Man Who Helped Create ‘Daisy Ad’ Dies

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

Tony Schwartz, a self-taught, sought-after and highly reclusive media consultant who helped create what is generally considered to be the most famous political ad to appear on television, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 84.

His death was announced by his daughter, Kayla Schwartz-Burridge.

“Media consultant” is barely adequate to describe Mr. Schwartz’s portfolio. In a career of more than half a century, he was variously an art director; advertising executive; urban folklorist who captured the cacophony of New York streets on phonograph records; radio host; Broadway sound designer; college professor, media theorist and author who wrote books about the persuasive power of sound and image; and maker of commercials for products, candidates and causes. What was more, Mr. Schwartz, who had suffered from agoraphobia since the age of 13, accomplished most of these things entirely within his Manhattan home.

Of the thousands of television and radio advertisements on which Mr. Schwartz worked, none is as well known, or as controversial, as one that was broadcast exactly once: the so-called “daisy ad,” made for Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential campaign in 1964.

Produced by the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach in collaboration with Mr. Schwartz, the minute-long spot was broadcast on Sept. 7, 1964, during NBC’s “Monday Night at the Movies.” It showed a little girl in a meadow (in reality a Manhattan park), counting aloud as she plucks the petals from a daisy. Her voice dissolves into a man’s voice counting downward, followed by the image of an atomic blast. President Johnson’s voice is heard on the soundtrack:


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/business/media/16cnd-schwartz.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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The ad on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63h_v6uf0Ao

I was in 7th grade that year. I remember the ad - I can't tell you if I saw it during the movie or if I saw on news, but it sure left an indelible impression on me. Made me fear Goldwater.

Nuclear war hung over us like the sword of Damocles. I remember crying during Kennedy's broadcast during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I thought for sure that Pittsburgh being a vital industrial center would soon be a nuclear wastleland. That's why I still can't fathom how the hell a good part of this country would allow itself to be fear-mongered by the likes of Bush and Cheney!

[jgraz]

1. At this point, I'm just thankful he didn't work for NBC News.

[xxqqqzme]

4. I just turned on Countdown and NBC is still at it.

Let the man go!

[rpannier]

2. It was a hell-of-a-spot

Cheap attack... But very effective

[RamboLiberal]

3. Amazing that it managed to endure being only shown once

This was of course before the 24/7 news channels.

Today with the 24/7 cable news channels and the internet one could understand it where any ad like this would be played and analyzed to death. But in 1964 it amazes me that the ad was so powerful it became immortal.

[Johnny Noshoes]

5. I have a nice clean copy of it on vhs tape.

Got it from an archive tape at work. I should copy it to dvd to preserve it.

[Posteritatis]

8. Wasn't it discussed quite a lot, but just taken off commercial slots? (nt)

[Tab]

6. I vaguely remember it

probably from watching it re-run

but for the time it was pretty hard-hitting. I can still visualize the close-up.

[Whoa_Nelly]

7. Great website about the ad and the people

http://www.conelrad.com/daisy/index.php

RIP Tony

[LTR]

13. That's a great site!

I browsed around it a few months back. Interesting stuff.

[truedelphi]

9. I've read one or two political defense consultants who say what you are saying

In your last sentence.

"That's why I still can't fathom how the hell a good part of this country would allow itself to be fear-mongered by the likes of Bush and Cheney!"


WHen Jim Webb presented the Democratic rebutal to George W Bush's State of the Union a year or two ago, he basically said the same thing but he was using China as a reference. If we didn't need to fight China around the time that it got the bomb, and while it was arming our enemy in Vietnam, why do we need to worry about Iran, for Pete's sake??

[geiger]

10. An altered version of that ad appeared on this forum recently

It reminded me of meeting the man whose firm hired Scwartz. If you want the full story of how this ad came to be, read Ray Strother's book, "Falling Up: How A Redneck Helped Invent Political Consulting."

Strother is considered the father of American political consulting and recently received the lifetime achievement award from the American Association of Political Consulting. His book not only contains the account of the daisy ad, it tells the story of a person obsessed with "giving back" from a young age. The publishing world is awash with simplistic and incomplete "how-to" books; this book, however, is a thoroughly instructive political consulting text book that reads like a novel! Honorably and honestly, I believe he succeeded in creating a tome useful for academics and practitioners alike. He illustrates, through an accounting of his own career, why political consulting deserves to be treated and taught as a profession.

When this book first came out, I had the privilege to meet Mr. Strother and wrote a review upon his request: "It is the emotion of this book that is palpable and raw and real that offers the best insights.... If you ascribe to and want to help lift up the highest ideals of political service, involvement and enlightenment, then buy this book for your permanent collection. Compare your own bewildering consulting experiences to painful lessons learned by him. Liberate your political soul. Mr. Strother has made a difference; maybe you can, too."

[LTR]

11. Tony Schwartz, who helped create 'daisy ad,' dies

Source: Associated Press

Tony Schwartz, who helped create the infamous "daisy ad" that ran only once during the 1964 presidential race but changed political advertising forever, has died.

Schwartz, 84, died Sunday at his Manhattan home, said his daughter Kayla Schwartz-Burridge. He had been suffering from heart valve stenosis.

Schwartz, who started his career as a graphic designer, collaborated with a team from the Doyle Dean Bernbach ad agency to create the spot featuring a little girl counting aloud as she removed the petals of a daisy.

The scene then changed into a countdown to an atomic blast. President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democratic incumbent seeking re-election, did the voiceover with the line, "We must either love each other, or we must die" — a paraphrase of a famous W.H. Auden poem written to mark the start of World War II.

(more)

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/06/16/national/a114803D67.DTL&hw=daisy&sn=001&sc=1000

[whistle]

12. Barry Goldwater did say he wanted to bomb North Vietnam back to the stone age

...there was no mistaking that visual image and how Goldwater proposed to accomplish that