michael jackson pepsi commercial hair on fire

michael jackson pepsi commercial hair on fire

Michael Jackson’s amazing hair-on-fire video, unearthed by US Weekly today, was not only a watershed moment in Michael Jackson’s personal story—it is said to have started his addiction to prescription pills and his facial transformation—it was also a famous part of advertising history.

Phil Dusenberry, the legendary ad executive and “Mad Men” prototype who died early last year, wrote a 2005 memoir which originally appeared as “Then We Set His Hair on Fire.” ( The name was later changed to the more prosaic “One Great Insight Is Worth a Thousand Good Ideas: An Advertising Hall-of-Famer Reveals the Most Powerful Secret in Business.”

Dusenberry’s agency BBDO, part of Omnicom Group now, had as perhaps its most valued client Pepsi, and he oversaw the famous 1984 commercial. Dusenberry writes that Jackson had insisted that he wear sunglasses in the video. That was a non-starter for the ad man, and he threatened to shut down production if Jackson didn’t lose the shades. Jackson caved.

But in another confrontation with Dusenberry, Jackson turned out to be right. A Wall Street Journal book review described Dusenberry’s account of the incident:

“Although Mr. Dusenberry was paid handsomely to deliver big ideas to BBDO clients until he retired in 2002, he admits that the agency’s best suggestions sometimes came from outside the shop. In 1985, Pepsi-Cola execs suggested that the ad agency cast Michael Jackson in a commercial for its signature soda. The singer was signed, but he insisted that the agency show only lightning-quick glimpses of his face in the spot. The request infuriated Mr. Dusenberry at the time. But when the commercial ran he realized that it was a good idea. “The more you hold back,” Mr. Dusenberry writes, “the more people will clamor.” Of course the ad got a lot of extra publicity because, on the studio set, Mr. Jackson’s hair caught fire from an exploding special-effects fireworks tower.”