St. Pete's own: Ad legend, 'Where's the beef?' creator Cliff Freeman closes up shop

Wake up and good morning. Cliff Freeman & Partners, the once hot-in-the-spotlight New York advertising agency founded in 1987 by St. Petersburg's Cliff Freeman, is no more. It is closing after losing most of its remaining clients.

Freeman, credited with such classic one-liners as "Where’s the beef?" for Wendy’s and "Pizza! Pizza!" for Little Caesar's, wrote his first idea for an ad when he was an 18-year-old senior at Northeast High School in St. Petersburg. He later went on to St. Petersburg Junior College and graduated from Florida State Universitywith a degree in advertising. At its peak, Cliff Freeman & Partners was considered one of the more successful New York advertising agencies of the 1980s and 1990s.

New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott recently reported that calls to telephone numbers listed for the agency were answered by recordings that say the numbers are no longer in service or disconnected. And AdAge.com and AdWeek.com reported scenes of empty offices and boxes being packed. A Fast Company piece on Freeman early this year indicated trouble was coming.

Freeman was reported to be down to a handful of clients, including Baskin-Robbins, the Michelin Guide and Saudi Arabian Airlines. The agency had lost several large accounts, among them Bonefish Grill-- started in his hometown of St. Petersburg and now owned by  Outback Steakhouse parent OSI Restaurant Partners -- and Quiznos.

Here's NYT Elliott's take on the passing of an advertising era:

"The end of Freeman is another example of the toll being taken by the recession on the advertising industry. In past hard times, agencies that lost clients and senior managers could pull over to the side of the road, re-engineer themselves and get back in the race. But the severity of this downturn has made such overhauls terribly hard to pull off."

The Freemans moved to St. Petersburg when Cliff was 6. His parents opened up the Flag Ship motel and Sea Rocket motel on Redington Beach. Freeman spent his summers on the beach and his high school years at Northeast High, where he admits he was more interested in chasing skirts than pursuing studies.

After graduating from Florida State University with a degree in advertising, Freeman still wasn't sure he wanted to go into that field. In 1968, the ad agency McCann-Erickson in Atlanta offered him $10,500 a year to work on a Coca-Cola account where he coined the Coke slogan "The Crowd Pleaser." That won him notice from New York and the rest is, more or less, advertising history.

Here's Advertising Age's last recent glimpse of Freeman:

"Few doubt that Mr. Freeman, 67, himself will resurface. The question is where -- and that's one he's not answering. Asked Friday (Oct. 30) in the elevator on the way into what was left of his office, Mr. Freeman had no comment as he walked back to the cardboard boxes that contained the remnants of his agency."

Freeman's biggest claim to fame? His 1980's one-liner -- "Where's the beef?" -- delivered by actress Clara Peller in a Wendy's ad (shown above). Those three words catapulted into an all-purpose phrase questioning the substance of an idea, event, or product. The phrase was even used to great effect in the 1984 U.S. presidential election when the Wendy's commercial-- at its height of popularity -- was used by Democratic candidate and former Vice President Walter Mondale to ridicule the candidacy of his rival, Senator Gary Hart.

Hart had taken the lead over Mondale based on his repeated use of the phrase "new ideas." When Hart once again used the slogan in the debate, Mondale leaned forward and said, "When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad, 'Where's the beef?'"

Might be a great time to revive that one-liner.

-- Robert Trigaux, Times Business Columnist

Consumer Reports gives high marks to Outback, Carrabba's, Bonefish and First Watch

Several area-based restaurant chains -- Tampa's Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's Italian Grill and Bonefish Grill and Bradenton's First Watch -- get two thumbs up in the just-released surveys in the July issue of Consumer Reports. (Outback photo by Thomas M. Goethe of the St. Petersburg Times.)

Tampa-based Outback Steakhouse fares well in a steak tasting competition. Consumer Reports says it sent two "trained testers" to Morton's The Steakhouse, Outback, Applebee's and TGI Friday's -- a total of 12 restaurants in five states -- to order a medium-rare New York strip steak plus cheaper cuts for comparison.

While Morton's got an "Excellent" grade for its 20-ounce steak, it cost $53. Right behind was Outback with a "Very Good" for its 14-ounce, $22 steak. (Applebee's at $18 and TGI Friday's at $17 were both "Good".) Here's Consumer Reports take on Outback:

"Although Morton's strip steak bested the rest, Outback's was very good and cost far less. It was also consistent in quality from one location to another."

In the Consumer Reports survey, based on 70,403 consumer responses to the Restaurant Satisfaction Survey, Outback received a 78 reader score, putting it on par with the comparably priced Bugaboo Creek Steak House, below the comparably priced Black Angus Steakhouse (score: 81) but above the Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon (score: 77). Outback is part of privately held OSI Restaurant Partners in Tampa, which also controls such chains as Carrabba's Italian Grill (which did well in the "Italian" category of the survey with an 83 score) and Bonefish Grill (tops in the "Seafood" category with an 84 score).

First Watch (see photo of employees), founded in 1983 in Bradenton, ranked first (score: 86) among 23 restaurant chains in the "Family" category The chain bills itself as the "largest privately owned, daytime-only restaurant company in the country." It operates more than 75 restaurants in 11 states, including six in the Tampa Bay area stretching from downtown Tampa to Clearwater to Wesley Chapel. (Photo courtesy of First Watch.)

Kudos!

-- Robert Trigaux, Times Business Columnist