The Army Account

Not since 1920 has the U. S. Army employed the services of an advertising agency for getting results. Three weeks ago, to speed recruiting, it set aside $250,000, invited six U. S. ad agencies to submit plans for an advertising campaign. Last week it announced the winner: Philadelphia's 71-year-old, high-minded N. W. Ayer & Son, which contributed (for $1) the celebrated Blue Eagle to the New Deal's NRA. On the Army's $250.000, Ayer will collect a commission of 16 2/3%.

Not the least reason why Ayer got the Army account was because lean, baldish, 43-year-old Clarence Lumpkin Jordan, Ayer partner, knows Army ways. Adman Jordan left Ayer in 1916 to join the French Army, later won the D. S. M. as first lieutenant in charge of ammunition dumps for the First Army of the A. E. F. in France. As a director of the Army Ordnance Association he has lectured big Philadelphia industrialists for years on the necessity of keeping their plants in shape to turn out ordnance, come war.

Pleased at snatching the unique account from his competitors was Ayer Partner Gerold McKee Lauck, 48, in charge of the New York office. Cherubic, white-haired, pipe-nursing Partner Lauck has a propensity for getting unique accounts the hard way. Year ago he set out for Johannesburg to persuade the crusty British South African (DeBeers) diamond syndicate to step up its ailing sales with a U. S. advertising campaign. At Lumbo, Mozambique, his Imperial Airways flying boat smacked head-on into a jetty in landing, killing two passengers and flinging Adman Lauck against a bulkhead with such force that his pipe was split and a section driven an inch-deep into his tongue. Dumped into the harbor by a steward, he lost his life preserver, was rescued, later found the harbor was infested with sharks. Not until three months after he landed the $500,000 diamond account did he learn that his skull was fractured.

Hard at work this week on their new campaign, which will run for five months in some 550 newspapers, are Ayermen Lauck & Jordan. The Army, hard-pressed for recruits, has given them just ten days to turn it out.

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