Carl Ally’s early career included work with many agencies.  After working for a short time at a small Detroit agency, he moved to Detroit’s Campbell-Ewald in 1955, and in 1959 he had done so well that he was sent to Cambell-Ewald’s New York office, where he met future co-founders of Carl Ally, Inc, Amil Gargano and Jim Durfee.  Because, Carl Ally testifies, “he was smarter than his bosses” [20], he was fired eight months later.

In 1960 he joined Papert, Koenig & Lois, New York (PKL).  Here, he began to further his reputation by producing a campaign for the old New York Herald Tribune, which conveyed a typical Ally truth statement and said “Who Says a Good Newspaper Has to be Dull?”   Former executive of PKL George Lois remembers Ally by saying “it was a piece of luck when Carl came along and we had an account guy who was just as crazy as us” [13].  Carl Ally, the hard-hitting former fighter pilot, fit right in this risk-taking, innovative agency that was different from the rest of the hot Madison Avenue agencies.  Ally eventually became VP-management supervisor for several clients, including Peugeot and Xerox. 

In 1962 Volvo personally asked him to take on their account, and the best years of Ally’s career began.