The Man Behind “the Big Apple”

Ad exec Bill Phillips made New York City’s nickname immortal

The Big Apple poster was created by Ogilvy & Mather and given as a present to New York City. (Courtesy of Ogilvy & Mather)

Bill Phillips was walking to work from his Manhattan apartment, eating an apple, one spring morning in 1975. As the chairman of ad agency Ogilvy & Mather stepped over piles of refuse, he thought: “I must be crazy to live here.” A garbage strike was only one of many problems facing New York: Crime was up, bankruptcy was looming, and there was no prospect of a bailout.

Phillips, who died in December, had volunteered his agency to boost the city’s reputation, but hadn’t found the right angle. When he got to the agency that morning, he told creative director Jay Schulberg his insight from that walk: that New Yorkers have a love-hate relationship with their city. He suggested they devise a campaign that would represent that complex attitude.

A few days later Schulberg had the line, a variant on a quotation from the city’s outspoken Rep. Bella Abzug: “You have to be a little crazy to live in New York, but you’d be nuts to live anywhere else.”

They had the words. What about the image? Jazz musicians had long used “the Big Apple” to refer to the city — “You can play all over the country, but New York is the Big Apple” — and the nickname was already part of the visitor bureau’s promotional material. Recognizing the…