BBDO (Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn)

Type	Subsidiary of Omnicom Group
Industry	Advertising, Marketing
Founded	1891
Headquarters	New York City, USA
Number of locations	289 offices in 80 countries
Area served	World Wide
Key people	Founders: William H. Johns Bruce Fairchild Barton Roy Sarles Durstine Alex Faickney Osborn
Employees	15,000 employees
Website	http://www.bbdo.com

BBDO is a worldwide advertising agency network, with its headquarters in New York City. The agency began in 1891 with George Batten's Batten Company, and later in 1928, through a merger of BDO (Barton, Durstine & Osborn) and Batten Co. the agency became BBDO.^[1] BBDO Worldwide has been named the "Most Awarded Agency Network in the World" by The Gunn Report for 5 consecutive years beginning 2005. As well, it has won "Network of the Year" at the Cannes Lions for half a decade. With more than 15,000 employees in 289 offices in 80 countries, it is the largest of three global networks (BBDO, DDB, TBWA) of agencies in Omnicom's portfolio.^[2] BBDO was named Global Agency of the Year by Adweek in 2011. It has also been named Agency of the Year in 2005 by Adweek, Advertising Age, and Campaign Magazine.^[3][4] In 2006, Mayor Bloomberg proclaimed January 10 as BBDO day in recognition of the strength of its advertising, as well as its contributions to New York City.^[5]

With an extensive portfolio of creative advertising, BBDO focuses on the philosophy of "The Work The Work The Work", citing, "At BBDO, the Work encompasses every kind of creative content that can touch the consumer and reinforce the brand".

Origins[link]

BBDO originated in 1891 when George Batten founded the Batten Company. The Barton & Durstine agency (founded by Bruce Fairchild Barton and William H. Johns) opened in January 1919, and when Alex Osborn joined the company, the company was named Barton, Durstine, and Osborn. In 1928, the Batten Company (then managed by William H. Johns) merged with Barton, Durstine, and Osborn to form BBDO.

Clients[link]

The company's extensive list of clients includes:

The Economist, PepsiCo, Diageo, Skanska, FedEx, General Electric, Campbell's, Arby's, Gillette, Motorola Solutions, Orbitz, Bayer, Wrigley, AT&T, Mars, Bank of America, Pinnacle Foods, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Monster.com, HBO, Hyatt Hotels, Starbucks, Lowe's, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fonterra, Imperial Chemical Industries, Hewlett-Packard, Watson's, Emirates, ThaiBev, Syngenta, and Olympus

History[link]

• 1891 George Batten (1854–1918), 37, opens his one-room advertising agency, the Batten Co., at 38 Park Row, New York, with no clients and one employee.
• 1894 Batten's is the first agency to install in-house printing. He advocates the use of plain, simple type, which he says, "stands out like a Quaker on Broadway."^[6]
• 1906 The agency, now with 50 employees, moves to the Metropolitan Annex building on East 24th Street, occupying the entire 11th floor – 5,000 square feet (460 m²).
• 1912 Hammermill Paper Co. awards its account to Batten. Hammermill, which was acquired by International Paper in 1988, left BBDO in 1995.
• 1917 Armstrong Cork Company awards its account to Batten. It is now BBDO's oldest client.
• 1918 George Batten dies at 64, and William H. Johns becomes president of the Batten Co.
• 1919 The Barton & Durstine Co. agency opens January 1 at 25 W 45th St., with Bruce Barton as president and Roy Durstine as secretary- treasurer. In August, Alex Osborn joins the agency, renamed Barton, Durstine & Osborn.
• 1920 General Electric becomes BDO client.
• 1923 Both BDO and the Batten Co. move to the Knapp building at 383 Madison Avenue. BDO leases an entire floor, while the Batten Co., with 246 employees, takes a floor and a half. The 12-story building, designed by the architectural firm of Cross and Cross, was demolished in the late 1990s to make way for the 47-story Bear Stearns building (now JP Morgan Chase.)
• 1923 The Harvard Advertising Awards are founded by Edward Bok of the Ladies' Home Journal and the Harvard Business School. BDO wins more awards than any other agency in the seven years that the award is presented.
• 1924 BDO ranks as the fourth-largest U.S. agency.
• 1925 BDO airs its first radio program an hour show for Atwater Kent radios for which the agency had obtained the exclusive right to broadcast Metropolitan Opera stars. Two years later, BDO becomes the first agency to establish a radio department.
• 1927 John Caples, who later will become the world's authority on copy testing, joins BDO. In his 1931 book, "Tested Advertising Methods," he declared that the average American is 13 years old mentally, and that a copywriter should "use words you would expect to find in a fifth-grade reader." He also strongly advised against humor.
• 1928 On September 21, the Batten Co. and BDO announce a merger to form Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn. Bruce Barton is made chairman of the board, while William H. Johns, president of the Batten Co., becomes president of the new agency. Durstine is made vice president and general manager. The new agency, with branch offices Chicago, Boston, and Buffalo, has over 600 employees. It will occupy 383 Madison for 59 years until it relocates to its current address, 1285 Avenue of the Americas.
• 1929 Chicago office opens.
• 1934 Kate Smith begins her first commercially sponsored radio show for BBDO client La Palina cigars. La Palina was originated by Sam Paley, father of William S. Paley, president of CBS. (The inside of every La Palina box was adorned with a picture of Mrs. Sam Paley in a Spanish costume.)
• 1935 DuPont hires BBDO to change the company's image from a World War I munitions manufacturer to a peace time manufacturer. The agency introduces the slogan “Better Things for Better Living … Through Chemistry.” The words “through chemistry” were removed in the 1980s. The slogan was replaced in 1999 with "The miracles of science."
• 1935 BBDO launches the first "Hit Parade" radio show. "Soon" was the No. 1 song.
• 1937 Bruce Barton is appointed to an unexpired term in the United States House of Representatives and is elected a year later.
• 1939 Roy Durstine resigns after three years as president, and opens his own agency. BBDO is reorganized under the leadership of Alex Osborn.
• 1939 Lever Bros. becomes a BBDO client.
• 1940 After losing his campaign for the Senate, Bruce Barton returns as president of BBDO.
• 1940 Alex Osborn introduces "brainstorming," a technique to generate ideas, to the agency.
• 1946 Ben Duffy, who started in the agency's mailroom and rose to head the media department, becomes president. Under his watch billings quadruple from $50 million to $200 million in ten years. He steps down in 1957 due to illness.
• 1952 Jim Jordan starts his career as a copywriter at BBDO. He will become the agency's chief creative officer in 1968.
• 1957 Charlie Brower, who was hired as a copywriter with the Batten Co. just before the merger with BDO, becomes president.
• 1960 On March 16, Chrysler moves its Dodge Truck and Car Divisions, with billings of $21 million, to BBDO. On April 6, BBDO wins the $17 million Pepsi account after a pitch against seven other agencies.
• 1961 Jim Jordan creates a campaign for Schaefer Beer based on research that revealed that 80% of the beer was consumed by 20% of the drinkers. The slogan and jingle: "Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one."
• 1962 Phil Dusenberry is hired as a junior copywriter.
• 1963 Jim Jordan creates the campaign "Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!"
• 1963 BBDO introduces the slogan "Come alive! You're in the Pepsi Generation." It is the first time a product is identified not by its own attributes but by its consumers' lifestyles and attitudes.
• 1965 Allen Rosenshine is hired as a copywriter.
• 1968 Jim Jordan creates the "Ring around the collar" campaign for Wisk detergent, a Unilever product. Wisk left BBDO in 1989.
• 1973 BBDO creates the campaign (and jingle) "Have it your way" for Burger King.
• 1978 Jim Jordan leaves BBDO to open his own agency. Allen Rosenshine succeeds him as BBDO's creative director.
• 1979 Chicago office joins the BBDO Worldwide network.
• 1980 Phil Dusenberry becomes the agency's executive creative director. Allen Rosenshine becomes president of BBDO New York.
• 1982 BBDO is named Agency of the Year by Adweek.
• 1983 Tom Kiely is named president of a new BBDO division called the "BBDO Business-to-Business Group" to service the broad range of communications needs required by its BtoB-oriented clients, including The Timken Company, Hammermill Paper, certain General Electric Company departments and of Symbolics, Inc, (a so-called Artificial Intelligence computer manufacturer). Working in that group were a veteran group of business-to-business advertising and public relations professionsls including Les Lilliston, Bob Dudley, Charles Gade, Bruce Jordan, Bob Wilson, Cray Cyphers and Bill Reingold.
• 1984 On January 27, Michael Jackson's hair is accidentally set on fire during filming of a Pepsi commercial. The mishap made front page news around the world. (Phil Dusenberry's 2005 memoir is titled "Then We Set His Hair on Fire.") The commercial debuted a month later on the Grammy Awards, where Jackson, wearing a hair piece, collected a record eight awards.
• 1985 BBDO wins the $15 million Visa account and introduces the slogan "It's everywhere you want to be." The account, which grew to $350 million, remained at BBDO for 20 years until it moved to another Omnicom agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day.
• 1985 Advertising Age selects BBDO as Agency of the Year.
• 1986 BBDO wins the $50 million Apple Computer account from Chiat\Day, which had produced Apple's "1984" Super Bowl commercial. Apple returned to TBWA\Chiat\Day in 1997 soon after Steve Jobs returned to Apple.
• 1986 Omnicom is formed from the merger between BBDO and DDB Needham. Sometimes referred to as the "Big-Bang" merger, it was spearheaded by BBDO Worldwide CEO Allen Rosenshine in response to competitive threats from other large advertising agency comglomerates.
• 1986 BBDO's Business-to-Business Group is folded because of lack of business.
• 1987 After 59 years on Madison Avenue, BBDO relocates to 1285 Avenue of the Americas.
• 1987 BBDO wins the $30 million Pizza Hut account from Chiat\Day. It will remain at BBDO until 2009.
• 1991 A Diet Pepsi commercial with Ray Charles singing "You Got the Right One, Baby" wins the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter poll.
• 1993 Ted Sann becomes Chief Creative Officer and Vice Chairman of BBDO North America.
• 1994 A Pepsi commercial about a lab chimp that turns into a party animal wins the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter poll.
• 1994 BBDO is selected Agency of the Year by both Adweek and Advertising Age.
• 1995 A Pepsi commercial where a boy on a beach tries to suck the last drop of Pepsi out of a bottle with a straw wins the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter poll.
• 1996 A Pepsi commercial about a fictional Coke driver who causes a whole shelf of Pepsi cans to tumble to the floor wins the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter poll. In 2008 the commercial was chosen as the best ad in the twenty year history of the Ad Meter poll.
• 1997 A Pepsi commercial featuring grizzly bears dancing to the Village People's 1970s disco classic YMCA wins the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter poll.
• 1998 For the fifth consecutive year a Pepsi commercial wins the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter poll. A sky surfer does aerial tricks with a goose, and they share a Pepsi afterwards.
• 2002 Phil Dusenberry retires as Chairman of BBDO North America. Andrew Robertson is named president and CEO of BBDO North America.
• 2004 Andrew Robertson is named President and Chief Executive Officer of BBDO Worldwide^[7]
• 2004 David Lubars is appointed Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of BBDO North America^[8]
• 2005 BBDO Chicago is rebranded as Energy BBDO
• 2006 Mayor Bloomberg names January 10 "BBDO Day."
• 2007 BBDO Worldwide is awarded the Network of the Year award at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival.
• 2008 BBDO acquires Barefoot Advertising in Cincinnati, Ohio, makes it part of Proximity Worldwide, renamed Barefoot Proximity it is the network's largest US office.
• 2008 BBDO is named Network of the Year by CAMPAIGN Magazine, as well as the Clios International Advertising Festival
• 2008 BBDO Worldwide is awarded Network of the Year for the second straight year at Cannes. BBDO New York is named Agency of the Year, and ALMAPBBDO is #2 as Agency of the Year.
• 2009 BBDO Worldwide wins Network of the Year at Cannes for the third year in a row.
• 2010 A Snickers commercial featuring Betty White wins the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter,
• 2010 BBDO Worldwide wins Network of the Year at Cannes for the fourth year in a row.
• 2010 BBDO opens a marketing strategy office named Batten & Company in New York.^[9]
• 2011 BBDO Worldwide wins Network of the Year at Cannes again, for an unprecedented five consecutive years.
• 2011 BBDO Worldwide named Global Agency of the Year by Adweek.

In popular culture[link]

BBDO has had numerous appearances in American popular culture. Notable mentions include:

• In the 1933 comedy Hard to Handle, James Cagney says, "Well, so long, boys. I'm lunching with Bruce Barton of Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn."

• In an episode of Jack Benny's radio program (broadcast 11/21/48), Jack spends virtually the entire show on the phone waiting to talk to either Batten, Barton, Durstine or Osborn (the agency for his sponsor, Lucky Strike). During this episode, Jack's wife, Mary Livingston, cracks that the agency's name "sounds like a trunk falling down stairs." The line has also been attributed—probably erroneously—to Fred Allen.

• In the 1961 Doris Day-Rock Hudson film Lover Come Back, the pair play rival advertising executives; Hudson's character works at 383 Madison Avenue—BBDO's address—and is shown entering the building's lobby.

• A character in the 1961 Broadway musical and 1967 film How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is named Benjamin Burton Daniel Ovington, and referred to by his initials, "BBDO." Naturally he becomes the head of advertising.

• In the 1963 parody song "Harvey and Sheila" ("Hava Nagila") by Allan Sherman, BBDO makes an appearance in the lyric: "Sheila's a girl I know/At B.B.D.& O./She works the PBX/And makes out the checks."

• Pop composer and lyricist Van Dyke Parks alludes to the firm in "Palm Desert" on his 1968 album "Song Cycle": "I came west unto Hollywood, never-never land. Juxtaposed to B.B.D. and O. Beyond San Fernando on hillside manors on the banks of toxicity those below and those above the same."

• In the 1999 film The Truman Show, Jim Carrey works at a company named Omnicom (BBDO's parent company).

• In the 2000 Helen Hunt-Mel Gibson film What Women Want, Hunt's character leaves top agency "BBD&O" to work at fictional Sloane/Curtis.

• The agency Sterling Cooper in the TV series Mad Men, set in the early 1960s, is supposedly inspired by BBDO, according to the show's creator, Matthew Weiner.^{[10][dead link]} BBDO is mentioned fairly frequently as a competitor, including Season 1 Episode 7, when a department store customer says, "He's a media buyer at BBDO." Remnants of BBDO's work can be seen throughout the office as well. Spam advertising from BBDO's Minneapolis office is also displayed behind Peggy's first desk as a copywriter in the copy room. A third-season episode mentions that Sterling Cooper "lost the Campbell's Soup Great Britain" account, leading one executive to lament that now they'd "lost all of Campbell's to BBDO." In Season 4 "Hands and Knees," Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce loses its biggest account, Lucky Strike cigarettes, to BBDO, putting the agency on the brink of bankruptcy.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Rosenshine, Allen. Funny Business: Moguls, Mobsters, Megastars, and the Mad, Mad World of the Ad Game.

External links[link]

• Official website
• Proximity Worldwide
• Proximity Worldwide Wiki
• BBDO creative work and company info
• BBDO's award winning work
• [1] BBDO's profile on AdForum

This article's lead section may not adequately summarize its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points. (May 2012)

Keith Haring
Haring in 1988 at a party Gonzalez y Gonzalez restaurant, Greenwich Village
Birth name	Keith Haring
Born	(1958-05-04)May 4, 1958 Reading, Pennsylvania
Died	February 16, 1990(1990-02-16) (aged 31) New York City, New York
Nationality	USA
Field	Pop art, graffiti art
Training	The Ivy School of Professional Art (Pittsburgh) School of Visual Arts (New York)
Influenced by	Dr. Seuss, Walt Disney, Allen Haring (his father), William S. Burroughs, Pierre Alechinsky,[1]

Keith Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.

Early life[link]

Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Haring grew up in Kutztown with his mother, Joan Haring, and his father, Allen Haring, a cartoonist. He also had three younger sisters, Kay, Karen and Kristen. Keith's parents wanted to name all their children with names that started with K. Haring was interested in art from an early age. From 1976 to 1978 he studied commercial art at The Ivy School of Professional Art, an art school in Pittsburgh. He soon lost interest in commercial art and moved on to study Fine Arts.

At age 19, in 1978, Haring moved to New York City, where he was inspired by graffiti art, and studied at the School of Visual Arts.^[1]

Career[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Haring achieved his first public attention with chalk drawings in the subways of New York (see public art). These were his first recognized pieces of pop art. The exhibitions were filmed by the photographer Tseng Kwong Chi. Around this time, "The Radiant Baby" became his symbol. His bold lines, vivid colors, and active figures carry strong messages of life and unity. Starting in 1980, he organized exhibitions in Club 57. He participated in the Times Square Exhibition and drew, for the first time, animals and human faces. In 1981 he sketched his first chalk drawings on black paper and painted plastic, metal and found objects.

Haring contributed to the New York New Wave display in 1981 and in 1982, he had his first exclusive exhibition in the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. That same year, Haring took part in Documenta 7 in Kassel, Germany. By 1982, he established friendships with fellow emerging artists Futura 2000, Kenny Scharf, Madonna and Jean-Michel Basquiat. That same year he took part in Public Art Fund's "Messages to the Public" in which he created work for a Spectacolor Board in Times Square. He took part in the Whitney Biennial in 1983, as well as in the São Paulo Biennial. He got to know Andy Warhol, who was the theme of several of Haring's pieces including "Andy Mouse." His friendship with Warhol would prove to be a decisive element in his eventual success, particularly after their deaths.

In December 2007, an area of the American Textile Building in the TriBeCa neighborhood of New York City was discovered to contain a painting of Haring's from 1979.^[2]

International art[link]

In 1984, Haring visited Australia and painted wall murals in Melbourne (such as the 1984 'Detail-Mural at Collingwood College, Victoria') and Sydney and received a AU$1000 commission from the National Gallery of Victoria and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art to create a mural, based on his graffiti designs, which temporarily replaced the water curtain at the National Gallery.^[3] He also visited and painted in Rio de Janeiro, the Paris Museum of Modern Art, Minneapolis and Manhattan. He even designed a jacket worn by a pink-wigged Madonna for a performance of her song "Like a Virgin" for the TV dance program Solid Gold.

In 1985 Haring started to paint canvas. Simultaneously, the Museum of Modern Art in Bordeaux opened an exhibition of his works, and took part in the Paris Biennial. He made an appearance on MTV in November 1985, painting the set during a "guest VJ" special hosted by his friend, keyboardist Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran. In 1986 Haring painted murals in Amsterdam, Paris, Phoenix and in Berlin on the Berlin Wall at Brandenburg Gate. As well, he painted the body of Grace Jones for her music video "I'm Not Perfect." and opened a retail store in SoHo called Pop Shop, selling merchandise bearing his iconic images including t-shirts, toys, posters and other objects with reproductions of his art; the outlet closed in 2005. Haring also created advertising images for Absolut vodka and Swatch watches.^[4]

When asked about the "commercialism" of his work, Mr. Haring said: "I could earn more money if I just painted a few things and jacked up the price. My shop is an extension of what I was doing in the subway stations, breaking down the barriers between high and low art."^[4] By the arrival of Pop Shop, his work began reflecting more socio-political themes, such as anti-Apartheid, AIDS awareness, and the crack cocaine epidemic. He even created several pop art pieces influenced by other products: Absolut Vodka, Lucky Strike cigarettes, and Coca-Cola. In 1987 he had his own exhibitions in Helsinki and Antwerp, among others. He also designed the cover for the benefit album A Very Special Christmas, on which Madonna was included. In 1988 he joined a select group of artists whose work has appeared on the label of Chateau Mouton Rothschild wine.

Haring also created a public mural in the ambulatory care department of Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center on Flushing Avenue, Brooklyn.

Keith Haring was openly gay and was a strong advocate of safe sex ^[1]; however, in 1988, Haring was diagnosed with AIDS. He established the Keith Haring Foundation in 1989, its mandate being to provide funding and imagery to AIDS organizations and children's programs like Kinderstern, and to expand the audience for Haring’s work through exhibitions, publications and the licensing of his images. Haring enlisted his imagery during the last years of his life to speak about his own illness and generate activism and awareness about AIDS.

In June 1989, on the rear wall of the convent of the Church of Sant'Antonio (in Italian: Chiesa di Sant'Antonio abate) in Pisa (Italy), he painted the last public work of his life, the mural "Tuttomondo" (translate: "all-world"), along with 6 animated inserts for Sesame Street (which later aired a year after his death).

Death and legacy[link]

Haring died February 16, 1990 of AIDS-related complications.

As a celebration of his life, Madonna declared the first New York date of her Blond Ambition World Tour a benefit concert for Haring's memory, and donated all proceeds from her ticket sales to AIDS charities including AIDS Project Los Angeles and amfAR; the act was documented in her film Truth or Dare. Additionally, Haring's work was featured in several of Red Hot Organization's efforts to raise money for AIDS and AIDS awareness, specifically its first two albums, Red Hot + Blue and Red Hot + Dance, the latter of which used Haring's work on its cover.

By expressing concepts of birth, death, sex and war, Haring's imagery has become a widely recognized visual language of the 20th century.

He is the subject of a composition, Haring at the Exhibition, written and performed by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero in collaboration with DJ Nicola Guiducci. The work combines excerpts from popular chart music of the 1980s with samples of classical music compositions by Lorenzo Ferrero and synthesized sounds. It is featured at "The Keith Haring Show,"^[5] an exhibition which took place in 2006 at the Triennale di Milano.

In June 2008 there was a retrospective exhibition containing 200 pieces of his work open to the public in , Spain. Also in 2008, filmmaker Christina Clausen released the documentary The Universe of Keith Haring. In the film, the legacy of Haring is resurrected through colorful archival footage and remembered by friends and admirers such as artists Kenny Scharf and Yoko Ono, gallery owners Jeffrey Deitch and Tony Shafrazi, and the choreographer Bill T. Jones.^[6]

Haring's work was featured in Madonna's 2008 Sticky & Sweet Tour during the song "Into the Groove", and also during the U2 song "One" on the PopMart Tour in 1997/1998.

Keith Haring: Double Retrospect is a monster sized jigsaw puzzle by Ravensburger measuring in at 17' x 6' with 32,256 pieces, breaking Guinness Book of World Records for the largest puzzle ever made. The puzzle uses 32 pieces of work from Haring and weighs 42 pounds.^[7]

In March 2012, a retrospective exhibit of Haring's work, Exhibitions: Keith Haring: 1978–1982, opened at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.^[8]

On May 4, 2012, the 54th birthday of Haring, Google honored him in a Google Doodle.^[9]

See also[link]

• Pop Shop
• Figuration Libre
• The Universe of Keith Haring

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Phillips, Natalie E., "The Radiant (Christ) Child: Keith Haring and the Jesus Movement", American Art, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Fall 2007), pp. 54–73. The University of Chicago Press
• Reading Public Museum, Keith Haring: Journey of the Radiant Baby, Piermont, N.H. : Bunker Hill Publishing Co., 2006. ISBN 978-1593730529
• Van Pee, Yasmine. Boredom is always counterrevolutionary: art in downtown New York nightclubs, 1978-1985 (M.A. thesis, Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, 2004).

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Keith Haring

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Keith Haring

• Keith Haring Foundation
• Keith Haring Kids
• Tuttomondo (from ETS publishers, Pisa)
• Tuttomondo (from Municipality of Pisa website)
• Keith Haring in Melbourne.
• The Nakamura Keith Haring Collection (The first private museum exhibiting the works of Keith Haring)