Just Doing It: A History of Advertising: 100 people who made advertising and our lives different

Preface by George Lois

In the late 1940s and 50s, Frederic Wakeman wrote the The Hucksters, Sloan Wilson wrote The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, and Vance Packard wrote The Hidden Persuaders. They effectively convinced millions of Americans that the ad agency world was full of fake--out artists who sell out their souls while manipulating society’s values.

When Bill Bernbach emerged on the scene in 1948 (the year he founded the first creative ad agency in the world, Doyle Dane Bernbach), he was the loneliest of voices in a wilderness that did resemble the unsavory vision of Wakeman, Wilson and Packard. Bernbach, influenced by the epiphany of his experience in creating ads with the modernist designer, Paul Rand, precipitated the now legendary movement called The Advertising Creative Revolution. In the pre-Bernbach dark ages of advertising, as described in this concisely researched history of advertising, businessmen rather than artists, working primarily with writers, instigated and actually created America’s ads and TV commercials. Predictably, 99% of the work produced by these Establishment ad agencies was dreadful.

Bernbach innovated the absolutely radical idea of pairing art directors (at that time mostly ethnic, modernist designers) - with copywriters, as teams to create advertising with potent visual imagery that would appeal to people’s sweeter instincts: to love, laughter, wit and humanity. The quantum advance that Bill Bernbach achieved encouraged artistry and imagery in a hackneyed industry that sang the praises of walking a mile for a Camel and a fool squeezing Charmin toilet paper. Make no mistake - when I was in my early 20’s in the 1950s (other than Doyle Dane Bernbach and Herb Lubalin’s atelier at Sudler & Hennessy) displaying talent at an ad agency in America, all run by dull, uninspired, no-talent stiffs, was impossible.

From this extraordinary union of creative forces, The New Advertising was born, and Madison Avenue would never be the same. As the 1950s came to a close, DDB foretold the advent of a looming creative revolution. Appropriately enough, on the very first working day of the year 1960, copywriter Julian Koenig and I, in what industry professionals called an act of hubris and perhaps insanity, left Doyle Dane Bernbach and started what would become to be known as The Second Creative Agency in the America, Papert Koenig Lois.

Even Bernbach was aghast at our arrogance; he knew that DDB was perceived by the ad industry as a freakish, once-in-a-lifetime success story, and that the philosophy and ethos of that revolutionary agency could never be duplicated. But PKL was an immediate success, garnering accounts, media attention, and worldwide praise, spearheading the most vibrant, creative, and certainly the most tempestuous decade in the history of advertising. Bill Bernbach was convinced that there can be only one creative agency in the world. Before the decade of the 1960s was over, however, there were a dozen.

The new movement was driven by in-your-face art directors, all tough-talking personalities, most of them from the hip, gritty streets of New York. Our new audacious art became a new kind of language: a fusion of image and word, from ad to action. The creative revolution took advertising beyond the normal channels of communication. It is in the work created during this golden age that we first saw brilliant, almost mesmerizing concept ads, leaving gifts of pure artistry that influenced advertising throughout the world — a creative force that has yet to be equaled.

George Lois

Timeline

1868

With $250, Francis Wayland Ayer opens N.W. Ayer & Son (named after his father) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He implements the first commission system based on open contracts. His clients include Montgomery Ward, John Wanamaker Department Stores, Singer Sewing Machines, and Pond’s Beauty Cream.

James Walter Thompson buys Carlton & Smith from William J. Carlton, paying $500 for the business and $800 for the office furniture. He renames it after himself and moves into general magazine advertising. Later, he invents the position of account executive.

1880

Department store founder John Wanamaker is the first retailer to hire a full-time advertising copywriter, John E. Powers.

1881

Daniel M. Lord and Ambrose L. Thomas form Lord & Thomas in Chicago, Illinois. The firm eventually becomes Foote Cone & Belding.

1882

Procter & Gamble Co. begins advertising Ivory soap with an unprecedented budget of $11,000.

1883

Cyrus H.K. Curtis launches Ladies' Home Journal with his wife, Louisa Knapp Curtis, as editor.

1889

Asa Briggs Chandler registers Coca-Cola as a trademark.

1899

J. Walter Thompson Co. is the first agency to open an office in the U.K. Campbell Soup Co. makes its first advertising buy. The Association of American Advertisers, predecessor to the Association of National Advertisers, is formed.

1916

J. Walter Thompson retires; Stanley Resor and a group of colleagues buy him out for $500,000. Resor becomes president, establishes a market research department and closes the London office to save costs.

1919

Barton Durstine & Osborn opens in New York.

1921

Bozell & Jacobs opens in Omaha, Nebraska.

1922

AT&T’s station WEAF in New York offers 10 minutes of radio time to anyone who would pay $100. The Queensboro Corp., a Long Island real estate firm, buys the first commercials in advertising history : 15 spots at $50 apiece.

1928

Fortunato Depero, a futurist painter and designer, creates the Campari Soda bottle still in use today.

Lintas (Lever International Advertising Services) is formed as a house agency for Unilever in England, Holland and Germany.

Barton Durstine & Osborn merges with the George Batten Co., forming Batten Barton Durstine & Osborn. With billings of $32 million, it becomes one of the biggest agencies.

1929

KDKA, Pittsburgh, becomes the first radio station in the U.S. and is the first to broadcast the results of the 1920 presidential election.

1930

American Tobacco Co. spends $12.3 million to advertise Lucky Strikes, the most any company has ever spent on single-product advertising.

Advertising Age is first started in Chicago, Illinois as a broadsheet magazine.

1936

Life publishes its first edition. It later becomes the first magazine to carry $100 million annually in advertising.

1938

Radio surpasses magazines as a source of advertising revenue. Radio programs are sponsored by large consumer goods and their agencies. Radio is the newest and up-to-date medium and advertisers are convinced that it is the best way to give a product personality and stimulate the listener’s imagination. The advent of radio in America played a powerful role in the rise of mass culture.

1939

Congress passes the Copeland Bill, which gives the Food & Drug Administration regulatory powers over the manufacture and sale of drugs.

1946

Frederic Wakeman’s The Hucksters is published and becomes a bestseller that would later become a film starring Clark Gable.

1947

JWT becomes the first agency to surpass $100 million in billings.

1948

Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather is launched.

1949

Doyle Dane Bernbach opens its doors.

1950

In the USA Life magazine has a turnover of over 100 million dollars in advertising.

1952

The Advertising Research Foundation endorses A.C. Nielsen’s machine-based ratings system for TV.

1954

CBS becomes the largest advertising medium in the world.

1955

The Marlboro Man campaign debuts.

1956

Videotape recording makes prerecorded commercials possible.

1957

Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders, a potent attack on advertising, is published. It stays on the bestseller list for 18 weeks.

1958

The National Association of Broadcasters bans subliminal ads.

1960

Doyle Dane Bernbach introduces the creative team approach of combining a copywriter with an art director to create its Think small campaign for Volkswagen.

1962

Papert Koenig Lois is launched. In 1962, it becomes the first agency to go public.

David Ogilvy publishes Confessions of an Advertising Man.

1963

The Pepsi Generation kicks off the cola wars.

After the U.S. surgeon general determines that smoking is hazardous to your health, The New Yorker and other magazines ban cigarette ads.

1964

Ogilvy Benson & Mather merges with London-based parent company Mather & Crowther, to form Ogilvy & Mather.

NBC drops its ban on comparative advertising. ABC and CBS don't follow suit until 1972.

The XVIII Tokyo Olympics are the first television event to be broadcast via satellite.

1965

Cigarette advertising is banned by the BBC.

1967

Color television is first broadcast in France and Germany.

Wells Rich Greene is established. Mary Wells is the first woman to head a major agency.

1969

The Apollo Moon landing takes place on the 20th and 21st of July. It is watched on TV by more than 500 million people for more than 28 consecutive hours.

1970

Saatchi & Saatchi is established in London.

Jacques Séguéla, with Bernard Roux, establishes Roux Séguéla in Paris.

TBWA is formed in Paris as the first European Agency.

1971

Congress prohibits broadcast advertising of cigarettes

1972

Emanuele Pirella, Michele Goettsche, and Gianni Muccini set up the Italia agency. The only other exclusively Italian agencies are Testa, B Communications, and ODG.

1976

On the 31st of December Carosello airs for the last time in Italy. It was a unique program dedicated solely to advertising that started in 1957.

1977

The RAI (Radio Televisione Italiana) starts to air programming in color. Meanwhile free-to-air TV stations start to emerge broadcasting syndicated programs on fixed schedules.

1979

The first European Parliament elections are held. The tender for the campaign is won by the Italian agency Italia.

Jacques Séguéla’s seminal book is published in France with the title Don’t Tell my Mother that I Work in Advertising. She Thinks that I’m a Pianist in a Brothel.

1980

Ted Turner creates CNN in Atlanta, Georgia.

Silvio Berlusconi buys Tele-Milano and renames it Canale 5. It becomes the flagship channel of his national network Mediaset.

1981

In France the program La nuit des Publivores debuts. It is a non-stop cavalcade of advertising spots from around the world. It is created by using the commercial collection of Jean Marie Boursicot.

The slogan La Force Tranquille thought up by Jacques Séguéla hands François Mitterrand the French Presidency.

MTV debuts with frenetic video images that change the nature of commercials.

1985

Martin Sorrel comes on board at Wire and Plastic Plc (WWP). It is a publicly traded company and serves as the springboard for his global escalation in marketing services.

Needham Harper Worldwide, BBDO International, and Doyle Dane Bernbach merge to create Omnicom Group, the largest advertising company in the world.

1986

Saatchi & Saatchi buys Ted Bates Worldwide, becoming the world’s largest agency holding company.

1987

Saatchi & Saatchi merges Backer & Spielvogel with Bates to form Backer Spielvogel Bates.

Martin Sorrell sells more than $500 million worth of new shares in WPP Group, allowing him to pay almost $600 million for JWT in the industry’s first hostile takeover.

WPP acquires the Ogilvy Group for $864 million, the highest price paid for an agency

1988

The poster created for Benetton by the photographer Oliviero Toscani stirs up a scandal. The photograph of a black nurse breast-feeding a white baby is considered rascist by African-Americans who don’t quite comprehend Toscani’s anti-rascism. Despite the controversy towards the subjects of the photos – frequently bold and pushing societal limits - the campaign United Colors of Benetton is appreciated the world over.

1991

Silvio Berlusconi has a complete monopoly on information in Italy with his three television networks and Mondadori publishing group.

1992

The fisrt global conference on sustainable development is held in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

1993

The Internet becomes a reality as 5 million users worldwide get online.

1994

In the largest account switch in history, IBM Corp. yanks its business from scores of agencies worldwide and consolidates the entire account with O&M.

1995

TBWA and Chiat/Day merge.

Following crises within the organization, Saatchi & Saatchi re-emerges under newly created Cordiant.

As its share price plunges 30%, Maurice and Charles Saatchi leave the agency they founded in 1970.

WWP combines the media operations of JWT and O&M to form The Alliance, the largest U.S. media buyer.

1997

Cordiant spins off Saatchi & Saatchi and Bates Worldwide into separate companies.

1998

The Wells agency shuts its doors. Interpublic combines its Western International Media with Initiative Media in Paris to create the world’s largest media management shop with $10 billion in billings.

1999

Internet advertising breaks the $2 billion mark and heads toward $3 billion as the industry, under prodding from Procter & Gamble, moves to standardize all facets of the industry.

2000

No Logo, written by Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein is published for the first time.

2007

The first series of Mad Men debuts in the USA on AMC, it is set in a successful ad agency (although fictional it is strikingly authentic). The series both narrates and critiques the American Dream and the American Way of Life at the beginning of the 1960’s (which was already deteriorating) through the clichés of successful advertising campaigns. The writer and executive producer is Matthew Weiner of The Sopranos fame. Note the caption under the headline of Mad Men – Where the truth lies - which is both an irreverent quote of McCann Erickson’s motto (Truth well told) and a brilliant play on words. The phrase can mean either where the truth is found or where the truth is falsified. It is an exemplary series that harkens back to a bygone era.

Book I : The Protagonists of Western Advertising

Introduction

This book is all about influential individuals, people who by the virtue of their actions and because of their creations have influenced the habits and behavior of millions upon millions of men and women. They have done this by inducing needs and stimulating demand for goods that at times can be superfluous and completely unnecessary. For this reason advertising agents are looked upon almost exclusively in a bad light – without knowing exactly however – who they are, what they do, in what context, and with what results. They are not writers nor journalists, neither graphic designers nor illustrators: they are copywriters and art directors. These professionals carry out a precise task: that of marketing and communication. A line of work that is like no other…

Among the influential players there are many Americans and Britons, and of course some Italians and the French have made their mark in advertising. Some of them are well-known, and some of them are outright famous in their own regard: personalities such as Bill Bernbach and Mary Wells immediately come to mind. Between some copywriters and art directors there exists a thin line that connects them to certain schools of thought, this discourse is touched upon in the book yet is not its premise. Just Doing It is a book that gives the reader an overview and a look at the big picture of the birth, dawn, and golden years of western advertising in the 20th century. A time that has been coined The Advertising Century (1).

In 1999 Advertising Age published a special edition of its magazine about the history of American advertising. This 136 page volume is a collection of the 100 best advertising campaigns, the 100 most influential players, the 10 best jingles, slogans, and logos of the 20th century. The digital version of the magazine is available on Advertising Age’s website, and it contains an even larger breath of information dedicated to The Advertising Century.

Influential & influences

The criteria used in Just Doing It of selecting the 100 most influential individuals of advertising are neither historical nor exhaustive. Beside what can be interpreted as a clear, personal evaluation by the author, it is difficult to establish certain standards without basing them on origins, countries, and cultures. This being the case, Americans and Britons are at a decisive advantage.

At the end of the 1800s there were already numerous and important ad agencies active in the U.S.A. What’s even more striking is that during this primordial stage of advertising the J.W. Thompson agency came up with one of the most beautiful slogans of all time: A Skin you love to touch. The J.W. Thompson Agency was founded in 1864, and the slogan was written for the Woodbury Soap Company in 1911.

In other words, in the USA advertising had already come to light and was finding its own way. Conversely over in Europe, in Paris and Vienna artists such as Toulouse Lautrec and Gustav Klimt were amusing themselves by creating pictorial manifestos. In Italy cartellonismo was in full force dominated by the styles of Dudovic or Cappiello. Among the cartellonisti at the beginning of the 20th century there was a real artist by the name of Depero. He was a futurist and brilliant designer who now has a permanent collection at MART (the Museum of Modern Art of Trento). The Campari Soda bottle that is still in use today was designed by Depero in 1928.

Coming back to how we came about selecting the criteria for this book: In general we have placed more importance on being influential rather than on being a public personality. Our focus is on those who have created schools of thought and ways of conceiving advertising, an advertising that in turn has created other personalities and new trends.

We are also a little partial to the Anglo-American world. In a profession that literally owes it all to the USA, England, and the English language it’s rather difficult not to be just a little bit bias.

Regarding everything else in terms of selection we have invented nothing. Luckily for us there is already a well consolidated Hall of Fame, both American and British to draw on. Seeing as that the 20th century is also known as the Advertising Age, in 1999 Advertising Age Magazine published an accurate selection of a who’s who of advertising. People on this list range from pure admen to the world’s greatest creative minds. There are even a few tycoons thrown in for good measure (Martin Sorrel, Ted Turner are examples) and even fewer entrepreneurial geniuses such as Steve Jobs. To sum things up we can simple say that the selection process had already been done for us.

Our 100 most influential people are generally organized in chronological order, without, of course, neglecting the importance of derivations and mergers, which characterize the advertising system. In a profession where you learn everything first hand and on the job, what really matters is: first, start working with agency X, then move on to company Y, and continue at Z partners, to finally (but not always) setting up one’s very own agency. Therefore, in this book there are also quite a few agencies listed among the influential 100.

The Americans

For some unknown reason, the American 20th century was longer than in other nations. In the rest of the world it was correctly summed up by the British historian Eric Hobsbawm as the period between 1914 and the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 (1).

Regarding the history of mass consumption and advertising we can say with absolute certainty that the American 20th century was rather lengthy. It was so long that it actually started back in the 1800s. It’s true, the first office of J. Walter Thompson was opened in 1864. The first fulltime copywriter was hired by N. W. Ayer in 1892. Printer’s Ink magazine was founded in 1893 as a teaching aid for those who wished to learn the trade of advertising art.

Practically all of the most well-known American agencies had already branded themselves by the early 1950s: Lintas, BBDO, Ogilvy, Benton & Bowles, Young & Rubicam, Leo Burnett, Ted Bates, Doyle Dane & Bernbach, McCann, were all founded before 1959 came to a close. Even if Bill Bernbach’s so-called creative revolution came about in the 1960s, it was in the first half of their advertising century that the Americans had already done, said, and codified literally everything.

Not all American adverting is branded Madison Avenue and wears Brooks Brothers. After Bill Bernbach, the other American Revolution took place in 1962 on the shores of the Pacific, in sunny Los Angeles. That was the year that Jay Chiat and Guy Day opened an agency where one preferably wore shorts to the office, and they came away with more creative award wins in the 1980s than anyone else!

(1)  See The Age of Extremes – The Short Twentieth Century by Eric Hobsbawm, 1994

The British

As far as advertising is concerned, the English owe it all to their cousins on the other side of the pond, the Americans. However, since the end of the Second World War the British have been pulling their own weight, and flexing their muscles. It all began right after the end of World War II in a London destroyed by the bombings and hungry. Out of this misery a rather extraordinary event took place: along with reforming the scholastic and healthcare systems, the government established the COI (Central Office of Information). The COI is the state’s marketing agency and government mouthpiece and to this very day deals with all the country’s public service campaigns. They manage the tender calls of various ministries and para-government agencies, buying the media with a series of lawfully awarded contracts that are continually updated. The COI is in charge of advertising campaigns for the public good (road safety, tobacco abuse, alcohol abuse, and many more) that win both applause and awards at all the festivals.

Regarding commercial advertising, England had followed in the footsteps of America until the 1950s. It took the jumps and jolts of swinging London to create a real agency: Collett Dickenson Pearce. Just like Doyle Dane Bernbach had done in the US, this agency was about to turn the advertising world on its head. Collett Dickenson Pearce, better known as CDP was a veritable breeding ground of numerous forms of talent. These talents ranged from admen, designers, and photographers to directors and producers. What sets the British apart from their American counterparts is that advertising in England (and for that matter publishing, photography, and film) was never a stand-alone phenomenon but an all-encompassing expression of the turmoil and creativity that was modifying British culture and the English way of life. Many Influential personalities rose out of CDP. Among the alumni are the producer David Putnam, the director Alan Parker, Charles and Maurice Saatchi, Tony and Ridley Scott, Adrian Lyne, Peter Mayle, John Hegarty, and Frank Lowe. People, whose influence on British popular culture was so immense that their stories