Ad Man: True Stories from the Golden Age of Advertising

By Robert C. Foster III

With martini glass in hand, Ad Man rips the top off the Wheaties box and plucks the tail fins off the Caddy to tell the true story of what really went on in those offices high above Madison Avenue during the 1960s, the storied age of advertising. Bob Foster (more or less) worked for all the mid-century media moguls: Harry Luce, Katharine Graham, Bill Paley, those who shaped the news, politics, policies, fads, sentiments and thinking of the day, all the while providing a platform for Madison Avenue’s ad men and women.

His memoir tells the backstories, some hilarious, some poignant, all true. More than just a roadmap of the inner workings of advertising and promotion, these are tales of how the advertising process, from the publishing houses and television networks to the advertising agencies, “got the job done.” Foster worked for Life, Time, Newsweek, Gentleman’s Quarterly, CBS-TV and Sports Illustrated. He did a gig at a great little boutique magazine called On The Sound as its ad director, a publication that presaged the wildly popular and successful regional magazines like New York and Philadelphia Magazine. He had a special insight into the industry because he was not only a media salesman but a complete and total alcoholic.

There are many businesses where the behavior of a man who drank too much would land him on the sidewalk in no time. Not so in the ad business of the 60s; it was all part of the deal. Just about everybody was half hammered after lunch and, if they weren’t, you knew to stay far away from them.

Foster’s first job, publisher’s representative at Time Inc., came easily, too easily. It was work for the semi-skilled; Ad Man found that all he really had to know was which fork to use, how to play a reasonable round of golf, and to dress whatever part he had to play. The commitment to a publication or network meant that Foster lived, ate and slept that property twenty-four hours a day. As a rep, you were expected to do whatever pleased the client -- the more outrageous the better. Bosses, secretaries, clients, account executives, creative types, visitors, business trips, and almost every personal interaction all provide fodder for this book. These stories are outrageous and funny, but the most dramatic is about a tragic night on Long Island Sound.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert C. Foster III
• Release date: Feb 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466013520

Robert C. Foster III

Author Biography: Robert C. Foster IIIAn ex-naval aviator and graduate of Bowdoin College, Bob Foster spent his career in advertising at media houses in New York; Time Inc., Newsweek and CBS Network Television. He was the founding advertising director of one of the first regional magazines called On The Sound. Bob left NYC to become publisher of the National Fisherman headquartered in Camden. He served them for a year and a half before creating a magazine prototype, Courtroom USA, for a group of investors.At the completion of this project, he and his wife moved aboard their gaff-rigged wooden schooner and cruised the Bahamas and the Caribbean for ten years. Later, they spent several years living in Italy while studying the art and architecture of ancient Rome.Recently, Bob finished four years as marketing director of the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard (previously Samples Shipyard) during the restoration and rebuilding of a number of wooden ships such as the City of Philadelphia's tall ship, the Gazella, the iconic HMS Bounty replica built for the 1964 Marlon Brando movie, and the replica of the pinnace Discovery for the Jamestown Living History Museum in Virginia.Bob lives on an historic saltwater farm in Maine with his wife, Janet and their Weimaraner, Guenevere.

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Ad Man: True Stories from the Golden Age of Advertising

By Robert C. Foster, III

Copyright 2012 Robert C. Foster, III

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"Bob Foster worked for most of the great magazines: Life, Time, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Gentleman's Quarterly, and a nifty little niche monthly called On The Sound. Then he joined CBS-TV. As an ad man in the golden age of print and television he saw it all. His book is a must read for anyone interested in the fabulous characters populating that bygone era."

Roy Rowan, former Assistant Managing Editor of Life Magazine; author of the current best-seller Never Too Late: A 90-Year-Old's Pursuit of a Whirlwind Life.

"Wry, funny, sad, exuberant -- Ad Man's the real thing, full of unforgettable people and moments. It's a picaresque romp down Madison Avenue. Read the book, then see the TV series."

Steven H. Rubin, Retired Chair of English Department, SUNY Oneonta, New York and professional journalist

In this rollicking memoir of Madison Ave. salesmanship, Bob Foster, Ad Man, a real life Mad Man, lives by his wits and charm. He is convinced that being presentable and having a good product will sell space, especially if he arranges for clients to play golf with Arnold Palmer or do some fast laps on the track with Graham Hill. A man in crisis, his undoing is always possible in the explosive mix of beautiful women, alcohol, and bad luck. Foster is a raconteur who never disappoints and whose prose will win over even the most politically correct.

James McClintock, Prof. Emeritus American Studies, Michigan State University, author of Nature's Kindred Spirits

Dedication

To all of the advertising directors and publishers whose expense accounts I should have used less, and whose client lists I should have used more, I apologize. You see, I was not only trying to do my job, but was also taking notes for this book.

And to my wonderful wife, Janet, who not only edited this entire mess and put up with all of my whining, but also asked me after viewing a particular TV offering, Was it really like that?

"No, I replied. It was harder work, definitely sexier, and a whole lot more fun."

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Time of His Young Life: The Siren Call of Madison Ave.

As Advertised in Life

Marilyn Monroe and the Abundance of Food

Chapter 2: The Party Goes On: The Ponti Auditorium

Chapter 3: The River’s On Fire: It Must Be Cleveland

The River’s On Fire

Katherine the Great

The Satyr

Chapter 4: The Best Location in the Nation

Henry Luce Comes to Cleveland

The French, They Are Different

Chapter 5: Newsweek Is Fun, But We’re Still on the Lake

Can a Scratch Golfer Find Happiness?

Newsweek’s Arnold Palmer

Chapter 6: Ad Man Goes to Sea: On The Sound Is Born on a Yacht

Chapter 7: A Life Is Lost, a Life Is Saved

A Congregation of Friends

Airport Bingo

March 17, 1976

...This Crazy Business

How Ad Man Got to the Big Eye

Chapter 8: The Tiffany Network, CBS Television: A Network in Trouble

The Big Flush

The Man from the Great State of Ohio

The Captain's Fun House

Wings Over Bermuda

Chapter 9: The Hounds of 21 and Other Stories

The Endless Elevator Ride

The Hounds of 21

Chapter 10: Commuting: A Rose by Any Other Name

After the Ball was Over

A Ride Downtown

Pete Calls It A Day

Chapter 11: An Unforgettable Guy: My Boss at CBS

Prometheus Unbound

You Just Can’t LOSE a Client!

.... I Need A Reservation?

Chapter 12: Race Car Drivers and Their Formula One

Chapter 13: Sammy Davis, Jr.: Yes, He Could

Chapter 14: Sports Illustrated -- It’s Not Just About Cricket and Fox Hunting, Mr. Luce

A Walk Across the Street

Chapter 15: The Best Job in the World, Selling a Publication About Fun and Games

Chapter 16: Sailing Down the River: If You Just Hold On Long Enough...

Epilogue

Chapter One

The Time of His Young Life: The Siren Call of Madison Ave.

The House of Henry Luce was like no other. Ad Man meets Time, Life, Sports illustrated and all of the people responsible for their creation and sale. This is high voltage stuff. While riding the crest of this exciting new wave, can he avoid touching the third rail?

As Advertised in Life

If they had a tag that said As Advertised in Life, you could sell meadow muffins as haute cuisine at the Four Seasons. You could sell potato sacks as high fashion at Saks Fifth Avenue or Bergdorf’s. As Advertised sold millions of cars, refrigerators, boxes of cereal, bottles of catsup, cans of beer, and fifths of booze. Hang a Life tag on it, and it turned to gold in front of both the manufacturer and the consumer. It was one of the tricks that made Life Magazine the hottest commodity on Madison Avenue in the 1950s and ’60s. Its circulation was growing to unbelievable heights. TV was merely a flickering blue light in the corner of the living room. Nothing was going to be bigger than Life or the people that were part of it. Everybody believed in Life.

The hardest part of my entry into the empire ruled by Henry Luce was getting past the Director of Male Personnel, a fairly dyspeptic individual with the unlikely name of John Titman. We met three times and, if he’d had his way, I’d still be on the outside looking in.

But we both knew that the fix was in. My father-in-law was a top-selling Life salesman who had already paraded me through the halls of Life’s Sales and Marketing groups. Somehow, I convinced enough people that I could easily fit into this Ivy League drinking club. I was twenty-three, a Bowdoin College semi-graduate, an ex-naval aviator with my tail feathers still on fire, and I was about to join the hottest media circus in the world.

To appease Mr. Titman’s sensitive ego (after all, he had no real say in my selection or acceptance), he was given the task of choosing my first assignment. Because he knew that I wished to be in sales, he was good enough to assign me to the Life Merchandising Department, a support group of the sales staff.

My introduction to the department head, a gentleman from Tuxedo Park, NY, was also my first martini lunch. He was short, pedantic, and humorless. But there was the martini. Fabulous. You got paid a tidy sum, made grown-up business noises, and were drunk as a chimp all afternoon.

We were twenty-six people in all, broken down into various skill areas. I was put into the food division, as this was one of Life’s largest sales categories. But not before I was assigned to a special project—a report on bras and girdles.

At the time, Life had a junior sales staff that was spread out around the country, usually one person assigned to each Time Inc. office. One day, someone decided that there should be an in-depth study of the selling of women’s undergarments. Each of these guys was given a fancy camera—they were from Life, after all—and they took hundreds of photos of bras and girdles in bins, in packages, on store dummies, but not one on a real, live person. At some point, it was dictated that all of these photos be brought together into a summation, some sort of giant report, and my desk became the repository for about 2,300 photos of underwear. I was given the project of writing this report.

Somewhere there is filed a glorious diatribe about a new product called Spandex and what a revolution it created in the women’s undergarment industry. The report was written by young Ad Man, who used the Spandex trademark appropriately and a goodly number of times, but overcompensated with photos. In retrospect, it was one of the most difficult writing assignments of my entire career. To give due credit, the report was generated with the help of two fabulous ladies who took pity on me and the sixteen junior Life salesmen. The man-hours required to create the report still boggles my mind. It briefly saw the light of day, but thankfully, it led to my next assignment at the House of Luce.

Marilyn Monroe and the Abundance of Food

Who would have believed that there was a photographer who specialized in shooting two things: (1) food, all kinds of food: dead chickens, turkeys, onions and scallions, cauliflower, and (2) Marilyn Monroe. His name was Bert Stern. I thought he had created one of the great scams of all time, but he was to become a most important ally of mine.

By now, I was a fully integrated member of Life Magazine’s Merchandising Department, which, in reality, meant that I was one of the twenty-six people who were in charge of giving Henry Luce’s money away. We did this by the bucket-load. There was absolutely no limit as to what could or would be spent to satisfy a client; make a case for it and the sky was the limit.

Consider this: one June morning, the boss notified us of a special project. The Life issue planned for Thanksgiving week would be devoted to and entitled The Abundance of Food. Every page of editorial was going to talk about the growing, processing, and marketing of America’s food.

Life Magazine paid weekly homage to an institution called the Grocery Manufacturers Association. This group was so important to Life’s ad sales because two-thirds of Life’s revenue was generated by food advertising. This association was, and probably still is, directed by the supermarkets of the country. It was our job as marketers to please both the association and the supermarkets.

A whirlwind begins and assignments go flying out to all in attendance….my immediate superior, who was once employed at Sunshine Bakery, and I are assigned the job of designing and producing store posters and oversized Life photos that will be hung in supermarkets nationwide.

At this time, Life Magazine has 8.5 million weekly circulation and nothing in the world is a larger media presence. We marketing people, like our publication, think and act big. Quick studies are done on the numbers of walls that will need to be covered for each category of food: dairy, meat, fish, grain, and packaged food. We imagine what types and sizes of Life photos are required to blanket the American food system, all timed to appear shortly before the Thanksgiving issue appears. Of course, giant store banners and posters are part of the scheme. All of this has to be first quality because this is Life, not some schlock operation from the Bronx.

But I kept wondering why Life allowed two drinking buddies to get this close to an unlimited budget is the first part of the mystery. Why the powers that be didn’t check the chicken coop on a regular basis is the second.

Then there’s that specialty and gifted photographer, Bert. But, he’s not shooting cauliflower right now; he is doing a big assignment on Marilyn and nothing can or will speed this up. We find out what his favorite whiskey is and send him a case. The same with cigars. Wine also. Two weeks go by before we get an appointment with him, but at least the banners and some posters are in the works. Rather unscientifically, we convince the boss that 75K was the number for all elements of this promotion. (We multiplied the number of markets times their walls times the products and added some more for the mom-and-pop stores that weren’t part of the GMA. As I said, it was unscientific.)

Bert Stern is a pleasant fellow and does he know how to shoot food. And Marilyn. [Later we would find that he did the last photo shoot of her before her death.] For the magazine, he has shot most of the photos for the Thanksgiving issue. Those images can’t be used for promotion because they are part of the magazine, so, at great expense, he pretty much reshoots each photo that will be featured in the issue. This means that we have eggplants and rutabagas and fresh turkeys and squabs and wheels of cheese and mullets being delivered to the Time-Life Building around the clock. The doormen were less than amused.

By this time, the project had taken on a life of its own. To say that it was out of control would be more than generous. Even this junior merchandiser knew that we were swimming as fast as we could and the big fish was gaining on us. Counting all of the copies of Bert’s photos, the banners and all of the other pieces of printed material we had for this promotion, we tallied close to 150,000 items, and because they were designed to be seen in large grocery stores, we made them big. Really, really big. Which meant, of course, really, really expensive.

It was mid-July and everything was in place. We held a dry run in front of the New York Life sales staff. They were excited about our efforts. We were on top of the world. And although we had help from the sidelines, my sidekick Gerry and I had pretty much masterminded the whole thing, so we pushed aside some of the lesser luminaries so that our names shone brighter on the proverbial corporate marquee.

A week later, Gerry and I went to one of the top supermarkets in New Rochelle, and after telling their weekly sales meeting about our great upcoming promotion, the manager looked at us and simply asked, What Thanksgiving are we talking about, guys?

Why, this one coming up, I answered prayerfully. It’s only July so we’ve got a good head start, don’t you think?

The Kroger guy stopped us and, to our great amazement, said that the Grocery Manufacturers of America always planned their Thanksgiving promotion a year in advance.

The feeling in my stomach was not good. To realize that our efforts, which were not only multidimensional but, we thought, so well planned and timed were actually lagging behind by one full year was, well, surreal. We wondered why nobody had checked for this possibility. Finally, we realized that we were the nobodies.

Gerry was a grownup with kids, so he really needed his job. I figured I could always start over again as an account executive in an ad agency or as a crane operator or a policeman or something. The martinis on the way back to the building didn’t seem to make the magnitude of our mistake diminish in any way. And there was no way we could drag any of our old pals back on board the sunken ship.

There was a woman at Life Promotion named Kay Benawit who was, quite literally, a magician. If favorably disposed toward you, she could make good things occur and no one would know how they happened. If she didn’t care for you, your project would suddenly appear in Cleveland the morning it had to be in New York, and there would be no plausible explanation. By four o’clock that afternoon, we were at her desk behind closed doors. Although we were still a bit under the influence, we explained our predicament well enough so that she was amused not only by the sheer size of the blunder, but by the fact that just two people had managed to screw up so magnificently. Kay had worked for Life for twenty-five years, and she liked things that were big and full of imagination. She counseled us and we all went out for a drink.

Somewhere in lower Manhattan there is a large warehouse. It is nondescript and looks like any other big-city storage structure. It looks forgotten by time. Why it hasn’t been torn down yet is probably a question for the tax man or an auditor. On the second floor of this musty old building, a hundred and fifty thousand promotional photos and banners of the 1961 Thanksgiving issue of Life touting The Abundance of Food are carefully laid on pallets in long, even rows. They speak with great authority of the