In-N-Out Burger Gives Ad Business to Seattle Agency

In-N-Out Burger, the plain-wrap hamburger chain with a cult following of Los Angeles area customers, said Tuesday that its estimated $5-million advertising business has been handed to a Seattle advertising agency.

That agency, Livingston & Co., which creates the often zany ads for Alaska Airlines, said it may open a branch office in Los Angeles. “Nothing would make us happier than to open a Los Angeles office,” said Roger Livingston, president of Livingston & Co. “If In-N-Out’s need is sufficient, we’ll do it without blinking.”

That need may not be far off. “We’re expanding in the Los Angeles market and into San Diego,” said Susan Grear, advertising and public relations manager at In-N-Out Burger. She said the Baldwin Park chain, which now has 55 units in the Los Angeles area, plans to nearly double the number of its stores to 100 within the next five years. Later this year, In-N-Out plans to open its first San Diego area outlet, with yet another store planned to open there in early 1990.

Opened in 1948

The big losers are several large ad agencies that already have offices in Los Angeles. Grey Advertising and Ogilvy & Mather were both competing for the business. The hamburger chain’s former Los Angeles agency, Gumpertz/Bentley/Fried, already had dropped out of the review.

The 41-year-old hamburger chain and its new ad agency have both made their marks by taking far different paths from the competition.

Since it opened in 1948 as one of the nation’s first drive-through hamburger chains, privately held In-N-Out has never pretended to be anything other than a place to get a good burger. Its menu is mostly limited to hamburgers and french fries. Its prices tend to be slightly higher than competititors’ and it chain does not offer discounts or coupons. But many customers swear by the made-to-order hamburgers.

Livingston & Co., which opened an office in San Francisco less than a year ago, is probably best known for the Alaska Airlines commercials that show customers being mistreated by competing airlines. One ad shows a man literally losing his pants at an airline check-in counter.

Livingston said the new ads, which will begin to air in December, will not attempt to reposition the chain. “We just hope to sharpen the image a bit,” said Livingston. “These are old-fashioned burgers like mother used to make.”

And the popular advertising jingle, “In-N-Out, that’s what a hamburger’s all about,” will not be changed, said Grear.

“We’re in a category of our own,” she said. “We’re good food served fast. Not fast food.”