Highly Paid Ad Executives Over 40 Rank High on the Job-at-Risk Index

These days in the ad business if the boss asks you out to lunch, you may be wise to say you’re not hungry.

Odds are, before the waiter hands over the check, your boss may hand over your pink slip. This luncheon is doubly dangerous for ad pros who are 40 years old and up--a good chunk of whom are earning six-figure salaries.

Indeed, things have seldom been tougher for agency veterans who, at a time when the industry is in the pits, are among the first to get walking papers. In some cases their duties are added to the workloads of other employees, and in others these longtimers are replaced by newcomers who earn half their salary. Experts warn that agency employees, particularly seasoned veterans, should plan for that inevitable tap on the shoulder.

“At some time in your advertising career, you’ll be taken to lunch and told you don’t have a job,” said Michael W. Marsak, who, until several months ago, was the chief financial officer, senior vice president and deputy general manager of the Los Angeles office of J. Walter Thompson.

With all of those fancy titles, it might seem as if Marsak, 48, would be the last person to be laid off. But with each added title comes additional salary. And salaries are about the only thing that agencies have to whittle down when things get rocky. So, in mid-August, several months after Thompson lost the lucrative account for 20th Century Fox Film Corp., Marsak was taken to lunch and told that his job was being eliminated.

Years before, however, Marsak had developed a small data processing and personalized marketing business out of his home. “I knew if I ever lost my job, the business was here,” Marsak said. And he suggests that everyone in the ad business find a hobby that can also be a revenue-producing source, “even if it means working Saturdays, Sundays and nights.”

For people Marsak’s age and above, there may be little choice. The industry rarely looks kindly on those over 50. “In seven years of business, we’ve placed just three people over the age of 50,” said Jack Bernardy, partner in the ad industry headhunting firm Brown/Bernardy.

It’s simple arithmetic, points out Charles Sharp, whose West Los Angeles recruiting firm, Charles Sharp & Associates, places ad executives. “About the only cost an agency can control is its payroll,” he said. “So you look at who is the most expendable and who is the most expensive. If the two lines cross on a senior guy, they’re quickly ushered out the door.”

Certainly Jack Palmer didn’t think that he was expendable. The 42-year-old ad executive had spent 18 years in the business, and in late 1988 was named senior vice president and management supervisor at the Los Angeles office of Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulous, which created those much mocked rock-and-trees ads for the Japanese car maker Infiniti.

When early Infiniti sales stuttered and the ad campaign stalled, there were a number of management changes at the top. Palmer was let go in April. Since then, he has been looking for full-time work.

“I’ve talked with most of the major agencies in Los Angeles,” he said. Although he’s had the good fortune of receiving several job offers, he turned them down because they weren’t exactly what he wanted. But he still expects to find an advertising-related job. “I’m not willing to chuck the whole thing and, say, go sell clothes at Nordstrom. I’ve invested 18 years in this business.”

Although John Littlewood wasn’t fired from his post of chairman at the Los Angeles office at N. W. Ayer, it became clear earlier this year that his days there were probably numbered. Under his three-year tenure as chief executive, the agency lost more business than it won.

“While I had worked very, very hard at Ayer, my track record as CEO had not been good,” Littlewood said. “I left because I thought it was time to move on.” He departed in July without a job. Last month he was named chairman of the advertising department at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Although still a fan of the ad industry, Littlewood is a realist. “If you’re looking for security, advertising is not the place to be. You want security? Go work for the government.”

Perhaps few people would seem to have less job security than 80-year-old Monty McKinney. After all, the vice chairman of Kresser/Craig has been in the ad business for 50 years, and he is believed to rank among the oldest ad men in the country.

“Knowing what I know now, I probably wouldn’t go into the advertising business today,” said McKinney, who in 1975, at age 65, faced mandatory retirement from the Los Angeles office of DDB Needham, where he was then the No. 2 guy. “This has become less a creative business and more of a business to make money.”

Of course, McKinney didn’t do so badly. After leaving DDB Needham he was hired by then-tiny Chiat/Day, and within six months he was named chairman. Later, he was rehired by DDB Needham West and named chairman before joining Kresser/Craig in 1987.

“I maintain that I’m the oldest living ad agency man,” said McKinney. “I feel very secure in my job.”

Toyota Gives Itself an ‘Official’ Title

Quick. What’s the state bird of California? (California valley quail.) How about the state flower? (Golden poppy.) And what about the state fish? (California golden trout, of course.)

OK, now name the state car. Make that, the “Official Car of Southern California.”

If you guessed Toyota, that’s probably because you’ve been watching TV. Toyota dealers are spending millions of dollars these days on commercials in which it claims to make the “official car” and “official truck” of Southern California.

The commercials even show a specially designed logo that says “official car.”

Upon what is Toyota basing this claim? The state hasn’t sanctioned it. Toyota has simply anointed itself with the title on the basis of recent sales. For the first six months of 1990, Toyota was the best-selling import or domestic car in Southern California, said Ron Kojis, executive vice president at Davis Ball & Colombatto, the agency for the Southern California Toyota Dealers Assn.

Is Toyota trying to trick consumers into thinking that it has some sort of sanction to call itself the “official” anything of Southern California?

“We’re very clear about that,” said Kojis. “The very first words in the commercial are from someone asking, ‘Why does Toyota call itself the official car of California?’ ”

The agency says it hasn’t received any complaints about the campaign.

But rival Nissan can’t be too pleased. After all, Nissan supplies more than 40 vehicles to the L.A. County Department of Beaches and Harbors annually just to be called “the official vehicles of the L.A. County Beaches.”

Campaign to Focus on Winter Sales

Trying to sell people ceiling fans in winter is the rough equivalent of selling them space heaters in summer.

But with winter fast approaching, Casablanca Fan Co. last week handed its estimated $3-million annual advertising business to the Los Angeles agency Fotouhi Alonso Advertising. “We’ve got a fan club now,” said Farida Fotouhi, president.

The City of Industry-based fan company’s next campaign will try to persuade consumers that using ceiling fans in winter can lower heating bills by forcing hot air down from the ceiling. The initial slogan for the new campaign: The Secrets of Casablanca.

A String of Sign-Ups for Bozell Agency

These days executives at Bozell must feel like painting the town.

Last week the agency won the $3-million annual advertising business for Standard Brands Paint Co. That follows its signing on for the $2-million annual account of Altadena Dairy and a recent $2-million annual billings increase on Kodak’s Interactive Software subsidiary.

“Our agency is definitely on a roll,” said Rene Fraser, general manager at Bozell’s Los Angeles office. The Standard Brands account was previously handled by J. Walter Thompson in Los Angeles.