Book Review: How McGruff and the Crying Indian Changed America: A History of Iconic Ad Council Campaigns, by Wendy Melillo

Abstract

How McGruff and the Changed America: History of Iconic Ad Council Campaigns. Wendy Melillo. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2013. 240 pp. $27.95.What Wendy Melillo wants you to know about the Ad Council is that it is not about the ad.[The] objective has never been solely to improve society, Melillo concludes in this survey of five legendary each a case study of the Council's agendasetting scope and reach. In fact, as Melillo details throughout, the Council has doubled as a public relations device deployed by the ad industry since the Council's founding in 1942.Melillo is an assistant professor in the School of Communications at American University and a Pulitzer Prize-nominated former staffwriter for the Washington Post. As the book's well-sourced and engagingly written first two chapters explain, formation of the non-profit Ad Council-which in 2010 generated $40.5 million in revenue- was strategic: Aligning the Council's brand with messages to reduce litter and wear seatbelts (to name just a few successes) blunts criticism that Mad Men advertising is to blame for our unsustainable consumerism. Melillo also sees a link between the Council's regular conferences with high-ranking government officials and its ability to serve U.S. policy by shaping public opinion.While the book spends too little time contemplating how the Council's purpose and methods will evolve in a digital age, readers are indebted to Melillo for analysis even as we are lefthoping for more narrative. Just about every case study is introduced by some version of, To understand why campaign X focused on issue Y, a brief history lesson in ABC is in order . And a good story certainly exists: amply presented are the geopolitical hazards, board room dissensions, ad agency frustrations, frail egos, and sleights of hand (that teary is the son of Italian immigrants) that form the Council's history.The way Americans think about social problems and how these problems should be solved (have) been directly influenced by messages in Ad Council campaigns, Melillo observes. She devotes one chapter each to placing hallmark campaigns in historical context: Smokey the Bear (1944), Crusade for Freedom (1950), Crying Indian (1971), A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste (1972), and McGruffthe Crime Dog (1980).The Ad Council has five regional offices and main headquarters in Washington, DC, and New York; represented on the board are corporations like Apple, MasterCard, the Spanish Broadcasting System, JPMorgan Chase, FedEx, and KraftFoods. According to the Council's mission, suitable issues must involve a significant public matter. They must lend themselves to messaging that stimulates action that makes a measurable difference. …