AGENCY FLIES WITH AMERICAN

In a fast-paced and energetic presentation that, as someone quipped, “resembled a Broadway musical,” Dallas’ Bozell & Jacobs landed the $45 million American Airlines advertising account, the largest single account ever granted a Southwest advertising agency.

The highlight of the all-day presentation for B&J Chairman Liener Temerlin and his crew was their production of an ad slick produced from a picture taken at the meeting only a few hours earlier.

That trick “was to make the point that incredible facilities are available here in Dallas – to everyone, not just Bozell & Jacobs,” an agency spokesman said. B&J’s presentation also included “a number of musical treatments,” the spokesman said. Temerlin also brought in Broadway set designer Peter Wolf to build display screens for the presentation layouts.

B&J stumbled onto the account in the spring, when American’s longtime agency, New York-based Doyle, Dane & Bernbach, resigned the account rather than open an office in Dallas in response to American’s corporate move to the Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Airport.

B&J, once known as Glenn Advertising, was given first crack at the account because airline officials were pleased with the way the agency had handled American’s freight and sales accounts.

Agency officials said they had no plans to immediately change the “Doing what we do best” campaign that American has been running for five years. At least 50 new employees will have to be hired to take care of the new account.

B&J’s victory did not sit well with Dallas’ other two advertising giants, both of whom had hoped to be considered. Tradition-bound Tracy-Locke, which B&J recently surpassed as the city’s advertising leader, took the announcement in stride. Insiders say, however, that American’s decision to go with B&J was responsible for a major management shake-up at trendy Bloom Advertising.