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Tuesday 13 September 2011

Is truth stranger than fiction? Here's another dash of religious fervour - true this time

Curvin O'Riellly who used to work at Ogilvy and before that Y & R tells a true story relating to the one I posted earlier:

This reminds me of something that happened years ago at Y&R.

My creative director, Tony Isidore, and a couple of his partners, Bob Elgort and Marv Lefkowitz, had created an absolutely sensational campaign for the NY Urban Coalition. The tagline was famous: “Give jobs. Give money. Give a damn.”

Predictably, the network censors objected to the word “damn.” So the agency said, “Okay, tell you what. Go see Father O’What’s His Name (I was never told his name) at the archdiocese.”

The good father talked with the network censors, nodding his understanding of their problem with the word “damn.”

“You know,” he said in his brogue as he leaned forward, “I too have been having a problem with ‘damn.’ I think it’s completely inappropriate for a cause as serious as the Urban Coalition. I think the tagline should be ‘Give a shit.’”

What a pleasure to see idiot censors done down for a change.

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