Campbell-Ewald Advertising Agency

I'm doing all of this in such a random fashion and I'm loving it!

My goal is to figure who did the artwork in certain ads. For instance, Marcel Vertes did a bunch of ads for Schiaparelli - he used his last name in certain ads, only his last intitial in others. I didn't know that VIP was Virgil Partch until I ran across an ad with artwork signed VIP and with a caption identifying VIP as Virgil Partch.

It's really hard for me to look at art and determine whether or not I've seen something similar before. However, I do seem to do better with the signatures. After all, VIP just looks like VIP.

I started a list of the names of commercial artists and ad agencies a few months back. Every time, I run across a name I can read in an ad, I note the name and recently started noting the company and year.

Anyway, when I was looking for Container Corp ads earlier today, I ran across three ads for Campbell-Ewald Ad Agency. I figured the agency would be on my list but it's not. Campbell-Mithun is, but I don't think there's a connection.

Before starting this blog, I did a google search for Campbell-Ewald and came up with tons of results because the company is still around. I usually do better with defunct companies because any info on the web is going to be historical rather than modern. I did find a book (The first 80 years: An informal history of the Campbell-Ewald Company by William J. Hampton) on amazon.com which I ordered because it was only $3.07. Hopefully, it'll have some info on the artists that worked at the agency.

These three ads picture members of the Campbell-Ewald staff. However, I did another google search ("Campbell-Ewald and name of each person pictured) and didn't find anything.

So, here's the info. Ads are pictured, left to right, top to bottom. The 2nd ad is from 1954, the other two are from '55.

"Nobody Has An Option On An Idea." This ad pictures Jim Hastings (art director) and Pete Booth (copy groupp head).

Three of a Kind. This ad pictures and gives a short bio on the following members of the art department: Georges Michel (newly hired), Don Hume (associate art director, assistant to the director) and Al Scott (director).

They've Got 7,502 Clients. This ad pictures Lawerence R. Nelson (senior vice president, secretary and treasurer), Paul Gumerson (head of the Dealer Advertising Schedule Dept) and Hermon Cook (head of Accounting).