Commercial National Bank

Transcription

I finally did a campaign in the late sixties for a bank. They were an old fashion bank with old fashion customers. All of whom were either dying or about to. And they were trying to replace those people with younger customers. I decided that there wasn't anything to talk about. So, I went to the president of the bank I said, "You know, I think what we ought to do is to take some of your money, and go out and get a whole bunch songwriters to write a song about young people and their lives and how their lives are changing and things like that And I can't tell you what the song is because I'm not a songwriter, and I can't even tell you what the commercials are because I can't tell you that till we do the song. And he said, "Well, that's not (pause) that's pretty vague! Song playing (We've only just begun) "We've only just begun to live. White lace and promises, a kiss for luck and we're on our way. We've only just begun, before the rising sun." We got Paul Williams to write the song for us, "You've only just begun" which became number one or two in the nation. So, not only did we have a nationwide hit, but we had some really kind of remarkable commercials for the time, because they really didn't say anything. Except that, "You've got a long way to go and we'd like to help you get there. That was it." All we were doing was reflecting people's lives and doing it in a way that touched that audience. Well, they came to the bank in swarms. Asking for money and stuff like that and the bank finally decided they didn't want them there because they didn't have any money and the bank didn't want to give them any money if they didn't have any collateral. So, they killed the campaign eventually and got rid of it. But, in the mean time what they did with the campaign is they franchised it to to banks all over the country. So, it was the beginning to getting some attention to the stuff that was going on in San Francisco or could go on and eventually did.