Ad Age yesterday reported that WPP, the big ad agency holding company, is retiring the once-famous and highly-respected Grey Advertising name.
It’s one of the last of the big agencies that date back to the Mad Men days and before. Grey, in fact, goes back 103 years.
Who remembers names that lined Madison Avenue and other midtown streets before mergers, buyouts and the exodus to points south (Midtown South, Tribeca, lower Broadway, Flatiron and the Photo District) and points west (Hudson Yards)?
Benton & Bowles, Ogilvy & Mather, D’Arcy Masius MacManus, Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, Grey Advertising, Doyle Dane Bernbach, J Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam, and out in Chicago, Leo Burnett. They were the titans of the advertising world, not always thought of as creative powerhouses but their words and images and slogans for clients helped shape the way we thought and the way we bought.