I've worked with Mark on a number of assignments. What always amazed me about his point of view, was his entry point to an ad. It wasn't formulaic in anyway. You could not imagine a similar headline or copy. Yet it stuck you in such a compelling way. And you appreciated the fact that it spoke to you in a way you didn't see coming a mile away. One assignment was for Lincoln, and the introduction of a of a luxury truck called the Lincoln Blackwood. It was one of those trucks that made you wonder, who drives this? We did a couple of ads for it. Mark's lines were: You Don't Explain It. It Explains You. And: Nobody Will Know What You Do, Everyone Will Wonder. Those thoughts are not coming from the manufacturer, they are coming from inside me, the consumer. Or for Aspen. If you are a skier, at some point, you have to make it to Aspen. His thought, over just the image of the mountain: Has A Religion Ever Convinced You As Certainly. Or for a new desktop computer from Sony that allowed you to draw on the screen: Normal People Don't Need This, But It's Here, if You're A Bit Extraordinary. To compel someone to stop and recognize that I haven't seen anything for other products within the same category, expressed quite that way, is very tough to do, unless you come from a place that Mark does, refusing to adopt the formulas of speaking that are replicated by so many other creative teams. Whenever I worked with Mark, I anticipated that how he would express an idea or a thought, would not be like any other creative I had worked with. And that was an exciting experience.
Oh god, I miss him too. I still have a cassette of a session I did with him just for the outtakes and his off-the-cuff remarks. We were lucky to be in the business when it was populated by giants. Though you wouldn't want to tell Mark that.
This is great, Ernie. A service to the industry. All hail to Fenske!
I've worked with Mark on a number of assignments. What always amazed me about his point of view, was his entry point to an ad. It wasn't formulaic in anyway. You could not imagine a similar headline or copy. Yet it stuck you in such a compelling way. And you appreciated the fact that it spoke to you in a way you didn't see coming a mile away. One assignment was for Lincoln, and the introduction of a of a luxury truck called the Lincoln Blackwood. It was one of those trucks that made you wonder, who drives this? We did a couple of ads for it. Mark's lines were: You Don't Explain It. It Explains You. And: Nobody Will Know What You Do, Everyone Will Wonder. Those thoughts are not coming from the manufacturer, they are coming from inside me, the consumer. Or for Aspen. If you are a skier, at some point, you have to make it to Aspen. His thought, over just the image of the mountain: Has A Religion Ever Convinced You As Certainly. Or for a new desktop computer from Sony that allowed you to draw on the screen: Normal People Don't Need This, But It's Here, if You're A Bit Extraordinary. To compel someone to stop and recognize that I haven't seen anything for other products within the same category, expressed quite that way, is very tough to do, unless you come from a place that Mark does, refusing to adopt the formulas of speaking that are replicated by so many other creative teams. Whenever I worked with Mark, I anticipated that how he would express an idea or a thought, would not be like any other creative I had worked with. And that was an exciting experience.
That was the exhilarating thing about Mark. You never saw it coming. Not the way he saw the world. Not his ideas. None of it.
Oh god, I miss him too. I still have a cassette of a session I did with him just for the outtakes and his off-the-cuff remarks. We were lucky to be in the business when it was populated by giants. Though you wouldn't want to tell Mark that.
Probably not:)
Wow, those must be some special memories to hold onto. It’s amazing to have those moments captured.