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McGruff the Crime Dog
McGruff the Crime Dog is an anthropomorphic animated bloodhound created by Dancer Fitzgerald Sample advertising executive Jack Keil (who also voiced the character) through the Ad Council and later the National Crime Prevention Council to increase crime awareness and personal safety in the United States. McGruff costumes are used by police outreach efforts, often with children. McGruff was created in 1979 and debuted in 1980 with a series of public service announcements educating citizens on personal security measures, such as locking doors and putting lights on timers, in order to reduce crime. His name was selected as part of a nationwide contest in July 1980.
McGruff proved to be a successful campaign with over $100 million in free air time donated in the first year reaching over 50% of adults. McGruff campaigns continued over the years to cover topics such as child abduction, robbery, anti-drug messages, and anti-bullying campaigns. From 1982 to 2012, a number of municipalities participated in the McGruff house program which offered temporary haven to children fearing immediate harm. McGruff has continued to be well-recognized, with nine out of ten people recognizing him in a 2021 survey.[citation needed] This is thanks partly to recent campaigns against cyber-bullying, stopping online fakes, and elder-crime.
The decades prior to McGruff's creation saw an increase in U.S. public concern over crime. In the 1960s, a number of riots broke out across the U.S. and numerous public figures were assassinated, including President Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. Accepting the Republican nomination for president, Barry Goldwater positioned crime as one of the biggest issues facing the nation. While Goldwater lost to Lyndon B. Johnson, the issue of crime did not stop there. In July 1965, President Johnson formed the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice to "probe ... fully and deeply into the problems of crime in our nation."
After two years and $2.5 million, the Commission delivered its report, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, in February 1967 which influenced the Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. The act gave $300 million to local police forces for more personnel and equipment. With the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, the attempts to control rising crime rates shifted from a social approach—the "War on Poverty"—to a tough on crime approach—the "War on Crime". Despite Nixon's attempts (until his resignation in 1974), crime continued to rise from 363.5 crimes per 100,000 people in 1970 to 549.5 in 1979. The Carter administration took the focus away from crime and onto nuclear arms control and human rights. During Carter's presidency, crime continued to be a concern with the "kill for thrill murders" of 1979, when two men killed four people over eight days in Western Pennsylvania.
The Ad Council was first approached by the Department of Justice in 1977 to create a public campaign to engage the public in reducing crime. The FBI director recommended a campaign playing on fears to convince citizens to take personal safety steps, but the Ad Council rejected their proposal believing it would largely be ignored by an already frightened public. However, the Ad Council was still interested in a crime prevention campaign. Leo Perlis, a member of the Ad Council's Public Policy Committee, heard the proposal and liked the idea. He met with FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley, the head of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and a board member of the National Sheriffs' Association to form a coalition to direct the ad campaign.
The Ad Council gave the creative responsibilities to Dancer Fitzgerald Sample who they had previously worked with on the Keep America Beautiful campaign. On February 8, 1979, the Ad Council's board of directors held a meeting where they and public officials met to listen to data Dancer Fitzgerald Sample had compiled. Dancer Fitzgerald Sample had conducted focus groups in a number of cities to determine public perceptions on crime. The focus groups found that the public believed police should be the ones to prevent crime, but that they were unwilling to pay more in taxes to support more officers. They recommended a campaign which would "emphasize that individual actions can reduce crime" and "offer easily accessible opportunities for people to participate."
The task was given to Jack Keil, executive vice president and creative director of Dancer Fitzgerald Sample. Keil, thinking of Smokey Bear, came up with the idea of an animal mascot. After coming up with the slogan—"Take a bite out of crime"—he settled upon the idea of a dog. His first version was "a Snoopy look-alike wearing a Keystone Cop hat." His creative team however did not believe the dog would be taken seriously. In response, he gave the team a day to come up with a new version.
Five teams of two—a copywriter and an art director—produced proposals. They rejected proposals included a bulldog version of J. Edgar Hoover, a golden retriever, an "aggressive-looking deputy dog", and a "mongrel who became a wonder dog". The proposal Keil selected, which would go on to become McGruff, was a talking dog in a trench coat produced by Sherry Nemmers and Ray Krivascy who "was tired...he had seen the world, and he had epitomized all the detectives we had seen from Raymond Chandler to Dashiell Hammett and even Columbo."
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McGruff the Crime Dog
McGruff the Crime Dog is an anthropomorphic animated bloodhound created by Dancer Fitzgerald Sample advertising executive Jack Keil (who also voiced the character) through the Ad Council and later the National Crime Prevention Council to increase crime awareness and personal safety in the United States. McGruff costumes are used by police outreach efforts, often with children. McGruff was created in 1979 and debuted in 1980 with a series of public service announcements educating citizens on personal security measures, such as locking doors and putting lights on timers, in order to reduce crime. His name was selected as part of a nationwide contest in July 1980.
McGruff proved to be a successful campaign with over $100 million in free air time donated in the first year reaching over 50% of adults. McGruff campaigns continued over the years to cover topics such as child abduction, robbery, anti-drug messages, and anti-bullying campaigns. From 1982 to 2012, a number of municipalities participated in the McGruff house program which offered temporary haven to children fearing immediate harm. McGruff has continued to be well-recognized, with nine out of ten people recognizing him in a 2021 survey.[citation needed] This is thanks partly to recent campaigns against cyber-bullying, stopping online fakes, and elder-crime.
The decades prior to McGruff's creation saw an increase in U.S. public concern over crime. In the 1960s, a number of riots broke out across the U.S. and numerous public figures were assassinated, including President Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. Accepting the Republican nomination for president, Barry Goldwater positioned crime as one of the biggest issues facing the nation. While Goldwater lost to Lyndon B. Johnson, the issue of crime did not stop there. In July 1965, President Johnson formed the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice to "probe ... fully and deeply into the problems of crime in our nation."
After two years and $2.5 million, the Commission delivered its report, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, in February 1967 which influenced the Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. The act gave $300 million to local police forces for more personnel and equipment. With the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, the attempts to control rising crime rates shifted from a social approach—the "War on Poverty"—to a tough on crime approach—the "War on Crime". Despite Nixon's attempts (until his resignation in 1974), crime continued to rise from 363.5 crimes per 100,000 people in 1970 to 549.5 in 1979. The Carter administration took the focus away from crime and onto nuclear arms control and human rights. During Carter's presidency, crime continued to be a concern with the "kill for thrill murders" of 1979, when two men killed four people over eight days in Western Pennsylvania.
The Ad Council was first approached by the Department of Justice in 1977 to create a public campaign to engage the public in reducing crime. The FBI director recommended a campaign playing on fears to convince citizens to take personal safety steps, but the Ad Council rejected their proposal believing it would largely be ignored by an already frightened public. However, the Ad Council was still interested in a crime prevention campaign. Leo Perlis, a member of the Ad Council's Public Policy Committee, heard the proposal and liked the idea. He met with FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley, the head of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and a board member of the National Sheriffs' Association to form a coalition to direct the ad campaign.
The Ad Council gave the creative responsibilities to Dancer Fitzgerald Sample who they had previously worked with on the Keep America Beautiful campaign. On February 8, 1979, the Ad Council's board of directors held a meeting where they and public officials met to listen to data Dancer Fitzgerald Sample had compiled. Dancer Fitzgerald Sample had conducted focus groups in a number of cities to determine public perceptions on crime. The focus groups found that the public believed police should be the ones to prevent crime, but that they were unwilling to pay more in taxes to support more officers. They recommended a campaign which would "emphasize that individual actions can reduce crime" and "offer easily accessible opportunities for people to participate."
The task was given to Jack Keil, executive vice president and creative director of Dancer Fitzgerald Sample. Keil, thinking of Smokey Bear, came up with the idea of an animal mascot. After coming up with the slogan—"Take a bite out of crime"—he settled upon the idea of a dog. His first version was "a Snoopy look-alike wearing a Keystone Cop hat." His creative team however did not believe the dog would be taken seriously. In response, he gave the team a day to come up with a new version.
Five teams of two—a copywriter and an art director—produced proposals. They rejected proposals included a bulldog version of J. Edgar Hoover, a golden retriever, an "aggressive-looking deputy dog", and a "mongrel who became a wonder dog". The proposal Keil selected, which would go on to become McGruff, was a talking dog in a trench coat produced by Sherry Nemmers and Ray Krivascy who "was tired...he had seen the world, and he had epitomized all the detectives we had seen from Raymond Chandler to Dashiell Hammett and even Columbo."