West Coast Agencies Pick Up Top Clio Awards

Milk got it.

The “Got Milk?” commercial featuring a historian trying to talk with his mouth full of peanut butter won one of the most coveted awards in advertising Saturday night--the Clio Award for the best television commercial of 1993.

And the complete ad campaign for Apple PowerBook, which features diverse people who use the same personal computer for a variety of reasons, won the Clio Award for the best multimedia ad campaign of the year.

Both of the big winners were created by West Coast ad agencies: the California Milk Processor Board ad by the San Francisco agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, and the Apple ads by the Los Angeles office of BBDO Worldwide.

The eyes of the ad world were focused on the West Coast over the weekend, as the 35th Annual Clio Awards ceremony snubbed New York City for the first time and held the “Oscars of Advertising” ceremony in San Francisco.

For the Clio Awards--if not Madison Avenue--the event represented a substantial step back toward respectability. Its image was severely strained three years ago in New York City when disappointed ad executives stormed a stage to grab Clio statuettes after a botched Clio ceremony was halted. Ownership of the Clio Awards has since changed hands twice.

Ad entries and attendance were up considerably this year. And ad executives say that the Clio Awards wisely gave an overdue nod to ad creativity by hosting the ceremony in a city generally regarded as the current focal point of the nation’s best advertising.

“This is the country’s creative hotbed,” said Jim Smyth, executive director and owner of the Clio Awards, who noted that the ceremony will return to San Francisco next year.

Although California TV viewers are very familiar with the “Got Milk?” ads, few others are. It is a regional campaign rarely seen out of state. While the campaign always shows humorous examples of people running out of milk at just the wrong time, the reason behind it is very serious: Milk consumption in the state has dropped 17% since 1980.

Jeff Goodby, creative director, said the ads simply try to be honest about the occasions when people drink milk.

“We could make ads until we’re blue in the face, but not many people are going to come in from jogging on a hot day and drink a tall glass of milk,” Goodby said.

The other big West Coast winner, BBDO/Los Angeles, won a Clio for its combined TV, print and billboard campaign for Apple Computer’s PowerBook.

Each ad asks: “What’s on your PowerBook?” Celebrities who are polar opposites list their reasons for using the same personal computer. “The only thing the people in them have in common is their PowerBooks,” said Steve Hayden, chairman of the agency.

Later this summer, Fox Network plans to run a TV special featuring the winning ads.

A tiny Boston agency, Doyle Advertising & Design, picked up an impressive 11 Clios--including nine for a public service print campaign for the National Assn. of Atomic Veterans, a group of veterans who developed cancer after post World War II atomic tests.