By John David Snyder
Brian Maxwell, founder and CEO of Powerfood Inc., maker of PowerBar energy snacks, is a busy guy. He's going after the lion's share of a $100 million market, and he gets to the point quickly when asked about Aaron Stern ('95).
"Aaron Stern has done some absolutely brilliant work on our radio campaign. We're very pleased with it. It's been advertising that people have been talking about," Maxwell says. "They walk up and tell me how funny those things are."
In advertising, talking is good. Such word of mouth leads straight to the bottom line.
When Powerfood Inc. hired San Francisco-based Citron Haligman BedecarrŽ last year to handle its $7 million advertising account -- the first time the company has gone outside to hire a full-service advertising agency of record -- it fell to 1995 grad Aaron Stern to create a campaign for PowerBar.
The challenge: with a limited budget, widen PowerBar's appeal from athletics and recreational circles to the general consumer.
"Seven million dollars isn't very much money," he says. "Most of that went to the media to buy space and air time, so there was not much left for production.
The choice was made to try a radio campaign.
''Radio is inexpensive. And it's a small percentage of a full mix of print, television and radio," he says.
"It was a tight deadline. After I got the assignment, in one week I had to write 10 radio spots; there was no money, and it was the weekend before Thanksgiving," says Stern, 25. "I was extremely stressed out because there were no visuals; it's all the product of your own idea. And each of the ads had to be regional, homespun, not like Gatorade, not real slick.
"You just write, throw it away, write again," he says. "People were telling me not to worry: radio is hard."
What Stern, an accomplished copy writer, came up with that weekend were spots for San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Dallas and Chicago that still have people laughing -- and buying PowerBars.
You've probably heard them: unrehearsed phone calls to unsuspecting businesses in the target region, initially innocuous, and opened with Stern's pleasant sincerity.
"We did cast for it; we heard dozens and dozens of actors and stand-up comedians," he says. "We were looking for something like our demo, which I did, so I ended up doing it.
"And yes, they were all ad-libbed. We got the other people you hear to sign releases after the spots were taped.''
In the New York spot, Stern is shopping for a mattress. The guy on the line is helpful enough for a New Yorker; he figures the sale's in the bag. The whole thing is real low key. What are we listening to? This sounds real.
Then the twist: Stern wants to know how heavy the mattresses are, you know: "Can I carry them home? I'm eating a PowerBar."
It's almost a David Letterman prank. Our real-life clerk is trying to save the sale, but it's no good. He's got some guy on the line convinced PowerBar can give him the energy he needs to lug box springs across Central Park.
"What? You're crazy; you'll kill yourself."
"Well, what if I have two PowerBars? That ought to be enough."
For Powerfood, it's a sneak-attack sale: obviously unpolished, not targeted to marathon runners or Olympic hopefuls. Stern sounds like one of us, he's not Madison Avenue, and we identify with the authentic.
Powerfood CEO Maxwell confides that the spots have had a positive effect on the numbers. He won't say exactly how positive, but one gets the sense that he's happy.
Stern's boss, agency cofounder Tom BedecarrŽ, told a San Francisco Business Times reporter, "PowerBar dominates the energy-bar market like Gatorade dominates the sports-drink market, yet there is so much room for the company to grow over the next several years."
"You never know if something's going to work," Stern says. "Now they're spoofing those spots; they've entered the popular culture. I heard that in Seattle someone called up a local radio station and asked to hear a PowerBar commercial. That's kinda cool," Stern says. "People identify me with it; it's nice to do some work that got noticed."
But that's as far as he'll take the self-congratulation.
Although his work on PowerBar, Peets Coffee and Tea of Berkeley, Copper Mountain Resort and the San Francisco Opera, which won him a silver Effie for "La Boheme," have each lent a cachet to Stern's credibility, awards collection and portfolio, he isn't entirely comfortable with his profession.
"Part of me doesn't like advertising," Stern says flatly. "When I listen to the radio I sometimes get annoyed. Ads are more prevalent than ever, and especially on the Internet, with the whole guerrilla advertising thing, even spray paint on walls. You begin to think it isn't all that redeeming."
Guilty by association, he spreads his hands in surrender.
Stern also derides the industry's excessive reliance on entertainment. It has some people working exclusively in pursuit of awards, he says.
"We're all kind of a slave to that; people don't care if their advertising works as long as it wins. All this outlandish, creative, wacky stuff and people forget they were selling beer," he says.
"And you just can't go into it thinking: This ad sucks but it sold a lot of bars of soap. I don't think that should be what motivates us. Everybody wants to work on Nike, but it's becoming a parody of itself," he says.
Stern says his best work has been on ads that make people laugh, smile and think. He's sure about what's valuable to him in his career: the exposure to talented individuals, fresh ideas, other industries and the arts.
"Advertising is a melting pot of different fields in which you're not isolating yourself in a specialty. Every day you start from scratch and challenge yourself to be original, to live up to your own standards," he says. As for the awards he's winning: "I don't care what 10 guys in New York think as long as I'm happy."
Associate Professor Larry Weisberg says he thinks Stern is a man to watch.
"He's going to be one of our first big stars. You can tell when someone is really focused; there's no bravado, no big fanfare," Weisberg says. "Aaron's very quiet, but he gets under your skin in a positive way."
Weisberg helped Stern land his first internship at Denver's McClain Finlon, and that turned into a first job in his senior year. By the time he was through he'd won best of show from the Denver Advertising Federation for EAS software and Crested Butte print ads.
"At first McClain Finlon basically said, 'You can go sit in a corner and work on whatever comes in. It was pretty unstructured," Stern recalls. "So there were a lot of opportunities to get involved.
"I shadowed other writers on their projects, stuck with them to see what they were up to. They were great; they're still friends of mine.
"When I landed the Curtain Hill Sports assignment in Vail, and won the show in Denver, that seemed to be a huge accomplishment," he says.
According to Stern, while much success has to do with being in the right place at the right time -- and knowing the right time to break the rules -- almost nothing can substitute for a good internship.
"It's a foot in the door. I'd advise people who are serious about their career, people without a 'book,' to take advantage of an internship; it's not just something you may need to graduate." A "book" is a creative portfolio.
Stern could not be happier about his new home in San Francisco. Finishing coffee at a trendy little spot off Levis Plaza near The Embarcadero, he says, "This is probably one of the best creative cities in the world. There are people out here who continue to raise the standards. I'm continually learning."
