Word: madison
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Contrary to legend, the top U.S. agencies are just as diverse in character and outlook as 42 individual salesmen would be. Only 25 of them are headquartered in Manhattan, and only seven actually have offices on Madison Avenue. Some are the lengthened shadow of one man: Manhattan's research-minded Interpublic Inc. pursues the sociological bent of indefatigable Marion Harper, a complex Ivy Leaguer, while Chicago's Leo Burnett Co. reflects the down-to-earth outlook of Founder Burnett, a Michigan small-town boy who once worked as an $18-a-week reporter for the Peoria Journal. Other...
...reason for such debate within advertising circles is that admen themselves are not all pressed out by the same cooky cutter, as can be seen in the personal histories of the twelve men on the cover (see box, pp. 92 and 93). Grey flannel was never a uniform on Madison Avenue, and Brooks Brothers suits are not the style in the .flourishing advertising communities of Chicago and St. Louis. More top admen than not come from lower-middle-class families and never saw the inside of an Ivy League college. But any generalization about them is riddled with exceptions...
...this has yet to produce any surefire way to reduce human impulses to statistics. But Madison Avenue continues the quest out of painful awareness that U.S. businessmen are growing increasingly disinclined to approve their ad budgets without searching questions. The problem that bothers the businessmen was summed up long ago by Department-Store Tycoon John Wanamaker, who was reckoned in his day to be an advertising genius. Said Wanamaker: "Half of my investment in advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half...
...MADISON Avenue's favorite phrasemaker is Charles Hendrickson Brower, 60, the shambling, 6-ft. 4-in. president of Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne, which had 1961 billings of $248 million and is the U.S.'s fourth largest agency. A onetime English teacher who describes his forebears as "New Jersey peasants for generations," Brower made his name at B.B.D. & O. as a copywriter with an infinite capacity for hard work. Propelled unexpectedly into the presidency in 1957, he was promptly hit with the loss of the $7,000,000 Revlon account. His reaction: "I'll just...
...remote from Madison Avenue in spirit as they are in miles are Philadelphia's N.W. Ayer & Son and its chairman, candid Harry Albert Batten, 65. Born four blocks from Ayer's 13-story headquarters on West Washington Square, Batten (no kin to B.B.D. & O.'s Co-Founder George Batten) still lives only eleven blocks from the office and walks to work each morning. His agency, an envied enigma in the industry, shuns the spectacular for quiet craftsmanship, e.g., its 23-year-old "A diamond is forever" campaign for De Beers, and selects its clients with as much...