Variety (January 1961)

96 radio-television Fifty-fifth pjfitRIETY Anniversary January 4, 1961 I960: Madison Ave.’s ‘Moment of Truth' By BILL GREELEY It was the year that McCall’s j magazine took full page newspaper j ad', to declare it, “Madison Ave., j Street of Dreams.” But if there! was any dreaming on the part of tiie advertising citizens, it was of a promise land with a docile con¬ suming public and no Federal Ti ide Commission. The Commission was constantly in tire news— often via substantial p!.i\ in the lay press — as the chief vehicle ot action in the ad indus¬ try's roughest year yet for public; ami g t\ m nn.onta! criticism on the j is.-cie-. of taste and truth. The industry’s response was col-' lee*. re paranoia. It answered with! numberless speech.es on the value of advertising in the whole econo¬ my, printed guides to truth; all-day se^ions on taste; complex bluepimN for educating the public; humble treks to Washington for brain washings by FTC staffers; and formation of intra-industry policing organizations for ‘‘self legulat ion.” Aside trotn the high pitch of entu-.a harassment, it was a year as usual with the same high rate ot bili:ng> casualties, personnel switches winding with a one-two; pure :: bv David Ogilvy on the new : i\ -a ■quired Shell biz at Ogilvy',: Benson & Mather, Month bv month:, it went like this . January — It was the month that FTC .» cleanup campaign readied a pitch, and ail major tv advertisers and a. endes were busily reexam ■ iniiig tele blurbs. Commercial film houses, repomed land office biz via reiud es and strappings. One es¬ timate put tine extra business at L dose to $30.),000. Another source said a big hard-sell agency was in : procc-s of reshootings on close to. ldh blurbs. , 1 ?.I-un area of concern in the re-' e\an ’.nation wjs regarding claimsami i.iomatory ted results. Puffery v as being softened, and the “wea ' s.lv" fine statements whose ini-:' p;i: it ion was false, were being ■ eiumr.oted. sometimes at the sug ' gvsm.m o FTC chief Earl Kintner ; hi-m.uf. • d .V -•••) at peak was the feud be¬ ts ven 1-TC‘s Kintner and Ted ' Bates* Itosser Reeves Bates agon-n c> u:.« catching the brunt of FTC citations, ami the agency finally. 1 in a tit of umbrage, ran full-page : ads in New York. Chicago and V, as! mgton newspapers specifical¬ ly Kintner for a clear defi¬ nition of ids rules. At a infer session of the Assn, o X dhmal Advertisers, called to spotlight the industry’s concern O', vr public and federal critic ism, Keitr-'!’ singled out the Bates agency for specific derision. ; Self-Regulation Plea S u-,e time. FC’C’s hearings on ptogium control. launched in the ■ km: mu of ’59 in New York with ad ’ a .ca y tv toppers on the witness s’ was continuing in WashingI t-a: Being hoard were reps of ce. i • an-.: educational groups fol j lowed by the networks and Na-1 t:or.uI Assn of Broadcasters. Lat : ter arums told FC’C what was live led was more self regulation, I and an expanded tv code to em | h ■ = . » a i’.erfisn-g. Bin. after all. : tied: contention was that broad . c istei’s »heu:selves\ were the best; jud >es oi tc.e medium’s responsi ! bil’fes ':v nnwi-e. it was business as u V Lurie switched from I ' . •: R.ciia'ds, Calkins &> If j " . f e • •.) Ci rand Advertising and » t> . th.e ic-Mimts along with. Vr \ * )? »i w is more than $1, 0 A Ke\es lost long t Curt Is-W right to c On ) (.’ma la shifted L" > nd.e'd Johnson to J. Walj February More action from! F* ' s • u;e tobacco makers: m ' o. the.: a-wne'es were • to V* m-goi" tor a session v ' Lin’ ! -m s‘;ltf As a group. C • . ■ ■ c I’. oam-’s '’informally” a-:--v i t » m op nn-oHne and tar . :c in I !-..:e—«! am of Auver| i”.’f in Washington and : ■’ i a plan for seU-regula: s’ c i!’>'d f.)» nounbers to j nd\ei,isbig in their local i TV BILL SHIPLEY areas. False claim and bad taste ads would be turned over to Bet¬ ter Business Bureaus for action. Compton’s Chicago office dou¬ bled its billings to $10,000,000 in a 'merger with Baker, Tilden. Bol: gard & Barger. Main account picked up was Quaker Oats. El¬ lington & Co., New York, realigned Jts top execs with William A. Bar¬ rel moving up from exec veepee to president. First major account shift of the .vear saw Revlon shifting more than $5,000,000 out of C. J. LaRoehe and Mogul Williams & Say¬ lor into Grey > primarily ) and War¬ wick & Legler. Warwick & Legicr ; also picked up the $2,500,000 : Bromo Seltzer account from BBDO. Benton & Bowles got three Calvert brands. This time Grey !was the loser along with Cohen, Dowd & Aleshire. Adiertising Age’s annual listing of agency billings showed 629 shops billing S5 4 billion in ’59. .TWT's $328,000,000 • world-widei was tops. McCann-Erickson was ahead on the domestic scene with .S23 1.000.000. March — Bates agency signed a consent order persuant an FTC : complaint filed in ’59. notching a victory for the federal agency in the running battle with the hard¬ sell shop. Another, more personal, feud burst into headlines as Martin Revson sued brother Charles, Revlon proxy, for recovery of stock due under terms of his departure from the company. Martin Revson was exec veepee until his resignation in the spring of ’58. Suit for $600 000 damages charged the Revlon ; prexy with fraudulent actions and 'stock ‘’deception.” One of the biggest billings shifts in ad history saw Chrysler moving its Dodge and Dodge truck business out of Grant and Ross Roy to BBDO, and Valiant-DeSoto-Plymouth division from BBDO to N. W. Ayer. BBDO was winner by a gain of more than $12,000.000. N. W. Ayer gained $10,000,000. BBDO also picked up C. L. Smith from Lennen & Newell. Loss of the Babbitt account was stated cause of Thomas C. Butcher’s resugnation as prexy of Brown & Butcher. ; The Shulton-bankrolled ‘’Race ifor Space” documentary, snubbed [by all three, webs, was accepted Jby 104 stations on a syndication basis. Spot Big Shoots Up April — Television Bureau of Ad¬ vertising reported spot tv volume for ’59 at $605,603,000, an increase of 18% over the previous year. Lestoil was the top spender at more than $18,000,000, said TvB. BBDO pulled off another major ; account acquisition, winning out over six other finalists in the scramble for the $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 Pepsi-Cola account. Fuller & Smith & Ross got its first tough bounce in a tough year with the 'switch of Edison Electric Institute ; to Compton. Columbia Phono¬ graphs switched from McCannErickson to Donahue & Coe. Albert Whitman was named prexy of Campbeil-Mithun. major midwestern agency with $43,000.;000 billings headquartered in Min¬ neapolis. Ray Mithun moved up to chairman of the board. Industry’s year-long moment of truth continued with Fairfax Cone telling delegates to the American Assn, of Advertising Agencies meeting in Boca Raton that there was no excuse for “our” poor taste ads. The Foote. Cone & Belding exec declared, “Some of the advertising now on the air for deo¬ dorants. laxatives, corn removers, sick headache remedies, cold and ; sinus inhalants and girdles and j brassieres needs to be thrown of r ancl kept off the air.” May — FTC crackdown took a new turn with a full-scale investi¬ gation of guarantees in ads. Along : with publication of. a seven-point : guide on guarantees, the federal agency announced it would stage a non-punitive publicity and con¬ sultation drive to bring the situa¬ tion under control. With advertising under the gun. a California ad man-legislator, Rep. Robert Wilson of San Diego, told the 10th annual conference of the Western States Advertising Agencies Assn., that the industry ! jwas the victim of a government j ‘‘witch hunt.” He sounded off. ! “Advertising is being undressed i publicly in Washington, and it is Mime we express some righteous in BEN GRAUER JOHN WINGATE IVOR NEWS— 4. 6:15, 7: JO P.M. Writes all news copy — “hard” news and coinnv'ntary. (.'umnwii’inls REVLON and COLGATE Mgt.: Frank (hooper Associates dignation at such treatment. Our profession is the victim of a witch hunt that would make Sa¬ lem green with envy." The account shuffle continued apace. Rival dog food pulled its $1,250,000 billings out of Guild. , Bascom & Bonfigli. San Francisco, in favor of Needham, Louis & Brorbv, Chicago. Sunkist named Burnett. Chicago, for lemons. Biz had been with BBDO. Chicopee Mills abandoned Lennen & Newell for Doyle, Dane, Bernbach. Rem¬ ington was preparing to dump Gardner in a hunt for a new shop to handle its typewriters. Oliver Corp., amen, decided to stick with Buchen Co. alter soliciting presen¬ tations from several other agencies. TV got sort of a breather from the critical wars as Guild. Bascom & Bonfigli board chairman David Bascom let go a volley at news¬ papers. Speaking at the National Newspaper Promotion Assn, meet¬ ing in Phoenix. Bascom led off with a backhanded slap at tv, then cut loose on the sorry state of news¬ papers. “Television is presently in a sad. sorry state — both from the standpoint of the advertiser and the viewer.” he said. “It’s be¬ coming extremely difficult, if not downright impossible for many ad¬ vertisers today to 'D get the t.\pe of program they’d like to have, >2> get anything close to the time peri¬ ods they’d prefer. <3'. get a good climate for selling their product.” Then he switched his attack to a blast at newspapers: “They haven’t done a great deal to im¬ prove themselves as an advertising medium in 50 years. Newspaper reps, he said, “come slinking and groveling into our shop with kind of a doggy attitude that they are ‘licked before we begin — so why try very hard.”’ Or more often, they don’t even come to u>. . I’m told that we have to practically beat newspaper reps over the head to get any needed information out of them.” He also ripped into newspaper rate structures, makeup and for editorially playing tv's game of “titillating citizens who seek only diversion.” June — FTC in the news once more, this time with a list of guides to get better compliance witli the Robinson-Patman Act. Standard International Corp. bought out Adell Chemical, maker of Lestoil, for a reported $10,000,000. Biggest spot tv spender was said to have grossed $25,000,000 in ’59. Still Answering The Critics Advertisers were still busy an¬ swering critics. AdvertiMng Fed¬ eration of America met in New York and released a ‘’Truth Book” to guide agencies and clients in campaign preparations. Agency head and AFA vice chairman John P. Cunningham 'Cunningham & Walsh i, said, “Out of a blurred montage of rigged quizzes. Van Dorens, payola, plugola and con¬ gressional investigations has grad¬ ually come a clear course of action for this Federation. Dozens of ad¬ vertising men have stood on plat¬ forms like this and called for ac¬ tion . . . But I believe the long, long hours of discussion, disagree¬ ment and deliberation are now behind us.” He announced the “Advertising Truth Book,” a 56-page volume con¬ taining a lengthy definition of false and deceptive advertising, a list of trade practice conference rules adopted by FTC and a three-page bibliography listing additional sources for guidance etc. FTC hearing examiner Leon Gross apparently was not in the least impressed by AFA’s efforts -in the interest of truth. At a Washington hearing on Colgates “protective shield” tele commer¬ cials, cited by FTC. the examiner pondered aloud: “I wonder how chastened the Madison Ave. crowd is. They are able and ef¬ fective, and they have acquired a lot of pow'er. Not only power in the commercial world, but in the political world too. They don’t say anything deceptive. They put on a white coat and have the man handle a pharmaceutical and let it imply what it will.” J. Walter Thompson was having internal problems. Following the shift of the giant Shell Oil account I to Ogilvy, Benson & Mather. Stani ley Resor, 81-vear-old agency chair¬ man, stepped down to be succeed¬ ed by Norman Strouse. who became prexy in 1955. McCann-Erickson-. got an addi. tional $2,500,000 in General Motors . billing via the car company’s bank! rolling of sports in co-sponsorship with Gillette. ! July — Compton scored again in the area of restive clients, Albertoi Culver moved its reported S8.000,■000 billings from Wade Advertis! ing, Chicago, to the Madison Ave. : shop. Grant Advertising picked up j $4,000,000 in a merger witli Robinison, Fenwick & Haynes, and [snared Manischewitz wine from Lawrence C. Bumbinner agency. ; Kemper Insura n c e smfted $1,000,000 from John W. Shaw Advertising to Clint Frank shop in Chicago. FTC appeared to be taking the I heat off lor the hot months, but the i Democratic orators out in Cali¬ fornia at the party’s national con¬ vention were turning it on “Madi¬ son Ave. hucksters.” The ref¬ erences got trade editorials, lashhacks from industryites and, finally, touched off an AFA campaign for enlightenment of political folk at the local level. August — In a most unusual move, the American Dental Assn.’s offi¬ cial publication. Journal of the American Dental Assn., gave an endorsement to Procter & Gam¬ ble’s Crest toothpaste. Said the Journal, "Crest has been shown to be an effective anti-caries den¬ tifrice that can be of significant value when u^ed in a conscien¬ tiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care.” It was the first such ges¬ ture from 'the professional group. FTC was back, this time telling Colgate not to imply full protec¬ tion in blurbs regarding Gardoi. Colgate had argued that the “pro¬ tection” ads had .been discon¬ tinued at a cost of $100,000 after the FTC complaint of November : ’59. and that a ’’cease and demist” order was therefore unnecessary. But the. order was handed down, I anyway. | Same time. Carter Products and Sullivan, Stauffer, Colwell & • Ba\les were tangling with the federal agency after a complaint [that Rise commercials' discredited j competing products. Like Colgate, : company argued that prosecution. ! was unnecessary when ads had already been abandoned. J. Walter Thompson look a sec¬ ond najor hillings setback with • the l.os> of the S4.500.00D BoyleMidway biz. George Abrams, one time Revlon ad chief, resigned ’ IIudnut-DuBarry company in a ; policy has.-dc. Cities Service dumped Lennen & Newell for El¬ lington shop. Giant picked up close to $3,000,000 billings in the buyout of Boston agency, Chain( Continued on page J 26 )