In the 1980s, the advertising community stood in awe of Fallon McElligott, the small Minneapolis agency that dominated every awards show on the planet, and in every medium. (I’m showing just print and outdoor here because the quality of the video is hopelessly degraded in most cases.)
If you feel you’ve seen lots of ads like the ones above, it’s only because the entire industry scrambled to emulate the Fallon style of writing and thinking. The effect reverberates even today, especially since headline-driven concepts are now making a comeback.
You might rightly note that the ads for The Wall Street Journal feel a lot like the ads from Abbott Mead Vickers for The Economist:
Both campaigns launched around the same time in the mid 1980s. I seem to recall that the Economist work came out first, but I would say that Fallon developed a more in-your-face American tone in its work, while Abbott’s campaign stayed very dry and British.
You can see more from the Fallon archives at Dave Dye’s wonderful blog.
