The Buick Winner

For eight busy weeks Buick Boss Edward T. Ragsdale shopped Madison Avenue looking for a new agency for the $24 million Buick account (TIME, Jan. 6). In the sweepstakes a dozen agencies gave him every kind of sell--hard, medium and soft. He was mobbed by grey flanneled greeters, hailed by groups with big campaign buttons and placards plugging their wares. The only top agency that seemed to stand aloof was McCann-Erickson; everyone assumed it was not in the running because it already had the competing $26 million Chrysler account.

But last week Ed Ragsdale surprised everyone. From his Flint, Mich, office he called McCann-Erickson's President Marion Harper, whom he had met only once, and told him to hustle out. As Harper walked into the office, Ragsdale stuck out his hand and said: "Marion, we like your agency best."

Then Harper pulled a surprise of his own. He hurried over to Chrysler and told the astounded officials that, as of June I, he was dropping their account. Why? One big reason is that Harper obviously sees a chance to land more G.M. accounts if he does a good job on Buick. Furthermore, there were prospects that Buick would step up its spending in an all-out effort to bolster its badly skidding sales, hurt by Buick's stodgy styling. Buick, in third place only two years ago, is now in fifth, behind Plymouth and Oldsmobile. What Ragsdale apparently wanted was the same kind of eye-catching "Forward Look" campaign that McGann-Erickson had worked out for Chrysler. He could also use some of McCann-Erickson's research facilities to find out how to make his car sell.

Along ad alley, Harper has pushed his agency out in front by emphasizing market research. The Oklahoma-born son of an adman, Harper graduated from Yale ('38) and joined McCann-Erickson as an office boy. He shot up fast, became president in 1948 at 32. Since then, he has quadrupled the agency's billings (Coca-Cola, Westinghouse, Chesterfield, etc.) to $250 million last year, hopes eventually to push McCann ahead of the No. I agency, J. Walter Thompson.

The Buick choice by no means ended the excitement along Madison Avenue. At week's end the top agencies were scrambling just as hard for the Chrysler account that McCann-Erickson dropped. Up for grabs also is the $5,000,000 Lincoln account. Young & Rubicam gave it up three weeks ago when it decided it could not get along with new Lincoln Boss James Nance.

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