Doyle Dane Bernbach Bill Bernbach and
Ned Doyle worked together at
Grey Advertising in
New York, where Bernbach was Creative Director. In 1949, they teamed up with
Mac Dane, who was running a tiny agency. Together they started
Doyle Dane Bernbach in
Manhattan. Dane ran the administrative and promotional aspects of the business, Doyle had a client focus, and Bernbach played an integral role in the writing of advertising, leading the creative output of the agency. The agency's first ads were for
Ohrbach's department store exemplifying a new "soft-sell" approach to advertising — with catchy slogans and witty humour contrasting the repetitive and hard-sell style in vogue until then. The new agency was initially successful in winning business for clients with small budgets. Their campaigns for
Volkswagen throughout the 1950s and 1960s were said to have revolutionized advertising. Notable campaigns included the 1959
Think Small series of Volkswagen advertisements, which was voted the No. 1 campaign of all time in Advertising Age's 1999
The Century of Advertising. In 1960, the agency won the account of Avis, then the number-two auto rental company. The tongue-in-cheek approach, "We Try Harder Because We're Number 2," was a major success (and remains part of the company's slogan today: "We Try Harder"). The DDB
"Daisy" campaign is considered to have been a significant factor in
Lyndon B. Johnson's defeat of
Barry Goldwater in the
1964 United States presidential election and landed Mac Dane on the infamous
Nixon's Enemies List. 1972's
Little Mikey commercial for
Quaker Oats ran continuously in the United States for twelve years. A branch office was opened in
Los Angeles in 1954. In 1961, DDB opened its first international office in
West Germany to service
Volkswagen. Significant growth came in the mid-1960s after the firm signed
Mobil and the available budgets grew materially. Offices in
London and other European locations were opened. Bernbach was appointed chairman and chief executive officer in 1968 when the agency was publicly listed; he became chairman of the executive committee in 1976. The impact of Doyle Dane Bernbach's creativity on advertising around the world, and the history of management crises that led to merger in 1986, are detailed in the book ''Nobody's Perfect: Bill Bernbach and the Golden Age of Advertising''. Written by journalist
Doris Willens, who was DDB's Director of Public Relations for 18 years, the book is based on oral histories and interviews with the three founders, the line of the agency's presidents, and key creative and account people. By 1986, four years after Bernbach's death, the agency group had worldwide billings of US$1.67B, 54 offices in 19 countries, and 3,400 employees, but showed profits declining 30% on the prior year.
Needham Harper & Steers Needham Harper Worldwide started in
Chicago in 1925 as Maurice H. Needham Co. with two clients and billings totalling $270,000. By 1934, it was named Needham, Louis and Brorby, Inc., with billings of US$1 million, had signed the
Kraft Foods account and had opened a
Hollywood office to service its clients' network radio program production needs. In 1951, the agency opened a New York office to concentrate on the rapidly expanding television industry. That office merged with Doherty, Clifford, Steers and Shenfield in 1965 and changed its name to Needham, Harper & Steers. The Chicago office grew with accounts such as the Morton Company,
Household Finance Corporation,
General Mills and
Frigidaire. The firm won the Oklahoma gasoline account (later
Esso, then
ExxonMobil) after research indicated that American drivers wanted both
power and
play, and copywriter
Sandy Sulcer, working with psychologist
Ernest Dichter, chose the
tiger to symbolize that desire, which led to the campaign
Put a Tiger in Your Tank. In 1966, the agency opened a Los Angeles office to handle the
Continental Airlines business. for the
Advertising Council. Keith L. Reinhard came from Chicago to head the worldwide firm in 1982 and, by 1986, there were thirty two offices outside the US; American offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles,
Washington,
Boston,
Phoenix,
Sacramento,
San Diego,
Baltimore and
Dayton; and diversification in
Porter Novelli, Biederman & Company and the international direct-response agency DR Group, Inc.
Establishment of DDB Worldwide (1982–2006) Upon Bernbach's death in 1982, the firm's earnings fell to $1.7 million with some clients and top talent leaving. It had worldwide billings of $1.67 billion with 54 offices in 19 countries and 3,400 employees by 1986. The trend of hostile takeovers of public companies during the 1980s caused the firm to merge its worldwide operations with Chicago-based Needham Harper to become DDB Needham. That same year, the owners of Doyle Dane Bernbach, Needham Harper and
BBDO agreed to merge their shareholdings to form the Omnicom Group as a United States-listed holding company, becoming the world's largest global advertising agency group at the time. It is referred to as the "Big-Bang" merger in direct response to competitive threats from other large advertising agency conglomerates. Keith L. Reinhard, who was previously at Needham Harper, became president and CEO of the merged DDB Needham. Reinhard reinvested in Bernbach's writings about advertising and the agency shifted its methods to relevancy, originality and impact for clients. By 1987, the firm's earnings were $358.5 million with $2.6 billion in billings. Its United States president Al Wolfe had planned the whitewater rafting excursion. This was loosely portrayed in the film
White Mile. By 1989, DDB Needham was the leading United States advertising agency in newspaper media billings. The firm started to guarantee the results of its advertising in 1990 which was questioned by the industry as compensation for campaigns was tied to clients meeting sales goals. It dropped from the third-largest to sixth-largest agency in the United States in 1993 with $229 million in earnings on $1.9 billion in billings. Billings grew in 1994 after the firm moved forward with a plan to centralize its media buying opening a branch called USA Media. In 1999, DDB dropped Needham from its name on its fifty-year anniversary and became officially known as DDB Worldwide, a process that had started five years earlier. That same year, Reinhard became the firm's chairman with
Ken Kaess taking over as president, later becoming the global CEO from 2001 to 2006. It uses a talent acquisition strategy known as "no duplicates" to look for professional, socio-economic and cultural diversity in employees to boost creativity.
Longstanding client relationships Since Doyle Dane Bernbach commenced a US relationship with Volkswagen in 1959, it has been a consistent and significant client in various parts of the world. Needham Harper started working with
McDonald's in the 1960s and that client has worked with DDB in several countries unceasingly since then. A global relationship with
ExxonMobil has been consistent since the 1960s. As of 2020, longstanding broad worldwide relationships continue to be held with
Unilever and
Johnson & Johnson.
Leadership since 1986 Presidents or Global CEOs since the formation of DDB Needham in 1986: • Keith L. Reinhard 1986–1999 (then Chairman 1999–2018; Chairman Emeritus since 2018) •
Ken Kaess 1999–2006 (President 1999–2001; Global CEO 2001–2006) •
Chuck Brymer 2006–2018 (then Chairman 2018–2023) • Wendy Clark 2018–2020 •
Martin O'Halloran 2020–2023 (then Chairman since 2023) • Alex Lubar since 2023 == Local office histories ==