Presidents of the Adcraft Club of Detroit
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7 Congratulations to the Adcraft Club on 100 years of excellence and innovation.7 ©2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION OF ADVERTISING AGE CONTENTS ADCRAFT CELEBRATES 100 YEARS OF BIG IDEAS A 4 19 05 HOW IT ALL BEGAN Welcome to the Adcraft Club of Detroit’s celebration of 100 Years of Big Ideas! Adcraft launches in Detroit amid the new-born automotive furor. Adcraft is justifiably proud of its reputation as the largest and most vital advertising club in the nation. In our market, “Adcraft” and “advertising” are A 6 19 10 GROWTH AND THE GREAT WAR virtually synonymous. Adcraft works to establish itself as Detroit under- goes massive growth. The pages that follow chronicle the 100-year history of the Adcraft Club and the history of Detroit’s dynamic advertising community, celebrating a century of 1920 THAT ROARING DECADE culture, community and advertising. You’ll see some amazing creative, and you'll A 10 Despite early labor problems, the 1920s was a learn that here in the Motor City we are looking forward to a very bright future decade of expansion and change. for Adcraft and an equally dynamic future for the Detroit agency community. 1930 THE DEPRESSION YEARS Adcraft’s Centennial, and this section in particular, demonstrate to a national audience our pride in the A 12 The 1930s were bleak for Detroit, but Adcraft Adcraft Club, and in the work we all produce for the domestic auto industry and many other blue-chip rallied despite the economy. clients. We’re particularly proud that the auto industry is the largest ad revenue-generating industry in the 1940 THESECONDGREATWAR nation, representing 15% of the total advertising revenue in the U.S. And 63% of that revenue is generated A 18 Adcraft members do their share, as Uncle Sam right here in Detroit. takes over Detroit for the war effort. Yes, the work is fantastic and we’re very proud of what we’ve done here in Detroit for the past 100 years. 1950 HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN But this celebration isn’t just about the past. I would invite you to read about the Adcraft Labyrinth on Page A 20 Detroit and Adcraft thrive as the country turns to A40. Adcraft is leaving a legacy for the future that is relevant and exciting—just like great marketing—and will TV, consumerism and cars. create a buzz in the Detroit community for decades to come. 1960 DECADE OF DISSONANCE Our future is bright. The Adcraft Club—and the Detroit advertising community—are poised for the next A 24 The 1960s was an uneasy period for the U.S., and 100 Years of Big Ideas. Detroit was no exception. 1970 CONSOLIDATION IN MOTOR CITY A 30 Takeovers and downsizing mark a decade of change in Detroit. Michael Wright 1980 THE EMPHASIS ON QUALITY Senior VP-group account director, Cadillac, Leo Burnett Detroit A 3 4 In a tough period, Detroit advertising faces mergers while its automotive clients take on Adcraft president, 2005-06 the imports. 1990 THE CHANGING FACES OF DETROIT A 36 In the last decade of the 20th century, the agency world continues to consolidate. Karen Egolf Barry Kafka Director-Editor, Special Art Director 2000 ADCRAFT DEFINES A NEW ERA Projects A 38 As Detroit businesses disperse, Adcraft takes the Jeanine Dunn lead as a unifying force for a new century. Richard K. Skews Issue Designer Vanessa Reed Associate Editor THE FUTURE OF ADCRAFT General Manager-Sales Vickie Daniel A 4 0 Marking its centennial, Adcraft creates a legacy & Marketing John McDonough Production Manager Writer for the people of Detroit. Paul Audino Advertising Director Julie Armstrong A 42 100 YEARS OF ADCRAFT PRESIDENTS Researcher A look at a century of leadership. Suzanne Hermalyn Director-Business Jane Adler Development Proofreader Cover design: Andy Lazaris, JWT, Detroit DaimlerChrysler Corp. images: Copyright DaimlerChrysler Corp. Used with permission. DECEMBER 5, 2005 A3 SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION OF ADVERTISING AGE 1905 THE BIRTH OF AN ERA n the opening decade of the 20th century, Detroit saw two key industries take root that would mark its reputation and direction for decades: automobiles and advertising. On the automotive side, if the city had not first been named le Detroit (for “the straight”) in 1701 by French explorer Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac, it would surely have been christened Ford City by 1910. In 1903, Henry Ford began building his first little two-cylinder jobs on Mack Avenue. That same year 56 other companies took a flier on the flivver, and 27 conked out before 1904, all in the Detroit area. Mr. Ford, of course, puttered along with arduous practicality, and in 1905 began turning out his Tin Lizzys, backed by an advertising investment of $39,513. The Ford tide—along with a push from General Motors Co., formed in 1908—would lift all boats in Detroit, including the city’s place as an advertising center. Amid the automotive furor, the Adcraft Club was born in December 1905 to the tune of Gus Edwards’ and Vincent Bryan’s “In My Merry Oldsmobile,” which celebrated (as well as advertised) the Detroit- to-Portland trek that Oldsmobile was promoting as part of the Lewis and IClark Exposition that year. “Dear Sir: You are invited to attend a meeting Adcraft was the brainchild of 19- to be held…on Thursday, December year-old Henry Ewald, then ad manager for the Detroit & Cleveland Seventh, at Eight O’clock, P.M., to consider the Navigation Co. While attending the formation of an Advertising Club in Detroit.” first meeting of the Associated Advertising Clubs of America in —Invitation to the first Adcraft Club meeting Chicago in the fall of 1905, he saw what the profession was making of itself in Cincinnati, St. Louis and Chicago. He returned home, determined that the Detroit ad community must organize in a consortium of shared interests. About 40 of the city’s leading admen met on Dec. 7, 1905. They would become the charter membership of the Detroit Adcraft Club, representing the four legs of the business: advertisers, agencies, media and suppliers. Most advertising, like politics, was still local. But the industry was beginning to talk of itself as a science, not a trans- action. And the weekly luncheons of the Adcraft Club were where some of the more interesting talk was to happen. ADCRAFT FOUNDER Henry Ewald takes a spin in 1909 in a 1910 E-M-F car. A4 DECEMBER 5, 2005 In the future, ads will pop up in our cereal bowls. Our dreams will be interrupted by commercials. But we’ll still look to magazines when we don’t want to be found. READ ON magazine.org/readon 1910 GROWTH IN A TIME OF GREAT CHANGE uckraking killjoys such as Ida Tarbell may not have been welcome at Adcraft luncheons, THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE: but members were getting to know their Freud. In October 1911, W.A. Shryer spoke at ADCRAFT AND SELF-REGULATION a club luncheon about the mysteries of psychology and “the psychological laws Some of the first tentative, though premature, underlying interest and desire” in advertising. Who said this ain’t a science? steps toward advertising self-regulation were Among other luncheon speakers in Adcraft’s new quarters at Grand River and taken by the Detroit ad community nearly 90 Washington was Henry Ford himself, then celebrating his 10th year in business and years ago when the Adcraft Club formed the his millionth car sold. His topic on Feb. 18, 1913, was “The value of an idea in advertising.” Vigilance Committee. Mr. Ford never made it clear exactly what that value was. But his trust in advertising The notion that advertisers might have some was known to be erratic at best. faint obligation to tell the truth about the products Mr. Ford was not the only agent of change in Detroit during the teens. In ways few could have they sold was a progressive idea of almost radical expected, the Great War that remade proportions in the second decade of the 20th MEurope helped remake Detroit, too. “The luncheons served in the café of the century—something akin to backing child labor Before World War I, much of the Adcraft Club are the best 40 cents’ worth you laws, old-age pensions or the union movement. cheap labor that kept the factories But in the waning days of the Progressive Era, it expanding had come from successive can get in the city of Detroit....There isn’t was being increasingly talked about. waves of poor but eager European another 40 cents’ worth equal to it in these In 1917, self-imposed honesty got a boost immigrants. But that immigration fell United States.” off sharply as Europe became mired with the formation of the American Association —Adcrafter, Jan. 21, 1913 in conflict and stalemate during the of Advertising Agencies. But as a trade group, war years of 1914 to 1918. Squeezed the Four A’s was prohibited by law from forcing for labor, factory recruiters headed to the South with as many one-way train tickets as they could carry and ethics codes on its members. promises of high-paying jobs in the big-city North. Their principal target: impoverished black sharecroppers In Detroit during that period, local advertisers and plantation workers. The pulling effect of such promises was accelerated in 1915 by the pushing effect of found it easy to make bold claims and extravagant a monstrous boll weevil plague and massive cotton crop failures. promises that were invariably either exaggerated It triggered the greatest single mass migration in American history, as hundreds of thousands of poor black or nonexistent.