In the early 1970s, the madcap advertising executives Ron Travisano and Jerry Della Femina were struggling to find a gimmick to sell an undistinguished brand of pet food. Watching interminable and unremarkable footage of cats eating, Mr. Travisano and an editor, Joe Lione, spotted one that kept opening and closing its mouth in a manner that appeared to simulate singing. In fact, the cat was choking on its food. But in an eye-of-the-beholder eureka moment, the admen were inspired to create the classic singing-cat commercial that put Meow Mix on the map.
The endearing “Meow, meow, meow, meow” commercial for Ralston Purina – accompanied by the tagline “The cat food that cats ask for by name” – won a Clio and other industry awards.
Nearly two decades after the ad debuted, The Times described it as having “one of the best known, most readily sung commercial jingles.” (The insistent meowing, mouthed by the singer Linda November, was presumably less endearing when played repeatedly to torture terrorism suspects at the U.S. prison compound at Guantánamo Bay.)
Ron Travisano served as the vice chairman, president and creative director of Della Femina, Travisano & Partners until 1985, when he left to start his own company with his cousin Frank DiGiacomo, to focus on directing commercials. He retired from the advertising business in 2001.
Mr. Travisano died on Jan. 21 at a hospital in Livingston, N.J. He was 86. The cause was complications of a stroke, said his son Vincent. A longtime resident of Glen Ridge, N.J., Mr. Travisano was living in Cedar Grove, N.J., at his death.
Mr. Travisano won a number of other notable accounts, including Rolls-Royce, Blue Nun wine, WABC-TV, the New York Mets, and Geritol.
Mr. Travisano’s imaginative work won Gold and Silver Lions at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and 15 of the industry’s Clio Awards for his agency.
“I’m an artist, a photographer and a frustrated actor,” he told The Times in 1985, when he left the agency. “When I see all those lights and the cables on the floor I get excited.”
Another series of Advertising Hall of Fame commercials that Mr. Travisano and Mr. Della Femina created were the self-parodying ads for American Isuzu Motors broadcast in the 1980s. With subtitles like “Sounds like a lie” and “He’s lying,” the ads featured a fictional pitchman called Joe Isuzu who made outlandish claims about his cars – that they cost just $9, for example, or that his Isuzu could outrace a bullet (one that he caught in his teeth).
Those commercials became so recognizable that in a 1988 presidential debate Michael Dukakis could call George H.W. Bush “the Joe Isuzu of American politics” with no further explanation required.
“I refuse to do ‘bite and smile’ commercials,” Mr. Travisano told The New York Times in 1989. “I just ate this roll – ooh! aah! That’s not real. Even the Joe Isuzu ads – they’re cartoons, but the lighting, the touches, the reactions are real.”
He also worked on a number of other notable accounts, including Rolls-Royce, Blue Nun wine, WABC-TV, the New York Mets, and Geritol.
Mr. Travisano’s imaginative work won Gold and Silver Lions at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and 15 of the industry’s Clio Awards for his agency.
Over the years, Mr. Travisano’s work won a number of awards, including Gold and Silver Lions at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and 15 of the industry’s Clio Awards for his agency.
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