Hasta La Creative!

When I was an Ad Age reporter in New York, in the ’60s, I used to hang out with Bob Heady, the most intrepid Ad Age journalist I ever worked with, and Bob Launey, an account guy at BBDO before he started his own agency in 1965. Bob turned 90 this June, and I thought you’d like to hear the story of how Bob’s agency developed royal connections.

Bob’s idea for his agency was ahead of its time, and even today most agencies don’t do what he did. The agency, Launey, Hachmann & Harris, did all the usual stuff, but it also did licensing. (Bob also appeared in some print ads while at BBDO– for Hart Shaffner & Marx, Lucky Strike and the New York Times.)

“We treat licensing like a package-goods product,” Bob told the New York Times in 1995. “As a licensing agent, we market the licensor’s product for a long life. We’re really doing brand management.” Whatever Bob and his agency was doing, it worked: licensing was the agency’s primary revenue producer. His agency, in fact, was the creative force behind a plan to sell a bracelet on a famous soap opera that it was hoped would create a groundbreaking new revenue stream for broadcasters.

Continue reading at AdAge.com