Man In a Hurry

Wiry, bustling Bernard Cornelius Duffy, 48, president of the big Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn advertising agency, has the occupational ailment of his trade: peptic ulcers. He works at such a man-eating pace that, as he says, "I only call home if, by happy surprise, I can get there for supper."

Last week, Ben Duffy got some balm for his wounds. Advertising Age, the industry's bible, reported that fast-growing B.B.D. & O. had crowded Young & Rubicam out of second place among U.S. agencies, ringing up total billings of $81.4 million, $400,000 more than Y. & R.*

Duffy, and his far-flung team of 50 vice presidents and 1,150 employees in eleven U.S. cities, had done it by snagging choice new accounts (Lucky Strike, Schick Razors, Swan Soap, T.W.A.), and by hanging on to such B.B.D. & O. perennials as U.S. Steel Corp., Du Pont and General Electric. In six years, the agency had added a cool $50 million to its billings, more than doubled its business. B.B.D. &O. reports no gross revenue, but based on the usual 15% commission, its gross had risen to about $12 million a year.

Errand Boy. Up from Manhattan's "Hell's Kitchen," Duffy, a son of Irish immigrants, virtually grew up with the agency he now runs. After quitting high school at 17, he got a messenger boy's job with newly formed Barton, Durstine & Osborn./- Duffy liked to come in early to slip into the president's chair to see how it felt. After two years of errand-running, he became a space buyer, soon earned a reputation as a digger for facts and became the agency's top media man. When President Barton decided to step up as chairman four years ago, Duffy sat down in the president's chair on his own right.

In the razzle-dazzle world of huck-sterdom, whose currency is superlatives, plain-talking, unassuming Ben Duffy sticks out at the elbows. He has a genial gregariousness that enables him to first-name thousands of people; he rarely forgets a face. His memory is so photographic that he sometimes startles' his secretary by recalling verbatim a letter dictated years before. Before he lets a staffer make a sales presentation to a prospective client, Duffy insists that he bone up on every pertinent fact of the client's business.

Answer Man. Duffy abides by his own rule. Two years ago, when the American Tobacco Co. parted company with the agency handling its $12 million account, Duffy flew back from a Florida vacation before the news was even official, was soon hammering his facts at American Tobacco's shrewd, hard-to-sell President Vincent Riggio. When Duffy was done, Riggio said: "I had a list of ten questions to ask you. You have already answered them all." Duffy got the account, loyally chainsmokes Luckies.

Ben Duffy was not letting his latest triumph go to his head. "It worries me, getting up to second place," he said. "If it gives us a sense of complacency, it'll be a real handicap."

*Still in first place: J. Walter Thompson, with $121 million in billings.

/- Merged with George Batten & Co. in 1928. Of the four names in B.B.D. & O., only Chair man Bruce Barton and Vice Chairman Alex Osborn remain with the agency. Batten died in 1918; Roy S. Durstine set up his own agency eleven years ago.

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