N. W. Ayer & Son was the first advertising agency in the United States. It was founded in Philadelphia in 1869 by 21-year-old Francis Wayland Ayer, who named the agency after his father, N. W. Ayer. This agency was named the 14th largest advertising agency in the United States, according to a guide the firm published in 1982. N.W Ayer & Son started its business by representing religious weekly newspapers, but eventually they would become responsible for some of the most recognized slogans in advertising history. By 1877, N.W Ayer & Son would become highly successful, and there they obtained what was left of another agency, the Volney Palmer Agency. There they soon titled their agency as the oldest advertising firm in the US. It was in 1884 Ayer expanded into the advertising business, but it wasn’t until 1892 that artists and writers would work in groups known as creative teams.[1]
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N.W Ayer & Son created one of the most recognized slogan of the 20th century, “A Diamond is Forever.” When the founder of De Beers, Harry Oppenheimer and president of N.W Ayer & Son, Gerold M. Lauck had a meeting in 1938, they discussed a marketing campaign that would change the falling price of diamonds at the time. At the time, the idea of engagement rings decorated with diamonds wasn’t very popular in Europe because of this the campaign was promoted in the United States where interests of diamonds were very high. De Beers told Ayer, that they did not ask any other agencies for this task, and if Ayer’s plan was successful, De Beers would have N.W Ayer & Son become the exclusive agency for De Beers’ interest within the United States. This motivated Ayer, who soon proposed that their campaign should move the Americans spending demographic towards larger and more expensive diamonds. To successfully achieve their goal, Ayer suggested that they reinforce the relationship if diamonds with love and romance. This prove successful as both men and women were caught in the relationship if diamonds being a gift of love. Today, the slogan created for De Beers still remains today and the relationship of love, romance and diamonds are still prominent.[8]
In 1906, N.W Ayer & Son was commissioned by the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York to create an advertising campaign for AT&T, this campaign was to encourage the company’s popularity with customers. Due to the campaign becoming a success, AT&T made N.W Ayer & Son became AT&T’s main advertising agency.[9] Ayer created five advertisements for AT&T that would be another successful ad campaign by Ayer. The first of the five ads appeared in June, “Twenty Million Voices,” with the other four appearing in the following months. By 1979, Ayer would have created AT&T’s most notable slogans, “Reach out and touch someone," which was one of AT&T’s most successful ads. AT&T’s relationship with Ayer would last into the 1970’, becoming one of the oldest relationships in America.[10]
In the late 1960s, N.W Ayer & Son faced various challenges in the advertising industry. This was due to changes that were occurring in the advertising industry. These changes were because smaller agencies were creating advertisements that were more appealing to a certain group of consumers. Because of this way of advertising, those smaller agencies were able to focus their attention to only one demographic, this process was easier because it was done faster by the smaller agencies, rather than the traditional, and larger agencies. Soon Ayer would drop down into being tenth of the major agencies
In 1986, Ayer would receive positive feedback for working for U.S Army recruiting with their “Be all that you can be” advertising slogan. This advertisement benefited the army’s recruitment goals greatly while also facing negative responses toward the Vietnam War and the low number of citizen enlisting. All this recognition would be lost after charges were filed against an employee, the same employee who was responsible for the U.S Army and Ayers collaboration.[11]
An additional outcome was that, Ayer was suspended from making any bids to get another account with the U.S Army, as well as other branches of the government.[12] The loss of the U.S Army recruiting struck Ayer hard, but Ayer would redeem the company by obtaining an account with the Burger King Corporation. This gain was said to strengthen the agency’s business, but unfortunately after eighteen months, Ayer would lose the account with Burger King Corporation. Another setback to follow for Ayer would be the loss of their account with AT&T Corp, Ayer desperately tried to keep AT&T Corp. by their side, unfortunately the company parted from the agency despite the memorable slogans that they had created.[13]
Due to the scandal involving the U.S Army account, N.W Ayer began to struggle and their importance gradually faded away as the years came by. Ayer would become part of MacManus Group, at the same time, CEO Mary Lou Quinlan would step down to from a new unit within MacManus and would be replace by Mary Beth Casey. Ayer’s last clients would include Continental Airlines, KitchenAid and a few others.[14] In 1999, under the MacManus Group, Ayer would merge with Leo Group and Dentsu to form Bcom3. In 2002, the Ayer name would meet its end as Bcom3 decided to merge them in to their smaller Kalplan Thaler Group, where Ayer would slowly diminish.[15]
Despite the merge between the two groups, Bcom3 Group would soon retire the name of N.W Ayer & Son. Bcom3 Chairman-CEO, Roger Haupt said, “Retiring the venerable N.W Ayer name wasn’t easy.” Then followed that with, “It is more about the Kaplan name...We're in a situation where we have an excellent agency in Kaplan Thaler and at the end of the day that's the right thing to do.” Haupt saying that it was a difficult decision and that was for the better of the company. In the end, Ayer was one of the most recognized names in advertising; there exist a couple other agencies as old as Ayer, but have a hard time being recognized because of Ayer’s legacy.[16]
N.W Ayer was eventually bought by the Publicis Groupe in Paris, which closed down the N.W. Ayer offices in 2002. In 2005,The N. W. Ayer Philadelphia building was purchased and has been made into The Ayer, a luxury condominium.[17] The many successful advertisements they had created for the various companies, still remain part of their company's history.