A Gentle Nudge

In the world of Madison Avenue, J. Walter Thompson Co., the world's biggest advertising agency,* is something apart.

It lives on Lexington Avenue, not Madison, and it runs to blue serge conservatism more than grey flannel. It takes no hard-liquor accounts, turns up its nose at some top-selling products (patent medicines), refuses even to put on speculative account presentations for prospective clients.

Where other agencies shuffle vice presidents between martinis, Thompson takes pride in its longtimers. But last week Thompson was gently nudging some old hands toward the door.

In a major management realignment, Thompson's grand old man, Stanley Burnet Resor, 81, who spent 44 of his 53 years with the agency as president and chief executive officer, was finally retired as board chairman. By virtue of a decision to leave the chairman's spot vacant, the vice-chairmanships of two of Resor's top hands were also eliminated: Samuel Meek, 66, who has run Thompson's international operation for 36 years, and Henry C. Flower Jr., 64, a 33-year Thompson veteran. Both Flower and Meek will continue with the agency as directors and members of the pension fund. But a rush of younger blood has taken over Thompson's power positions; actual control has passed to a younger generation of newly created senior vice presidents, each with the stamp of approval from Thompson's president and chief executive officer, Norman Strouse, 55.

Since he was jumped over 84 other vice presidents to become Thompson's president in 1955, Strouse has slowly been building a younger management team to take over from Resor, Resor's wife Helen and their aging right-hand men. Two years ago the Resors were prevailed upon to sell their 51% holdings of Thompson's voting stock to the agency's profit-sharing trust fund. "They are both older now," says Strouse, "and it was decided that for the best interest of the company, the stock should be sold so that it would not be tied up in their estate." The sale put control of the agency in the hands of a seven-member pension committee.

Last June Resor stepped down as chief executive officer, handed the title over to Strouse. But the presence of the grand old man. who still came to his office, was inhibiting to Strouse and his management group. At last January's board meeting, Resor's name was not on the slate; he continued as chairman only until the first meeting of the new directors. With Stanley Resor finally departed, Thompson is firmly under the control of Strouse, who is more of an administrator than a man who conceives grand programs and coins remarkable slogans.

* The top ten in domestic and overseas billings: Thompson, $370 million: Interpublic, Inc. (the parent corporation of McCann-Erickson), $352 million; Young & Rubicam, $247 million; B.B.D.O., $243,700,000; Dentsu Advertising of Japan, $148,500,000; Ted Bates, $130,500,000; Foote, Cone & Belding, $120 million; Leo Burnett, $116,700,000; Benton & Bowles, $114 million; N. W. Ayer, $110 million. Biggest agency in domestic billings is Interpublic, with a combined billing of $259 million from McCann-Erickson, Canada's McCann-Erickson subsidiary and McCann-Marschalk, an independent subsidiary. Runner-up is Thompson, with $250 million in U.S. and Canadian billings.

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