Adland Loses a Storied Character

Carl Ally, 74, Is Remembered by the Many Executives He Influenced NEW YORK--After Carl Ally left his agency in 1986, he liked to boast that he never looked back, cutting ties with an industry that was redefined by his dispassionate, bombastic style. Those he influenced, however, have always been a little more reluctant to let go of him--as much in death as in life. "When mavericks on the scale of Carl die, it's not like they really die, because there is so much of them that that lives on beyond their death," said friend Jerry Della Femina, CEO of Della Femina/Jeary & Partners. The 74-year-old's passing last week following a heart attack near his home in Rowayton, Conn., drew poignant recollections of a tempestuous man whose personality captured the radical mood of his times. "Those days, you knew you were changing the world," said George Lois, president of Lois/EJL. "It was a time when creatives had most of the power in advertising. At [Papert, Koenig, Lois], it was a piece of luck when Carl came along and we had an account guy who was just as crazy as us." Ally arrived at Lois' agency in 1960, after working at Campbell-Ewald Advertising's Detroit and New York offices. PKL worked for Peugeot, and in 1962, when a former Peugeot advertising manager--who had moved on to Volvo--offered him the $1 million account, he teamed up with two former CEA colleagues, art director Amil Gargano and copywriter Jim Durfee, to open Carl Ally Inc. Gargano's name would later go on the door and many of advertising's most well-known names would pass through it. Ally & Gargano's alumni include Ed McCabe, Martin Puris, Ralph Ammirati, Helayne Spivak, Tom Messner, Barry Vetere, Ron Berger, David Altschiller and Bob Kuperman. If Ally himself was not caught up in the creative revolution of the '60s, his agency was. "He was a counter-Bernbach," said Messner, a partner at Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG. "You knew he wasn't going to be excited by what we used to call the 'page'--the look, type style and way things were shot in an ad. But he was able to attract an incredible group of people who did care deeply about that." Many of them followed in Ally's footsteps, setting up their own shops. Ally worked best with entrepreneurial personalities like his own. He was instrumental in turning upstart clients like Federal Express--with its fast-talking Joe Sedelmaier spots--and MCI into industry leaders. Ally, son of an Italian-American mother and Turkish immigrant father, reveled in his outsider's assault on Madison Avenue convention. He introduced comparative advertising for Hertz and was instrumental in persuading TV networks to relax rules prohibiting the mention of marketers' rivals by name. He was part of a new generation of Jews, Italians and Greeks who gave advertising a new reality in contrast to the white-bread work from old-school, WASP networks. Not surprisingly, Ally could be a polarizing character. He and Gargano did not speak for 12 years after Ally's departure from the agency. Their common backgrounds--both born in Detroit with Italian heritage, for instance--sparked a friendship that was cemented by an "appreciation of music, art, film and our contempt for mindless advertising, abusive authority, arrogant clients and an overwhelming desire to change the business," said Gargano last week. "It overrode the occasional bitter disputes we experienced I loved him like a brother." "You either loved him or didn't," recalled Ed McCabe, chief executive of the Powerhouse Partnership boutique. "I loved him." Ally didn't care either way. He was, however, interested in the responsibility of advertising to consumers. "What a lot of people don't know about Carl was his major social conscience," said Mike Tesch, another protegƒ who is now a consultant. "He always believed advertising shouldn't just be about corporate profits. He felt it was important to realize the ramifications [for] the consumer." Ally's early auto advertising was rooted more in the passion of activist Ralph Nader than in his Detroit roots at CEA. That strong point of view--and furious defense of such beliefs--were characteristic of the onetime Korean War fighter pilot. Ultimately, the reason he distanced himself from the business in retirement may have been because the industry had moved away from people like him. "I don't think he'd survive in the business today and I don't think he'd want to survive in this business today," said Puris, chief executive at Ammirati Puris Lintas Worldwide. "People are much more afraid. Clients in the end dictate what the advertising business is like, de facto." Funeral services were private. A memorial service will be announced.

Brand Marketing

Adland Loses a Storied Character

Noreen O'Leary

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Noreen O'Leary