Harley Earl TV Ad Campaign for Buick with Bonus Footage
For a few years, 2001-2004, Richard Earl succeeded in rallying key auto execs of General Motors on their rich design history. Being the standard-bearer of Harley Earl’s automotive styling legacy, Richard vocally presented his research findings on America’s automotive design legacy to many of McCann-Erickson advertising execs and Buick brand managers, and his idea went on to light a fire under a powerful new GM exec, Bob Lutz, who fast-tracked the Harley Earl TV ad campaign into reality. “It was amazing, for GM is legendarily slow moving but Lutz quickly pushed a new idea through the system to align Buick’s live spokesman, Tiger Woods, alongside screen actor John Diehl, who went on to play Harley Earl in all the TV ads. These commercials were filmed by leading Hollywood director, Tony Scott,” said Richard Earl who also signed the legal contract to start the ad campaign and acted all along as a consultant on the campaign. Richard continued saying, “the agreement allowed GM’s Buick brand, and their advertising agency McCann-Erickson, the legal right to use ‘Harley Earl’s name, likeness and image’ for a 5-year period. Over $200000 million dollars was spent on the Earl advertising campaign during its lifespan.”