A Breath of Fresh Ayer

During the 1960s and '70s the most creative and persuasive advertising poured Dout of the small, freewheeling agencies known as ad boutiques, like Carl Ally or Delia Femina, Travisano & Partners. Gucci-shod zanies in tinted glasses and with-it jargon dreamed up "the white wine that goes with any dish" for Blue Nun and Braniff's pastel-colored jets and Pucci-clad stewardesses. But these days the modest shops along Madison Avenue are once again the big agencies. Says Ed McCabe, president of the onetime boutique Scali, McCabe, Sloves "The giants are doing more good work than ever before." Last week Advertising Age, the industry's Guide Michelin, cited the 25 outstanding television ads of 1979. The winners included pillars of the business: J. Walter Thompson, McCann-Erickson, Doyle Dane Bernbach and the one that competitors now call "the quiet waking giant," NW Ayer.

Founded in Philadelphia in 1869 by a young schoolteacher named Francis Wayland Ayer, who called the firm NW Ayer & Son after his father to make it sound more substantial, the agency thrived for nearly a century on blue-chip accounts such as RJ. Reynolds Industries, DeBeers Consolidated Mines and the Ladies' Home Journal Ayer copywriters coined the memorable slogans "I'd walk a mile for a Camel," "a diamond is forever" and "never underestimate the power of a woman."

But over the years clients began drifting away because of Ayer's genteel Main Line fustiness, and the agency became known as the "great gray womb."

By the early 1970s, however, there were signs of a turnaround. The company moved its headquarters from Philadelphia to New York City and began building up an overseas affiliate network. Then, in 1976, Louis Hagopian, 54, the aggressive son of an Armenian shepherd, who had been director of advertising at Chrysler's Plymouth division before joining Ayer in 1960, took over as chairman. In the next three years he added 48 new accounts and increased billings from $190 million to last year's record $428 million.

Ayer has pushed hardest the latest Madison Avenue advertising trend: stressing a community experience. For AT&T this became the "reach out and touch someone" campaign, which portrays the world's largest company bringing family and friends together via long distance. The Army commercials emphasize "join the people who've joined the Army," and the message of 7 Up is that "America is turning 7 Up." So successful has the big agency been that Competitor McCabe pays it the ultimate compliment: "Ayer is like a creative little agency."

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