As long as their are sucker CEOs and brand managers born every second, there will always be guys like Arnett to prey on the corporate idiots.
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It's not mine, however. I have a plane to catch. Which is a good thing—if I stay much longer I fear that my head might explode. Either that or I'll burst out laughing. After I leave it occurs to me that the way to understand Peter Arnell is to think of everything he does as a kind of high-stakes performance art. Not just the commercials and advertisements, but everything—the meetings, the memos, the celebrity phone calls, the crazy brainstorming genius shtick. When it works, it works. Who knows why? You can study it, but you can't explain it. So Peter Arnell seduced PepsiCo into forking over millions of dollars, and gave them a memo about perimeter oscillations and the gravitational pull of a soda-pop can. Is that nuts? Probably.
But guess what? While the new Tropicana box fizzled, Pepsi says Arnell's new logo for its soda cans is working. "Our business momentum has really changed," says Burwick, PepsiCo's marketing boss. "Customers like the new design. Our bottlers like it. We're happy with the work." I keep remembering something Arnell told me when we sat down to breakfast in New York. "It's all bulls––t," he said. "A logo on a can of soda? Please. My life is bulls––t." Did he really mean that? Maybe. Or maybe, like everything else, it was all just part of the act.
Inside the Mind of Pete Rarnell
With little more than a high-school education, Peter Arnell has created a reputation as a visionary adman. Often featuring stark black-and-white photography, his campaigns stand out. A selection:
On the Map
Arnell's most iconic work, the DKNY campaign— featuring building-size murals—was "extraordinarily instrumental in launching the company," says Donna Karan. It branded Arnell himself as a genius, too.
The Box Is the Ad
This Samsung microwave image became an unlikely hit.
Stamped in Steel
ConEd and the New York City Fire Department are two clients from the less glitzy part of Arnell's portfolio.
'Gravitational Pull'
The redrawn Pepsi logo resembles a smile. Rivals delighted in Arnell's pretentious pitch memo that leaked—but PepsiCo says sales are up.
Reebok's Revamp
"Terry Tate: Office Linebacker," which Arnell did in 2003, is one of the most popular Super Bowl spots of all time.
Out of Juice?
The new Tropicana carton was heavily criticized for looking too much like a generic store brand.
With Nick Summers in New York
© 2009
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