Black admen and adwomen in Chicago started the transformation of the most powerful influences of American culture, marketing and media—and Channels Changers tells their story. It is an invaluable look at how they first cracked the once impenetrably white walls of the culturally defining American advertising institution during the late ’60s through the mid ’80s.
Lowell Thompson, an executive producer, collaborated with fellow industry veterans Cotton Stevenson and Terry Peigh on the project. Producer Laurel Dobose and master editor Alaric C. Martin sifted through hours of footage to painstakingly create the template in which the historical narrative unfolds.
Below, Thompson details how Chicago became ground zero for this Black creative revolution.
How long was this film in the works?
Ha! On a macro level, you could say about 40 years. I started thinking about chronicling my ad career a few years after I left the full-time business in 1980. On a practical level, two-and-a-half years. I posted the first page of my proposed memoirs, Mad Invisible Man, in January 2022. We premiered the documentary that came out of it on July 1, 2024.
When did the floodgates open, and where were these unseen and unknown admen and adwomen from?
They came from all over. I came from the Chicago Tribune. I’d started as an office boy in its Creative Services Department in January 1968. Some came from the Army. One came from the Urban League. One woman was a med student at Northwestern University.
Why was Chicago particularly flush with Black ad-people?
I think because Chicago was flush with African American–owned media and businesses. The Chicago Defender and Ebony and Jet magazines were the largest publications of their kind at the time. There were also the biggest AfAm-owned businesses in Chicago.
Was it that they had been doing niche ads prior to working on national brands?
Not exactly … most, like me, had never done an ad.
Did the agency entrepreneurs flourish, or did they still face resistance?
There was big resistance until Dr. King was killed and the riots that followed. I say it was the Black Lives Matter movement 50 years before the BLM movement.
Lowell Thompson introduced Channels Changers last July at the Gene Siskel Center in Chicago.
Where do you see yourself in the continuum of advertising history?
I see myself as the only person who has told the full story of my era.
Where will this film be shown?
I’m trying to get it in film festivals now and on PBS. I think it’s also a natural for Amazon, Netflix, etc. I think there’ll be a pretty large educational and library market.
What has been the response so far?
The response has been unbelievable. I put together a “How Many Thumbs Up” questionnaire when we premiered it at the Gene Siskel Center here in downtown Chicago. I later posted on my Facebook page, “Francis Ford Coppola, eat your heart out” (I was referring to his films before Megalopolis).
I’m still pinching myself. I couldn’t have dreamed this up … and folks tell me I’m a big dreamer.
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