Last week I explored First Hawaiian Bank’s “Yes” campaign, which has run for 55 years now. It’s the longest-lasting advertising campaign in Hawaii history.
Today I’ll focus on a few other interesting things Walter Dods told me about his time at First Hawaiian Bank.
Quiet and effective
George Ariyoshi was a highly regarded lawyer and legislator in Hawaii from 1954 to 1970. He was shy and soft-spoken, which might have hurt his prospects of running for a statewide office.
I remember when he ran for governor in 1978, his campaign turned that negative into a positive with the slogan “Quiet and effective.” I didn’t know that it was Walter Dods who came up with that strategy. I asked him for the backstory.
“George Ariyoshi came into my office one day,” Dods said. “I had just joined the bank, in charge of advertising and public relations.
“He was a state senator and said, ‘I’m going to run for lieutenant governor. I would like to ask you to join my campaign.’
“I said, ‘Thank you very much, sir. I would love to but I can’t. I just started here at the bank. I’m working 25 hours a day. I can’t do it.
“He thanked me very politely and left. About an hour later I got a call from John Bellinger, president of the bank.
“He said, ‘I heard you turned down George Ariyoshi.’
“I said, ‘Yes, sir.’
“‘You do know he’s a bank director, don’t you?’
“‘No, sir.’ I barely knew what a bank director was.
“Bellinger said, ‘You are working on George Ariyoshi’s campaign.’”
Ariyoshi was elected lieutenant governor under Gov. John Burns in 1970 and assumed his gubernatorial duties in 1973, when Burns had to step down due to illness.
Ariyoshi was elected governor in 1974, the first Asian American governor of any U.S. state. He was reelected in 1978 and 1982.
Ariyoshi was shy in his youth. “I had a speech defect … a bad lisp,” Ariyoshi said. “I didn’t have the confidence to stand before class and speak.
“At Central Intermediate School I had a teacher, Margaret Hamada, for three years. She encouraged me and helped me overcome my speech impediment. I owe her a lot.”
In 1978, Frank Fasi ran against Ariyoshi for governor in the Democratic primary. Dods said, “A pollster we hired from the mainland said, ‘You’re way behind. People don’t think that George Ariyoshi speaks out.’
“I looked him right in the face, and said, ‘You don’t understand. Hawaii people appreciate that.’ I thought we just had to find a way to turn a negative into a positive.
“So, I came up with ‘Quiet and effective.’
“Our ads said, ‘He’s working quietly and effectively for the people of Hawaii.’ We even had a song written for the occasion. It worked.”
Polls showed Fasi with a 10% lead two weeks before the election. On Election Day, 71% of those registered voted. Ariyoshi won the election by 3,622 votes.
Exit polls showed that 85% of Ariyoshi supporters turned out, but only 65% of Fasi supporters actually voted.
“That was my introduction to politics,” Dods continued. “I ran all of Ariyoshi’s campaigns after that. Daniel Inouye and Dan Akaka asked me to run several of their campaigns, too.
“The way I looked at it was that I had a side gig that paid nothing. If the strategy went wrong, I got the blame. And if it went right, the candidate got the credit,” Dods said, laughing. “But I loved it.”
Many years later, in 1993, Dods was honored as Salesman of the Year at a Sales and Marketing Executives of Hawaii annual conference.
“Mayor Frank Fasi came with a proclamation,” Dods recalled. “I was always with Ariyoshi. Fasi was always running against Ariyoshi. But, it was never personal.”
As he got up to read the proclamation, Dods expected the worst.
“Fasi read, ‘Whereas, whereas, whereas, finally, whereas this S.O.B. (me) was always on the other side, and whereas he kicked my butt with his “Quiet and effective” campaign, congratulations to Walter Dods, Salesman of the Year.’
“He was really classy about it. It was one of those things I will never forget.”
Aloha Stadium scoreboard
Aloha Stadium, as it was being built in the mid-1970s, ran out of money for a scoreboard, Dods said. It would be computerized with animation. An entrepreneur proposed a solution: He would pay for its cost if he could seek an advertising sponsor, which would pay yearly.
After a number of years, the sponsor would cover the entrepreneur’s upfront costs plus interest. The scoreboard would then become the state’s property.
“The state agreed to that. The obvious two candidates for the anchor position were Bank of Hawaii and First Hawaiian Bank.
“I wanted to do it,” Dods said. “I felt a brand-new stadium scoreboard was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us, but I had trouble selling it to the boss because it was expensive. It was about half of my annual marketing budget.
“Finally, I convinced the bank to do it. I told my secretary, ‘Go find this guy now.’ She tracked him down. He was at a meeting at Bank of Hawaii in their marketing department. I told her to go over there right now and say you have an urgent message for him.
“If he comes out of the meeting, tell him, ‘Mr. Dods wants to do the deal. Come across the street and we can sign it.’
“She went across the street, into the marketing department, talked to the guy, and he stepped out. He came over to our office, and we cut the deal. I don’t know if Bank of Hawaii was ready to sign the deal or not, but that’s how First Hawaiian became the sponsor of the scoreboard.
“The scoreboard had an animated cartoon message, which had never been done before in Hawaii. It was primitive by today’s standards, but it had moving characters. It wasn’t just the bank’s name.
“Without a doubt, it worked out well for us.”
Comedians
“In 1993 we brought in celebrities Pat Morita and Bill Dana to make television commercials to promote ‘The bank that says yes’ campaign.
“Pat Morita, who was famous for starring in the ‘Karate Kid’ movies, came up with the idea of ‘Hi-Y.’ He held his arms over his head in a ‘Y’ formation.
“In one commercial Morita walked around Bishop Street, and people would come up and ask him banking questions. He’d say, ‘Yes,’ making the Hi-Y.”
Morita led a group of First Hawaiian Bank employees in a “drill-team formation doing an umbrella-twirling rendition of ‘Yes We Can,’ in an Aloha Festival parade,” columnist Dave Donnelly wrote.
“Bill Dana, whose character was named Jose Jimenez, would mispronounce all the Hawaiian words in his TV commercial. At the end of every commercial, he would say ‘aloja’ and ‘majalo.’ Back then it was hilarious,” Dods said. “Some might find it offensive today.”
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
