Sunday, May 17, 2009

Emo Philips Salutes Literacy

Emo Philips is a comedian who was born in Downers Grove (IL), just west of Chicago. His comedy is offbeat to say the very least.
Philips was a popular comedian in Chicago, appearing regularly at various comedy clubs. He had recorded a few comedy albums and had done some acting, too.
I thought Philips was a longshot to appear in our NIE ad series at Lerner Newspapers. Of course, at that time, I thought all of my prospects were longshots, although Laurie pushed me to take those longshots
Sportswriter Rick Telander was my first attempt and my first success. As I waited for our graphics department to put together Telander's ad, I sent out a few more proposals.
Philips responded very quickly, in his own quirky style. Inside the envelope were a few handwritten index cards, each with a different quote about reading. I would have loved to incorporate these index cards into the ads, but I don't think the humor would have come through. Plus, simply putting together the regular ad seemed challenging enough for our graphics department. Instead, I ran each quote on a different week, for a month full of Emo!
Yes, April of 2003 was Emo month. I received a handful of emails about this ad. That is a handful more than most other (non-NIE) ads received.
A 'Salute to Literacy' quote from Emo Philips.

3 comments:

Steve Gierman said...

Always loved Emo Phillips. I would crack an even bigger smile whenever I would see Emo pop up in a Weird Al project.

Johngy said...

Landing Emo for the NIE series and having him give us 4 different quotes was very cool. I didn't want the ad series to be totally serious and Emo certainly kept it light.

laure said...

Oh how I love Emo.