McGruff the Crime Dog, Take a bite out of crime - Compilation

Описание: History: Crime as a public concern
The decades prior to McGruff's creation saw an increase in U.S. public concern over crime. In the 1960s, a number of riots broke out across the U.S. and numerous public figures were assassinated, including President Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X.[3] Accepting the Republican nomination for president, Barry Goldwater positioned crime as one of the biggest issues facing the nation. While Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson, the issue of crime did not stop there. In July 1965, President Johnson formed the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice to "probe ... fully and deeply into the problems of crime in our nation."[4][a]

After two years and $2.5 million, the Commission delivered its report, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, in February 1967 which influenced the Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. The act gave $300 million to local police forces for more personnel and equipment.[9] With the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, the attempts to control rising crime rates shifted from a social approach—the "War on Poverty"—to a tough on crime approach—the "War on Crime". Despite Nixon's attempts, crime continued to rise from 363.5 crimes per 100,000 people in 1970 to 549.5 in 1979. The Carter administration took the focus away from crime and onto nuclear arms control and human rights. During Carter's presidency, crime continued to be a concern with the "kill for thrill murders" of 1979, when two men killed four people over eight days in Western Pennsylvania.

Creation
The Ad Council was first approached by the Department of Justice in 1977 to create a public campaign to engage the public in reducing crime. The FBI director recommended a campaign playing on fears to convince citizens to take personal safety steps, but the Ad Council rejected their proposal believing it would largely be ignored by an already frightened public. However, the Ad Council was still interested in a crime prevention campaign. Leo Perlis, a member of the Ad Council's Public Policy Committee, heard the proposal and liked the idea. He met with FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley, the head of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and a board member of the National Sheriffs' Association to form a coalition to direct the ad campaign.[11]

The Ad Council gave the creative responsibilities to Dancer Fitzgerald Sample who they had previously worked with on the Keep America Beautiful campaign. On February 8, 1979, the Ad Council's board of directors held a meeting where they and public officials met to listen to data Dancer Fitzgerald Sample had compiled. Dancer Fitzgerald Sample had conducted focus groups in a number of cities to determine public perceptions on crime. The focus groups found that the public believed police should be the ones to prevent crime, but that they were unwilling to pay more in taxes to support more officers. They recommended a campaign which would "emphasize that individual actions can reduce crime" and "offer easily accessible opportunities for people to participate."[12]

The task was given to Jack Keil, executive vice president and creative director of Dancer Fitzgerald Sample. Keil, thinking of Smokey Bear, came up with the idea of an animal mascot. After coming up with the slogan—"Take a bite out of crime"—he settled upon the idea of a dog. His first version was "a Snoopy look-alike wearing a Keystone Cop hat."[13] His creative team however did not believe the dog would be taken seriously. In response, he gave the team a day to come up with a new version.[13]

Five teams of two—a copywriter and an art director—produced proposals. The rejected proposals included a bulldog version of J. Edgar Hoover, a golden retriever, an "aggressive-looking deputy dog", and a "mongrel who became a wonder dog".[14] The proposal Keil selected, which would go on to become McGruff, was a talking dog in a trench coat produced by Sherry Nemmers and Ray Krivascy who "was tired...he had seen the world, and he had epitomized all the detectives we had seen from Raymond Chandler to Dashiell Hammett and even Columbo."[14]

While lauded by Keil, the U.S. Department of Justice was less enthused by the idea of a talking dog as the spokesman for crime prevention. By 1979, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), created by President Johnson, was being criticized for its wastefulness prompting President Carter to shut down the program. The public safety outreach, part of the LEAA, was one of the few programs saved by Robert Diegelman who was tasked with dismantling the LEAA.

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGruff...