BBDO Pleads for Life, Liberty, and a Day Off

It's not often that ad campaigns by ad giant BBDO get a personal plug from the C.E.O.

BBDO New York Chief Executive John Osborn sent an email to his entire staff earlier this week asking that they sign the online petition the company is orchestrating on behalf of client Guinness, to make St. Patrick's Day a national holiday.

The petition needs one million signatures by midnight on March 16th and has so far collected about 100,000, a Guinness spokesperson said.

On February 13th, an open letter to Congress from Guinness, asking to acknowledge St. Patrick's Day as a national holiday was published as a full-page ad in USA Today. But that's apparently not enough for BBDO New York, especially when Saatchi & Saatchi is trying to outbid them for the campaign to commemorate Guinness's 250th anniversary in December 2009.

In his internal email, Osborn appealed to his employees' patriotism as well as their loyalty to the firm. "I'm talking about stuff like standing up for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!" he wrote.

He then encouraged staffers to forward the email around: "We are asking all BBDOers, their families and friends, to do their part to support this movement."

With two weeks to go, it will be a stretch for the petition to get the 900,000 more signatures needed to reach BBDO's arbitrary goal.

Looks like it's time for Osborn to really dig deep into his email address book.

by Andrea Chalupa