Decline
In the late 1960s, Ayer faced challenges from industry changes as smaller agencies began creating ads appealing to targeted groups of consumers. This method focused agency attention on single demographics and could be performed faster by smaller agencies rather than traditional larger agencies. Ayer's standing dropped to tenth place among major agencies in one report. In 1982, it called itself the 14th largest advertising agency in the U.S.
In 1986, Ayer received positive feedback for its U.S. Army recruiting slogan, Be all that you can be. This campaign benefited the army's recruitment goals greatly, and also faced negative responses toward the Vietnam War and low enlistment. In a well-published scandal, charges were filed against the Ayer employee responsible for the Army collaboration, and Ayer was consequently suspended from making bids with any branches of government.
The Army account loss struck Ayer hard. Ayer strengthened its business by obtaining an account with the Burger King Corporation but lost the account after 18 months. Ayer also desperately tried to keep the AT&T Corp. account, but AT&T parted ways around the same time despite its long history with Ayer.
Read more about this topic: N. W. Ayer & Son
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“Where mass opinion dominates the government, there is a morbid derangement of the true functions of power. The derangement brings about the enfeeblement, verging on paralysis, of the capacity to govern. This breakdown in the constitutional order is the cause of the precipitate and catastrophic decline of Western society. It may, if it cannot be arrested and reversed, bring about the fall of the West.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“The decline of a culture
Mourned by scholars who dream of the ghosts of Greek boys.”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)
“But only that soul can be my friend which I encounter on the line of my own march, that soul to which I do not decline, and which does not decline me, but, native of the same celestial latitude, repeats in its own all my experience.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)