10 reasons why George Lois and Howard Luck Gossage would excel in advertising today

The other person often axed from these lists is Howard Luck Gossage, my personal hero, and the man Rory Sutherland once described as: "[the] Velvet Underground to Ogilvy’s Beatles and Bernbach’s Stones. Never a household name but, to the cognoscenti, a lot more inspirational and influential.” Gossage was a genius copywriter who, in one example, sent Fina petrol stations' sales through the roof with a simple call-to-action ad: The irony is I believe that Lois and Gossage would be far more suited to (and were far more visionary about) advertising culture and output today, than their more celebrated contemporaries, such as Ogilvy et al. And here are 10 reasons why Lois and Gossage, would kick their more famous contemporaries' backsides today:

1. Lois shaped the industry with his renowned ideology ‘The Big Idea’, which is now more central to marketing in this multi-platform age than ever before.
2. Lois believed his audience were clever (“not dumb”) so never pretended that he didn’t have a commercial message; instead he delivered it with enough charm or irreverence or “knock you on your ass” factor to ensure the audience chose to still consume it.
3. Lois never created ads that were nostalgic or patronising, and was inspired in his aesthetic by modernism, not referencing previous advertising forms.
4. Lois said all your ad campaigns must be built-in PR campaigns (it's called 'talkability’).
5. Meanwhile, Gossage made PR integral to his campaigns (well before it was de rigueur too), and well before anyone had ever heard the term interactive advertising or his term the 'ad platform technique'. He even created interactive ads for major brands like Land Rover, Eagle Shirtmakers and Qantas Airlines. As Jeff Goodby said: "He foretold what’s happening in the internet and social media."
6. Lois made the case, via personal example, that great graphic and great copy could come from one person, rather than only ever a copywriter and a graphic artist in combination.
7. Gossage gave his audience a voice – often with a response coupon on an ad, a predecessor to “Like on Facebook”.
8. Gossage charged a minimum rate to take on work, rather like agencies today who have a "we don’t pitch" policy.
9. Gossage set-up shop out of town, in San Fransisco, and insisted on staying at boutique size only – rather like some of Shoreditch’s most creative agencies today
10. Gossage helped a) launch the environmental movement b) created the first media-only agency c) pre-empted pay-per-view.

And the underlying reason Lois' and Gossage's special talents are truly timeless is perhaps because they both have and had the ability to not just borrow from and try to shape the advertising culture they operated in, but to dream of a marketing standard and form that had not yet arrived.Jono Marcus is client director at Inkling and is currently writing 50 Ways To Happier Clients, published this summer