Hal Riney, whose ad genius and voice made him a legend, passed away from cancer yesterday at age 75.
There is not a lot to say that hasn’t been said: he was a good man, was excellent at this advertising thing and I still look to his campaigns for inspiration. He did great work.
Among his best:
I know that I am late to the game on this, as this article and the furor at Agency Spy and the SSF thing happened in the summer.
But Pat Fallon is, and always will be, an advertising legend.
He gave me my first shot at advertising, gave me my first heave-ho from advertising and all in all he and the people at Fallon are responsible for damn near most of what I know about the business. And I am not the only one.
Beyond that, he built one of the best creative agencies in the entire world, responsible for game-changing work on a myriad of clients. The agency won Print Campaign of the Decade for the 1980s AND the 1990s. The agency did work so good that Cannes created a category just for its BMW Films. The Citibank “Live Richly” campaign changed a category. I could go on.
In Pat’s words:
“I don’t want the day-to-day, 24/7 any more,” said Fallon, who is also a single father of three young children. “I want to pull it back a little bit.”
At 61, it probably is time to slow down. Here’s hoping that they figure things out in Minneapolis and return to glory.
the daily (ad) biz 