Dirty Talks

Harding Lawrence saw something in Mary Wells when they met to discuss Continental Airlines. Mary was working at for Jack Tinker as part of a "think tank"at the time, a slew of talented people whose job was to create wonderful ideas for agencies under the Interpublic umbrella (Lawrence 18) when Harding confided in her that he was going to buy Braniff airlines, a company he said would need a very big idea (Lawrence 33). Mary along with other creatives, researched several airports before officially landing the account (Lawrence 34). It was during these visits that Mary realized the big idea for Braniff, it was lifeless and needed color. Braniff's campaign kicked into full swing under the Wells Rich Greene agency; it was WRG's first client, and it was a huge success (Lawrence 48). The agency turned Braniff into the most popular airline in in the early sixties. Harding and Mary married around this time.

 

Much more hush-hush than working for Braniff before officially landing the account was the conversations in limos with BillBernbach.It all started with a call from Bill's partner at DDB, Ned Doyle. Ned informed Mary that Bill was not happy at the agency, he wanted a break from it all. Unlike Doyle, who sold his stock at the agency, Bill was still tied to it. He wanted WRG to acquire DDB and Mary would be the CEO. Bill, Doyle said, would work on any creative project of his choosing (Lawrence 157-8). At the time of Doyle's calll, Mary was scheduled to meet with Gardner about merging it with WRG, but when she hung up, she walked into the meeting considering buying Collett Dickenson Pearce and DDB, and "the devil started dancing a sexy rumba in my head," (Lawrence 158).

Because both DDB and WRG were publicly owned and had conflicting accounts, Mary and Bill had to keep their plans quiet, so they discussed the acquisition over lunch in a limousine in Central Park. Bill wanted assurrance of a certain pay, but the DDB's stock was low and it had some bad investments. Mary was unsure of how to achieve this goal, but Bill "was like a man falling in love, he had persuaded himself that I could and would find a way to put the right financial offer...but what...killed me was that little by little he became so enamored of the new meerged agency we were creating in our minds" (Lawrence 160). Unfortunately, Bill made a wrong move by telling his top executives at DDB of his and Mary's plans. Some of them that expected to take over were not happy and word got to the New York Times that the two had been planning the merger. Mary wasn't confident about the financial situation, and refused to push forward with the account. Bill and Mary had to deny the story as "Stupid, are you kidding? That's insane!" to calm their clients fears (Lawrence 163). Their dream was crushed.

TWA was a huge account for WRG, but in the 70's, the airline executives rejected every idea that came out of WRG. Mary and WRG tried to resolve the problem by including TWA in the creative process, but the executives weren't interested in helping. The account was becoming a thorn in WRG's side, so when Mary saw an opportunity to let the account go, she jumped on it. Once again, quiet plans were in the works. Mary decided to open a WRG Dallas office because advertising was taking off in the city. This would allow WRG to do advertising for Braniff again, and it would conflict with the TWA account-WRG would have to let TWA go. When the plans for moving to Dallas were finalized, Mary went to TWA and let them in on the ordeal. The $30 million account was left without an agency, and the TWA executives were less than happy. Although Mary was rid of the account and its problems, she was sorry to let WRG members that worked on the account go (Lawrence 196-205).

WRG had a thing for airline account, or airline accounts had a thing for WRG. When Harding left Braniff and pursued the oil business, WRG held on to the Braniff account for a while, but the transistion with new management was awkward for Mary and her co-workers. She remembered her friend Bob Six who worked for Continental, and invited them to La Fiorentina, her gorgeous French villa, and the rest is history (Lawrence 229). Shortly after, Pan Am courted WRG, wanting a part of the magic that Braniff and other airlines experienced. More secret talks arose for Mary, and although Ed Acker at Pan Am did not think the two accounts would be a conflict, Mary wasn't sure what Continental would think. "Conflicts in advertising are taboos...They are based on the notion of creative corruption; the theory is that the agency can't be trusted to work evenhandedly and honestly with competitive client," Mary wrote in her book A Big Life in Advertising (231). She threw the idea at Bob Six, who graciously encouraged Mary to handle both accounts, as they would be worked on at different agencies under WRG (Lawrence 232).