Culpwrit

 

By Jill O’Mahony Stewart

News that Six Flags is closing  two parks in Maryland made me nostalgic for one of the greatest campaigns of my PR career. And it made me think about how it came to be.

Brainstorming in the agency world is the most fun part of the job. Our creative director at Burson-Marsteller was the cleverest and hardest-working person I knew. He led brainstorms well-prepared and came ready to draw out the best ideas from the sharpest people in the firm.

We produced award-winning campaigns and bottom-line results. I was part of many great campaigns, but this one stands out – “Dramamine Screamers: America’s Meanest Motion Machines.”

Though I managed the logistically challenging campaign, I wasn’t at the brainstorm where colleagues came up with the brainchild to ride and rate the nation’s best roller coasters. It was an amazing adventure involving actual stuntmen, the author of “The Great American Amusement Park,” and members of the American Coaster Enthusiasts, all taking a cross-country tour of coasters while subtly promoting Dramamine as the sponsor. The author was our official spokesperson, and the stuntmen shared wonderful, behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories that media folks loved.

The idea was to associate fun, not motion sickness, with drab old Dramamine, in this audacious campaign.

Spanning the summers of 1983-1984, we went from theme park to theme park across the country riding and rating coasters. And we caught everyone’s attention: the media, the parks, and the public with our PR stunt. Sales increased. We won awards. Swag included T-shirts, buttons, posters, and even a table-top scale model of a roller coaster comprised of the best dips and drops from the best coasters in the USA. Of course, we also developed a standard press kit with news releases, bios, and backgrounders to give reporters plenty of material for their coverage.

Though I was only a senior account executive, when I told founder and chairman Harold Burson I was on the “Dramamine Screamers” team, he clearly knew all about it.

Fast-forward: I am both fascinated and terrified by generative AI and its implications. So, I thought it would be fun to recall this very creative and successful PR campaign and compare it to what AI might do with the same prompt today.

 

Prompt: How to make a tired old motion sickness product exciting?

Recently, I gave the free version of ChatGPT the same “tired old product” prompt. In seconds it came back with a detailed campaign plan that any PR account team could execute. But there was one big difference from original 1980s Screamers program to today’s ChatGPT campaign: it was boring – even predictable and rather trite.

Here’s its “big idea.”

🪄 Big Idea / Campaign Theme “Go. Feel Good.” A movement encouraging people to embrace motion — from daily commutes to global adventures — without fear of nausea or dizziness. Tagline: “The world’s moving. Go with it.”

Meh.

Where’s the excitement? Where’s the publicity angle? Who cares?

As a writing teacher, I think about the perils and potential of generative artificial intelligence in the classroom. I confess: it is irresistible. The speed. The breadth. The depth. Even the formatting.

There is no doubt that AI is an effective tool for brainstorming. So, get on board. But – and it’s a big “but” – at this stage of its development and use, consider that generative AI actually homogenizes creative work and reduces diversity of thought and experience among groups. [Doshi, Hauser, July 2024]

The more I learn, the more I yearn for the experiential human element, not just a rehashing – albeit with excellent grammar and syntax – of pre-existing material in the online universe. I long to be in the room with creative thinkers where great ideas happen.

Rather than immediately defaulting to generative AI, I’m advocating a “best of both worlds” approach: tap the wisdom of the team within your agency or company first, then complement that human genius with the amazing resources and breadth of generative AI.

The “Dramamine Screamers” experience taught me that the “big idea” is essential to revitalizing a tired old brand. And so far, those big bold ideas still come from the account team.

Transparency statement: These are my own recollections and observations from the 1983-1984 Dramamine Screamers campaign. I used ChatGPT to develop a hypothetical modern version and shared a portion of it here.

Jill O’Mahony Stewart is a writing teacher, coach, and an adjunct faculty member of both DePaul University’s College of Communication and the School for Continuing and Professional Studies. She holds an M.S. from Boston University in public relations and an M.A. from DePaul University’s School for New Learning. She loves helping students and young professionals improve their writing skills – more and more that means using AI strategically. 

Roller coaster artwork credit: Burson-Marsteller Dramamine Screamers campaign poster, 1984