Reflecting on Half a Century of Creativity: The Architect Behind the 'Ultimate Driving Machine'

The “Ultimate Driving Machine” is turning 50. The phrase made famous by the agency Ammirati & Puris remains the marketing machine that has driven the BMW brand for the last five decades, and its creator, Martin Puris, is giving it all away.

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of BMW’s “Ultimate Driving Machine,” Puris is donating the entire Ammirati & Puris catalog to St. John’s University, where it will be available to SJU students, researchers and other universities. There will be an online exhibit and digital collection of the agency’s famous campaigns from BMW, Club Med, UPS and more. The online exhibit will be available permanently and available to all.

To launch the collection—television commercials, magazine ads, newspaper ads and outdoor postings—St. John’s is hosting an event on Oct. 19, at their Queens Campus where Puris and his partner Ralph Ammirati will attend and celebrate the exhibit alongside former employees, St. John’s students, faculty, alumni and advertising industry partners.

Adweek talked with Puris about the collection, the impact of the campaign on the brand, his favorite campaigns, how advertising has changed over the decades and his legacy in the advertising world.

Adweek: Why are you donating your catalog to St. John’s?

Puris: It was a very considered decision. Over the past few years, I’ve had quite a number of conversations with universities about the collection. Two years ago, I was introduced to St. John’s University by Steve Farella, once the head of our media department, founder of a hugely successful media company, and an SJU graduate. I got to know the people at SJU and liked what I saw and heard. In the end, I chose them because I wanted our work to be part of an active, dynamic learning program rather than just another collection of whatever, stored in a musty basement filled with various other ‘collections.’

I suggest that we see this as not just a celebration of the work of one advertising agency. But, rather, as a celebration and an example of the extraordinary level of brilliant work that advertising agencies once did, but, these days, rarely if ever do. When the advertising business was good it was very good. Advertising agencies were the masters of the big idea.

It’s my very sincere hope that the work we give to SJU will in some way give SJU students a head-start at taking advantage of that opportunity. Returning the advertising agency business to relevance.

What sort of assets will the school get and how will it be displayed?

Over the past several months, we’ve collected from various sources––particularly alumni—television commercials, magazine ads, newspaper ads and outdoor postings. They’ve all been converted and digitalized so that they’ll be easily accessed and available.

How did the ‘Ultimate Driving Machine’ come about?

It’s one of my favorite examples of the process of creation. Great creative work, and great creative leaps forward in any field, are almost always a combination of art and science. Facts and intuition. Leaps into space.

Had we taken research for gospel back in 1974, when Cadillac and Lincoln were America’s unchallenged idea of expensive luxury sedans, we would have concluded that the primary prospects for a dramatically undramatic but equally as expensive BMW 2002, were overweight, martini-guzzling, cigar-chomping, country club denizens in their 60s.

But we trusted our intuition. And our intuition told us that a movement had begun, a movement that would soon sweep the world––the Yuppie and the beginning of physical fitness and eating right and high performance in everything.

Our campaign spoke to them. A car is a very personal expression of self. And Cadillacs and Lincolns didn’t look or perform like Yuppies. But BMW was making the car that embodied their values. It was designed by racing engineers for people who had the good sense to value high performance over thousands of pounds of chrome and fins. It was The Ultimate Driving Machine. All we had to do was tell them in language that the Yuppies would understand.

What has made the phrase and the campaign so enduring?

The whole of the advertising business can be summed up in one simple phrase: ‘What is the one thing I can say to you that if I said it would make you want to buy one?’ Sometimes it can be difficult to find that one thing. But when you find it and put it into the right words, that’s a Big Idea.

The Ultimate Driving Machine is a Big Idea that will celebrate its 50th birthday on Dece. 22, 2023. How does that happen? It happens because it still expresses the heart and soul of BMW. It’s both a statement of purpose and a promise. It endures because it is still the very essence of who BMW is.

Was there ever any pushback from the brand?

The Ultimate Driving Machine came as a shock to the so-called luxury car market. No one had ever called an expensive car a driving machine. But it spoke to Yuppies loud and clear. We literally redefined the luxury car business for all time. It also spoke to the engineers at BMW.

Finally, someone in America understood the genius product they’d created.

When we presented the campaign to a room full of German engineers, we got a standing ovation. Conversely, one of the other agencies in the competition left them with the headline, ‘The smartest thing to come out of Germany since Henry Kissinger.’ No standing ovation, more like sitting shock.

Is BMW your favorite campaign?

That’s like asking which child is your favorite. My answer is that they’re all my favorites but for very different reasons. For getting at the heart and soul of a company, it would be BMW. For finding a meaningful truth where there didn’t seem to be one, it would be Club Med, ‘The Antidote for Civilization.’ To make right the misunderstood value of an exceptional company that had been around for a very long time, which would be ‘UPS, We Run The Tightest Ship in the Shipping Business.’ But then there’s, ‘Waterford, Steadfast in a World of Wavering Standards.’ And ‘Schweppes, The Great British Bubbly.’

How do you want the industry to remember you?

I would like the industry to remember us as a remarkable collective of some of the smartest and best people that ever strode Madison Avenue. The real strength of Ammirati & Puris is that we were a good deal more than a creative-centric advertising agency. ‘No second class anything’ was more than a phrase on a t-shirt, it was something we lived, it was a religious belief. We had remarkable talent in every department––superstars––many of whom went on to found and lead some of the best organizations in the business. We liked each other, trusted each other, and respected each other. It was the best job any of us ever had––and that includes Ralph and me. And, by the way, it was why great clients trusted us with their business.