How to Sell a Raisin: An Interview with Ad Man Mark Keller

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak with Mark Keller, former ad man and current Creative Director at Loudville Studios. In this interview, Mark gives an inside look at the life of an ad man, explains just how spot on Mad Men’s portrayal of the business is and muses about… California raisins. Enjoy!

Interview with Ad Man Mark Keller

How did you get into advertising?

I’ve been doing it for a long time. I just stumbled into the advertising world as a musician. In the beginning, a local ad agency in Oklahoma City (Ackerman McQueen) was looking for somebody to do a jingle for 7-11 Icy drinks. The local radio DJ recommended me so I went in and ended up with a job as their music director.

I worked there for some time and then one day there was a job opening for their art director. I thought, “I can do that.” So now I’m an art director.

(laughs)

While I was the art director, we did this magazine ad for a Texas boot company. The creative director for Foote, Cone and Belding saw the advertisement and said “We need him for Levi’s,” so they contacted me, brought me on board and sent me to work at their biggest creative branch in San Francisco.

Be honest, is advertising anything like what we see in Mad Men?

In the creative department of an agency, no one is checking to see that you show up, they just want you to get the work done. My clients were very happy with the work being done.

(laughs)

How did you get back into doing music for advertisements?

While I was working for Foote, Cone  and Belding, I was the one singing on the Levi’s commercials and that was against corporate policies. I was warned a number of times by the head of the agency and I would say, “OK,” but then I would go and do it again.

He was like Sterling; he didn’t really have any power.

Then Mike, the creative director, came to me and suggested I be a supplier. So, I quit the agency and became a resource for many advertising agencies. Foote, Cone and Belding became one of my main clients.

How has advertising changed since you entered the industry?

Today, there’s a lot less original music being done for advertising. There’s so much music that doesn’t cost anything thanks to online music libraries. Anyone who’s good with GarageBand is uploading tracks to libraries. These days, it’s more common for agencys to just search online for a piece of music to use.

Fast food still wants to hear their names sung. Last year we only did music for fast food.

We still do music for media. But what we’ve tried to do here at Loudville is evolve. We lean towards video production that is music driven. Now we do music videos and capture live performances and things like that. There isn’t as much opportunity to do jingles as there once was. It has changed a lot. It’s not really good or bad. It’s just different.

If writing jingles was all I could do to get by, that would be tough. But it’s opened up the door for anyone with a home studio to get his or her music used. That didn’t exist 10 years ago.

How is creating music for advertising different from creating music for music’s sake?

I felt very lucky to be creating so much music and working with creative people and getting paid for it. But the music was disposable. We weren’t creating songs that would become a part of the American musical landscape. But, I had the opportunity to work with a number of people who I admired. I could say, hey, let’s get Johnny Cash to sing this. And it was justified. The same with Willie Nelson and Little Richard. Usually, you don’t have the opportunity to call one of those people up and say, “Hey, do you want to do a commercial?”

But, the best music for advertising is strategic. Not every music guy understands marketing. We aren’t picking a style of music because we like that music. It needs to be justifiable. We have to be able to say that this in some way has to tie into the overall strategy of the commercial. Whether it’s catching the ear of our target audience or tying into the product in some way.

You worked on the famous Singing California Raisin claymation ad campaign. What was the creative process like for that campaign?

Well when I came in they already had the song chosen, but I suggested adding California to it. The art director, Dexter Fedor who’s now at Disney, and the writer Seth Werner came up with the idea of the dancing raisins. After the client approved the concept, they decided to do it with clay.

The client we’re talking about here is the California Raisin advisory board. It’s a bunch of farmers who came together and decided to start marketing raisins from California.

(laughs)

I sang on the first version of the commercial and it was so successful we realized we needed to find new ways to do it again. We got Buddy Miles to do a second one, and that one won a Clio. Then we realized, “Hey, we can get anyone to do this, let’s get Ray Charles.”

And we did.

Then Michael Jackson woke up one day and decided he wanted to be a raisin. They couldn’t afford to hire him, so he required final creative control. That was an interesting experience. It was the era when he was doing Bad. I met with him on two occasions and we kept going back and forth because he would think of something else to add. He would say, “I want Jim Barnes to play the bass, because he’s got the feel,” or “I want a snare like Fine Young Cannibals”.”

We even did a theater version of that commercial. It was an extended version that ran in theaters. You don’t see those anymore.

My kids actually thought “Heard it Through the Grapevine” was a California Raisins song.