentation and the two weeks of hectic work that have preceded it is the stuff of which advertising mythology is made.

These are the times when copywriters and artists stay up nights scribbling on yellow pads and cocktail napkins to come up with the right ``concepts,'' and when agencies try to dazzle prospective clients with research, business acumen and a heavy dose of showmanship.

Not long ago, McCann, which has held the Alaska Seafood account for a year, sent the 18 members of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute a pair of red, leather boxing gloves announcing that the agency would be back again this year to deliver ``another knockout.'' Before last year's competition, McCann sent each board member an aquarium containing a couple of Siamese fighting fish and a message reading, ``We're excited about having bigger fish to fry.''

By the time tomorrow's round of sales pitches is over - McCann faces competition from Elgin Syferd and its Anchorage partner, Porcaro Blankenship, and from Evans/Kraft - board members will be offered seafood hash hors d'oeuvres served in little baskets, and souvenirs, including golf caps, fish-shaped barbecue grillers and sets of dainty hors d'oeuvre-sized forks and knives with handles shaped like fish.

The board also will be shown ``concepts'' for commercials. Elgin Syferd's montage of quick scenic shots of roiling Alaskan seas, swimming salmon and rugged fisherman will be accompanied by a roiling version of the 1968 rock 'n' roll rebellion anthem, ``Born to be Wild,'' by Steppenwolf.

Elgin's theme, ``Alaska seafood - catch the taste of the wild,'' will contrast sharply with McCann's, which shows footage of rugged, weather-hewn fishermen hauling in heavy nets in foul weather.

But, instead of Elgin's rock 'n' roll vision of Alaskan

fishing life, McCann's commercial will have a spiritual bent. As the footage rolls in slow motion, what sounds like a trio of women gospel singers belts out a heartfelt hymn that sounds straight out of a Baptist Church, although it was actually written by Seattle composer Norman Durkee. Its lyrics are, ``Cast your nets upon the water, and bring it on home to me . . .'' It may not quite evoke the apostle John fishing the Sea of Galilee, but it's close.

Finally, the board will be enticed with such promotional possibilities as McSalmon burgers, Elgin Syferd's idea for a new McDonalds' menu item, and Evans/Kraft's idea to send a ``grill team'' to travel the nation's supermarkets in a ``finmobile.'' The team of chefs would be dressed in barbecue aprons and salmon-shaped headgear and would set up barbecues in supermarket parking lots nationwide, offering samples of Alaskan seafood.

But tonight, McCann is interested only in smoothing out its own pitch. To open the final rehearsal, Rod Bradley, president of Bradley Communications, strides to the front of the room with a red boxing glove on his right hand. Reading from notes, he jabs the air now and then to make his point. ``We never start anything we can't finish,'' he says determinedly. ``So we're here to deliver the knock-out punch.''

To precisely choreograph their performance, the team is rehearsing in the same Anchorage hotel conference room in which they will make their pitch tomorrow. Elgin Syferd reserves the room for its own rehearsals starting sometime after 10 p.m. Mindful that their competitors will be in the room soon, the McCann team packs up all props and notes as though they were the blueprints to the atom bomb. A Bradley staffer suggests checking the trash cans in case any of them thoughtlessly threw out notes.

Though it's difficult to imagine Elgin Syferd sifting trash to ferret clues to McCann's strategy, the presentations are serious business. The account is one of the biggest in the Northwest. It's also potentially one of the most glamorous, offering the winning agency

the chance to promote a product that already is popular with consumers and imbued with the mystique and the romance of Alaska.

Because of a protest that Evans/Kraft made last year after losing the account, which it had handled for seven years, the state of Alaska decided that the board made a few technical mistakes in its handling of the decision. As a result, McCann was awarded the account for only one year rather than the usual three, and a new review was held this year.

Just getting this far into the competition means that agencies have spent considerable time and money. McCann estimates that the presentation cost $20,000 to $25,000 just in out-of-pocket expenses, including production of speculative commercials and magazine ads and the agency's traveling expenses. That sum doesn't include the cost of the time spent by the creative team in coming up with a new campaign.

Advertising agencies are filled with people who like to think of themselves as wild and crazy. And, like college roommates short-sheeting each other's beds, the agencies aren't above pranks. As the staff packs up the props, Hank Barber, McCann's Seattle office general manager, scribbles a note on a piece of yellow paper and strategically leaves it on a chair for the Elgin team.

It says, ``Rod, (referring to McCann's Anchorage partner Rod Bradley) salmon for the 2,000-gallon tank should be here by 9:30. H.'' Last year, the McCann team's presentation included an 8-foot refrigerated display case filled with 200 pounds of seafood.

At 10 a.m. the next day, the institute's board and a few staff people file into the conference room where Elgin Syferd has been setting up and rehearsing since 4:30 a.m.

In this year's presentations, Elgin Syferd is the dark horse - an agency with no historical ties to Alaskan seafood but with a solid track record of effective advertising and public relations.

Dave Marriott, Elgin Syferd senior vice president of public relations, beams like a happy host as he gestures the directors toward the conference tables, now elegantly covered with white linen table cloths, pink flower arrangements and small servings of seafood hash.

The name Elgin Syferd, isn't mentioned once during the review, with Elgin Syferd, instead, stressing its new affiliation with DDB Needham, an international agency headquartered in New York which bought Elgin Syferd last year.

The strategy helps the team position itself as the Northwest branch of part of a big, powerful agency with plenty of national clout. That is further stressed when the team rolls a video of Keith Reinhard, DDB Needham chairman, delivering a personalized sales pitch.

Wearing a fish necktie, Reinhard talks about DDB's experience in promoting food, mentioning that DDB created Juan Valdez, the happy Colombian farmer who helped position Colombian coffee as a premium product. DDB also has promoted such well-known brand names as Betty Crocker, Yoplait, Hershey and Wheaties.

``I hope you agree,'' Reinhard says earnestly into the camera, ``that we'd be the catch of the day.''

Unlike some reviews in which competitors are asked to give prospective clients open-ended advertising ideas, the institute asked agencies to recommend marketing solutions to a problem already troubling the Alaskan seafood industry: how to position Alaska salmon, which are caught in Alaskan waters, as superior to farm-raised salmon. Farmed salmon is grown internationally and accounts for about half of all salmon sold worldwide.

All the competitors suggest ``branding'' Alaskan salmon. Each agency comes up with a generic seal that could be used as a logo in advertising, as a sticker to affix to fresh or frozen fish, or as a symbol, something like the Good Housekeeping seal, stamped onto canned Alaskan salmon.

Evans/Kraft's pitch comes next. It is notable for its lean use of props, though the agency does display a video of the editor of a seafood-industry magazine who glumly explains that farm-raised salmon are taking over the market.

Mike Mogelgaard, creative director, holds up a bottle of Picante-brand salsa, explaining that it is popular with consumers partly because it is made in Texas, a place where consumers expect to find good salsa. Similarly, he says, Alaskan seafood needs to market itself as the ``real'' seafood. The seal he suggests shows a sketched outline of red salmon and says, ``Real salmon, from Alaska.''

Mogelgaard, whose agency was bought by Evans/Kraft earlier this year, is considered a persuasive presenter. But this morning, it appears that his strategy is a soft-sell approach. His presentation is brief, to the point and devoid of the enthusiastic cheerleading favored by some of the others.

The presentation ends with the entrance of eight tuxedo-clad teen-agers each carrying a plate containing two raw salmon steaks, one displaying the ``real salmon'' label. The board members look at the steaks for a few moments before the teen-agers file out. Mumbles one, ``I wish we were having one of those for lunch.''

But still on the agenda before the board's lunch break is the McCann/Bradley presentation. Tucking their notes under their arms, the board members - most of whom either run fish-processing or fishing businesses - head back to the first conference room where Elgin's props have been replaced by McCann's big color photos of craggy-jawed fishermen.

Troublesome kinks appear to have been ironed out since last night. After an unexpected moment of darkness and a few thunder claps, the actor appears at the front of the room and, dressed in a red watch cap and black oilskin overalls, gives a dramatic and flawless rendition of his speech. He concludes that the thought ``of all those people in their cozy little houses who can taste the fruits ofour labor . . .'' is ``something to be proud of . . . something no fish farmer (here he snarls) can give this country . . . Alaska salmon.''

A round of applause from the audience. Walker shows a few prospective magazine ads, one of which promises that ``Alaskans go through hell and high water to bring you Alaska salmon.''

Afterwards, the McCann team retires to the bar of a nearby hotel. Exhausted, the group nervously awaits the vote. Members of the other agencies already have dispersed around town, and some out-of-towners, such as Marriott, are on planes heading south.

But it is still surprising when an hour later, as the board announces its decision, no one from any of the agencies is in the room. The vote is close (six votes for McCann and Bradley, five for Elgin and Porcaro, four for Evans/Kraft). It takes a few minutes for word to get across the street to the McCann team. Then there are cheers, whoops and screams and a call for champagne.