Adland by Mark Tungate Page A

time, though, New York was distinctly unlovable: bankrupt, crime-ridden, and still reeking after a strike by garbage workers. Perhaps only Mary Wells could have envisioned an advertising campaign that played like a Broadway musical, with everyone from Gregory Peck (impressively) to Henry Kissinger (surprisingly) and Frank Sinatra (inevitably) appearing on screen to glow about how much they adored the city.
    The finishing touch came courtesy of the designer Milton Glaser, who showed up at Wells Rich Greene with a selection of posters. While the team was examining them, ‘he pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and said, “I like this, what do you think?” It was the “I Love New York” logo with a heart in the place of the word “Love”.’
    Next time you see a coffee mug or a T-shirt bearing the words ‘I ♥ New York’, spare a thought for Milton Glaser.
    The agency went on to other triumphs, and it was not until the very end of the acquisitive 1980s that Wells began to consider selling up and moving on. The industry had become consolidated, global reach wasthe key to success, and – for Wells, at least – some of the romance had leached from the industry. She’d had earlier conversations with DDB and Saatchi & Saatchi, but now she became attracted by BDDP, a French agency with ‘a cool, young, sophisticated style’, that had approached her with tentative talk of a partnership deal. The discussions grew more serious, and after much soul-searching and hesitation, she sold Wells Rich Greene to BDDP in 1990, for US $160 million (‘Queen of advertising tells all’, USA Today , 2 May 2002).
    The newly baptized Wells BDDP was about to get off to a rocky start. By then, adland was a very different place.

05
    The Chicago way
    â€˜The advertiser wants ideas, needs ideas and is paying for ideas’
    M aybe it was just good advertising, but Chicago immediately struck me as a friendly city. On a breezy autumn morning, as I stood in the middle of the street with an unfolded map trying to wrap itself around my face, three different people came up to ask me if I needed directions. After twice insisting that I would be OK, I finally gave up and admitted to the third person that I was hopelessly lost. ‘Leo Burnett?’, the man repeated. ‘It’s on West Wacker Drive. You’re on East Wacker. Just go back in the direction you came and keep walking: you can’t miss it.’
    As I walked on, I realized that I hadn’t asked the man if he worked in advertising – I’d just accepted the fact that he knew all about Leo Burnett. While Ogilvy and Bernbach are not part of the mythology of New York City, Burnett has entered Chicago folklore. He remains as larger-than-life as the characters his agency created, from the Jolly Green Giant to Tony the Tiger – not to mention the Marlboro cowboy.
    The Leo Burnett Building at 35 West Wacker drive is a 50-storey skyscraper with a lobby big enough to provoke agoraphobia. An elevator whisks visitors up to a crescent-shaped reception area featuring banks of television screens, a battery of black-clad receptionists, a bowl of rosy red apples and – suspended from the ceiling – a giant black pencil. The significance of these last two items will be discussed shortly. Beyond the reception area is the usual maze of offices, including the lair of Tom Bernardin, the agency’s chairman and CEO.
    Leo Burnett Worldwide has always been considered a solid, reliable, unpretentious agency. Under Bernardin’s leadership, its brand positioning is a curious blend of the homely and the cutting edge: a multinational with a family atmosphere. Bernardin says, ‘My intent since I arrived [in2004] has been to emphasize our unique heritage and the core values of our company, while demonstrating that these very qualities, properly applied, can be utterly modern, relevant