Book excerpt: Looking back at Michael Jackson's Pepsi ad

— -- Excerpt from the chapter titled Going Orbital from the book Then We Set His Hair On Fire: Insights and Accidents from a Hall-of-Fame Career in Advertising, by Phil Dusenberry; Penguin Group, 290 pages. Dusenberry relates the incidents leading up to Jackson's participation in a Pepsi commercial in which his hair was accidentally set on fire by pyrotechnics:

Let's face it. Much of the work we do in our industry doesn't set the world on fire. But every once in a while, if the advertising gods are smiling, something you do takes on a jet-propelled life of its own and lifts off into outer space. Your idea, your client, your message go orbital.

BBDO had a long wonderful relationship with Pepsi, ever since 1960. However, by the 1980's, Pepsi had lost some of its hold on its very own Pepsi generation. It was time to go after the next generation – their youngsters.

This is what was on Roger Enrico's mind (the new President of Pepsi-Cola USA). He needed something big.

Critics say that when an ad agency resorts to celebrity advertising, it's proof that the agency is out of ideas. But we had something else in mind. Use a celebrity, but not just any celebrity, the biggest one we could find, and put him or her in a carefully scripted scenario that functions like a mini-movie, with a beginning middle and end.

We were ratcheting up the stakes – going after Michael Jackson– the prince of pop for his first-time-ever TV commercial debut.

Recognizing a mega-idea when he saw one, Roger jumped on it. It doesn't get any bigger than having the number one star of his time pitch your product.

Pepsi's Alan Pottasch and I met Michael at his Encino, Calif., home. Michael was waiting for us with his father, Joe, and his attorney. We were meeting to nail down the last minute odds and ends that arise in any elaborate production. As we settled into a pleasant pro forma confirmation of what we had agreed on, Michael said in his familiar soprano tone: "I just have three things to say. One, I don't like the storyboards. Two, I don't like the song, Three, you can't show my face."