Historic Car Ad Man Willy Hopkins Passes
 Laughingman Willy Hopkins |
By Bob Gordon
The Auto Channel
Louisville, KY
AUTO CENTRAL - November 2, 2015: Because of my fortunate geographic location and a good friend, I was introduced to Willy Hopkins by Marty Bernstein, himself an iconic automotive advertising guy, who believed in fate, with Willy then living in Louisville, and our digital publication, The Auto Channel, being a pioneer in the automotive space on the web, it was logical that I know Willy and Willy know me, so we could share thoughts on what we had been doing for almost twenty years and what Willy thought about it.
As a virtual outsider and absolute newcomer to the Laughingman List, an august group of Willy Fans, Friends, Mentors and Students, I was amazed and delighted to know that in today's world of “selfies” “me-ism's” and “what have you done for me lately's” it was still possible to share love, concern and respect among peers, not for any reward but just for the act alone.
Well, over the few years I knew Willy, we did talk, both on the phone and during Mad Men type lunches at Lillys on Bardstown Rd., Willy's favorite restaurant, owned by a long time friend of ours. Alas, as so often happens with opportunity, I did not take advantage of the situation, a regret that will last with me.
When Willy passed a few weeks ago, I shared in the e-responses from Willy's friends on the "Laughingman List" and through a discussion with Marty, thought it would be ok to, in some small way, memorialize Willy through the thoughts of those dear to him.
So to that end I am starting with the two below and will continue to expand this article as new stories are submitted and become available for publication.
Please submit your stories to the "List" and let me know if its OK to publish them.
Thanks, Bob
Laughingman (Willy Hopkins)
Goodson does lunchtime chats
By Scott Goodson
Founder, CEO
January 13, 2009; About two years ago, StrawberryFrog was pitching for the US Hyundai account. I was invited to attend a few events where the Hyundai management were speaking. One event was the introduction of Genesis. There, I sat beside a man named William K. Hopkins II, Willy for short. Turns out he was a rather extraordinary person. He had me glued to my seat listening to his stories for most of the session. He had worked on the agency side with some of the most respected car brands. He knew everyone in the room and they knew him. For someone who had recently moved from Amsterdam to start the US office of StrawberryFrog, I couldn't have met a nicer, funnier, more informed person. We kept in touch and then a few months later I started receiving "laughingman" emails from him, featuring articles which he deemed important to people building car brands. At first there was about 10-15 people cc'd on these emails. Two years later there are a LOT of names, too many to count. And the articles keep coming, sometimes a dozen a day. So for my next Lunchtime chat I thought it would be fun to interview the car adman turned "automotive daily candy man".
Tell me about your Career?
After Columbia, while I was waiting for my invitation to take Bill Clinton’s place in the United States Army, I joined a D production SCCA racing team as a wrench spinner, and built some very fast cars…nobody ever caught us cheating. After the Army (Medical Corps), I was living with Danny Sullivan in New York when his Rabbi, Dr. Frank Faulkner, sent Danny to England to learn how to drive, and got me an interview for the Technical Director slot at the Automobile Competition Committee for the United States. They gave me an air card, a phone card, and sent me around the world as the representative of United States automobile racing interests. (How do you improve on a job like that?)
Woodward and Bernstein convinced me go back to Columbia to study Journalism. Morris Holbrook (at the Graduate School of Business) gave my thesis an honors; and while I was running it around town in hopes of publishing same, Jack Grossman offered me a job as research director on the RJR business at The William (I’d Walk a Mile for a Camel) Esty Company.
Camel Lights was my first new product introduction. Esty’s brand new Datsun business was headed up by George Beach, who wanted to go racing. A year later, we were hanging around with Paul Newman in Bob Sharp’s trailer on our way to the SCCA, SSA North East Regional Championship…nobody ever caught us cheating. (How do you improve on a job like that?)
Bob Rees made me an account supervisor on the Porsche+Audi business at DDB (and let me continue racing with George); Helmut Krone made me a copywriter on VW; Carl Ally put me to work on Saab, Piper, Canadair, and whatever else needed help at Ally and Gargano; Bob Rees made me the management representative on the VoA business, and marketing director for DDB; Bill Backer brought me over to Backer & Spielvogei to pitch and launch Hyundai; Jay Chiat hired me to pitch Nissan; Arthur Einstein brought me in to pitch and run Saab; Jim Jordan brought me in to pitch anybody and everybody, and sent me off to consult for the likes of McKinsey and Co. (How so you improve on a job like that?)
After my neck “troubles,” Steve Levit brought me into Lunch during the Reed Bull launch, and then into Saatchi & Saatchi for projects such as the Prius and “Moving Forward” campaign launches.
It has been a hell of a ride.
What have been the highlights: Work, People, Experiences ?
Good question.
Well…first; Five Effies; three Addies; two Agencies of the Year; one Clio; and the most successful new imported automobile launch, ever, could be considered highlights…but that is just other peoples’ perceptions.
I am enormously proud of the people I have had the honor of working with…all of them. There is no way you can pay…or frighten…people into putting in the kind of effort needed to produce the above mentioned quality or work…and there is no way you can do quality control after the fact. They do it because the want to, they do that because they know you will fight to get it published…they do it for each other.
Helmut and I became close enough to use each other as sounding boards…when I told Helmut I was leaving DDB to join Ally, his response was:
“Have you told anybody else yet?”
“Well…yeah, I told Bob Rees.”
“You dumb shit. Ally is only one floor up on the elevator…and nobody around here ever knows where you are, or what you are doing…you could have kept both jobs, and nobody would have ever known.”
That was a highlight.
Carl Ally taught me how to fly…and set up double dates with his most recent wife’s older sister
That was terrifying.
When the last love of my life cut me off at the knees, causing more than a bit of…distraction…Jim Jordan demanded a “command” appearance at Trader Vics, at 7:00 PM on a Friday evening…ostensibly for an update on the progress of our Amati pitch. When I arrived I found Jim sitting at a table with all six of his (then) unmarried daughters. Jim kept ordering me “Suffering Bastards,” with an increasingly funny excuse accompanying each one…easily one of the most memorable evenings of my life…to the extent that I can remember any of it.
What are your regrets..?
I regret that I allowed myself to be defined by a job for so many years.
I regret that I broke my neck.
I regret that I was physically unable to attend Hunter Thompson’s physical launch in Aspen.
I regret that so many of my friends and heroes have had the bad manners to shuffle off this mortal coil ahead of me.
I regret that I haven’t been able to use my “bonus time” more productively.
What Defines You ?
My father was a theoretical physicist out of CalTech, and did his post grad work in Germany in the 30’s…was arrested as an American spy, and subsequently spirited across the Swiss border on skis by the American “State Department.” He later worked on the “Manhattan Project,” and signed Einstein’s letter.
My mother was admitted to the University of Utah at the age of 16, earned a masters degree in “Microbiotics,” and spent the end of her career working in Calvin A. Lang’s lab at the University of Louisville on RNA research…and used up most of my high school summers learning and practicing the Scientific Method.
I grew up with the Scientific Method…the importance of being able to replicate results before you can claim cause…or spend other peoples’ money to produce same remains what defines me.
What are you up to now?
Damn good question.
Editing and publishing the Laughingman news letter.
Still consulting for former clients, various media entities, and writing a column for Art Spinella.
The single best thing about being an advertising weasel is that it requires the commitment to be a perpetual student.
I have also been evaluating some reading and creative writing papers from Kentucky college hopefuls for the State…doesn’t pay much, but the insights into the next generation’s thinking is…inspiring.
Five Years from now?
The way this economy is going? Probably playing the guitar in some New Orleans bordello, singing songs about the benefits of short term temporary indulgances…experience is not expensive…it is priceless.
Who are your heroes, who inspire you?
Carl Ally, Bill Bernbach, Bill Backer, David E. Davis, Jr., Jim Jordan, Tom Messner, Helmut Krone, Bob Sinclair, Jimmy Williams…if you work hard enough, long enough, and smart enough to produce positive results, you earn the opportunity to do things your own way.
What advice would you give to the agency world?
David Ogilvy went out and talked to consumers in the stores where they shopped…and sales went up. Bill Bernbach put an art director in the room with the copywriter, and revolutionized the business. Carl Ally put an account guy in the room, and sales went up yet again. Jay Chiat put an account planner in the room, and revolutionized the business yet again. Martin Sorrell put an accountant in the room, and the public has been reaching for the remote ever since. We are on the cusp of another creative revolution, and it has nothing to do with the internet…it will be driven by the same factors that drove the last creative revolution…the public’s longing for wit and wisdom in the work. Read Howard Gossage. Study Helmut Kkrone.
Remember Bill Bernbach…”Today, everybody is talking about ‘Creativity,’ and frankly that’s got me worried. I fear least we keep the good taste and lose the sell. I fear all of the sins we may commit in the name of ‘Creativity.’ I fear that we may be entering an age of phonies.”
Thoughts About Willy From Pen P.
I have so many incredible memories of Willy, but two stories, one very simple and one a bit more complex, come to mind.
I was interviewing to be one of the first batch of employees of the newly formed West Coast office of Backer & Spielvogel, the NYC agency famous for it’s Miller Lite commercials, and Mr. Backer’s previous creative directorship of the Coca Cola account at McCann-Erickson where he – not Don Draper – penned the “I Like to Teach to World to Sing” commercial.
Willy and crew had won the Hyundai account and were launching the new automotive brand into the United States. It was an incredibly exciting – and historical – mission to accomplish and I wanted to be a part of it.
I was interviewing for an Account Executive position for the regional marketing side of the account – to be the “home office” conduit for the people in four field offices, as well as the oversight of the regional creative development and production.
But at first, I was put off by a few things. The office was in Huntington Beach, but nowhere near the beach, it was right off the 405 in a bland, shiny, brand new office building, surrounded by other bland/brand new buildings, including three cheesy chain restaurants all trying some variation on the TGI Friday’s model. All of which felt like an alien land to snobby little me, having worked near downtown LA right across from the Bullocks Wilshire building for three years and living in Venice. And there were no creative people yet!
Not a one.
The office was slated to produce the regional creative with the national ads to be done in New York, but now New York would do the first round of regional creative. Hmmm...only the first round?
I was coming off a job where I was responsible for getting at least one print ad (sometime five) created and produced every week (Honda motorcycle “race win” ads for Cycle News, a weekly newsprint magazine). About 20 creative guys on the account, hundreds of ads, some even award winners. I spent about 80% of my time with the Creatives – what if this new place decides to do all the creative out of New York? And who the hell would I go to lunch with?
And besides no creatives, there were only about 15 people in the whole office, which after coming from a shop with 200 employees was beyond bizarre.
It took all of 5 minutes to be introduced to the whole staff.
And then there was my potential new boss. He seemed to know little about advertising. This was only my second job and I had been in the business for only three years at this point – right out of school. But it seemed like I knew more than this guy (and he even seemed a bit dim as well), and that confused me because that wasn't how it was supposed to be – right?
I was starved for mentorship and it seemingly wouldn't be this guy. Turns out he was a former tchotchke salesman (key rings, pens) in Detroit who was installed in his job by a Hyundai client, an old pal. (And no one on this list!) And...I was very wary about “bosses” – because I had just been fired at Dailey & Associates in the middle of a crazy political shake up where the top guy on the Honda motorcycle account had been fired for complicated reasons, leaving the two group leaders under him to fight it out, with my boss losing and getting fired and the other guy (someone I had no respect for at all) becoming my boss.
I lasted only a couple months, being eventually told by the new boss, “You don’t respect me...” And all of this was pretty nuts because I had been the golden child with my former boss. Seems that fortunes can change pretty fast in the ad agency biz. But – even that Dailey guy was sharper than this potential new boss, so the whole situation was just very perplexing. Enough to give me great pause – maybe this whole industry is more messed up and complicated than I realized (....duh!).
But after that first interview with my new potential boss – which mostly consisted of me being asked how an ad agency works – literally, because he didn’t know and wanted to learn – I got to interview with....Willy Hopkins.
Willy’s office was plastered with old DDB Porsche and Audi print ads and SAAB ads and just tons of cool stuff that Willy had been connected to in his career.
And Willy of course opened the interview with a witty aside. And all of my fears went away. It was in my nature to be pretty intimidated by people of Willy’s stature and position, but his office – with him in it – felt like....well, it felt like home. A new home. Not mommy/daddy home, but professional home.
My experience at Dailey was great, but I had never felt like this before. It was probably the most comfortable I had ever felt with any type of authority figure. The rapport between the two of us was immediate. Hell, he was even a motorcyclist! (I had been riding since I was kid, and at that time I was road racing, so I thought “car guys” were wimps – “So, you went fast...on all four wheels...well that’s...uh..impressive...”)
Even though I was very young, very green – and an account person – I was a huge advertising geek. I knew all about Doyle, Dane, Bernbach and VW, I knew who Bill Backer was and I could quote my favorite parts of Jerry Della Femina’s Book “From the Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor.”
I was in Willy’s office for two hours.
Needless to say, I took the job, but tired of my direct-report supervisor’s increasing paranoia about the relationship I had with Willy – “What were you guys talking about for so long? Was it about me?” – as well as the lack of creative development responsibility. (Not surprisingly, Willy was never a big fan of this guy, nor the fact that he was forced to hire him in the first place, so they were in a constant state of battle.
A couple years later I had to give a deposition in a lawsuit he filed against Willy and the agency for unlawful termination – as his witness!) (My initial assessment of him being “a little dim” turned out to be a massive underestimate...)
But the connection to Willy, what I learned from him, what I took in, was what truly cemented me to an industry that gainfully employed me for over 30 years (instead of writing “31 years”, I instinctively wrote “over 30 years”....an adman till the end, I suppose...).
I had found the mentor I had hoped to one day find, and Willy’s ongoing place in my work life as a mentor and later, also as simply a friend and even an occasional colleague, was one of the brightest points in a career filled with my share of bright points. When I left Backer & Spielvogel only nine months later, I went to work at Chiat/Day – on the Porsche account.
To Willy Hopkins: an adman till the end.
Oh, my other story: the first time I rode a motorcycle to work, I happened to pull up as just as Willy was walking away from the parking lot into the building. He asked if he could take it for a spin. He was gone for two hours.
And I’ll add a bonus story – “Wait! There’s More!!” – Upon telling Willy that my marriage (to an actress) was seriously on the skids, he told me with great wisdom and that Willy Hopkins twinkle in his eye, “Pen, you don’t buy actresses, you lease them.”
I’m ready for big steak and a shot of bourbon for lunch.
