Stanley Resor and J. Walter Thompson

Resor's Management Style at J. Walter Thompson

According to the article in Fortune(1947, p.212), although managing a big and complex agency such as J. Walter Thompson was not an easy task, Resor followed his policy of "managing without setting hands on things" during his time at JWT. J. Walter Thompson was made up of many small loose clusters of individual units that group themselves around the agency's magnetic and forceful characteristics. Resor did not consciously organized JWT that way. Instead, he watched it happen and did not interfere.

Resor did not like administration. He did not believed in setting up rigid rules for his people to follow. Instead, he preferred a flexible, in-depth kind of management that was made up of men with common goals and varying experiences. He established a "cross-fertilization" process in which JWT people were encouraged to talk to each other, to help each other with immediate and long-range problems. The agency was arranged on a principle of "back-stopping", with a core of Thompson executive assigned to work behind the contact and account supervisors. The backstoppers often had lunch in the Thompson executive dining room. There was an informal Thursday luncheon for many years at which top level problems were being discussed(Advertising Age 1955, p.8)

The day-by-day management of the agency was conducted on a non-authoritarian basis. Every day, there were lot of high personnel drifting in and out of Stanley Resor's office (Click here to see a map of Resor's Office in JWT Headquarters) to ask him for advice or to bring him up to date. Resor liked to take things in through the ears than through the eyes(Fortune 1947, p.212). Therefore it was usual for him to read out loud the copy, memorandums or letters that his employees brought him. The answering comments also came with voice more than with written words. His office door was always open so that anybody could know when somebody else was in his office and what he appeared to be doing.

A formal committee meeting was called only when the drift-in-drift-out habit failed to bring enough solutions to a problem. Even the committee meetings was casual. Based on Resor's policy, juniors did not "report to" seniors in JWT. The seniors were to "assist" their juniors with various jobs(Fortune 1947, p.214). Within the agency, there was an agreement that, "Stanley Resor is probably the greatest executive that ever existed in the advertising business"(Fortune 1947, p.212).

University of Advertising

The University of Advertising was a two-and-a-half year J. Walter Thompson in-house training program. It was designed to teach every individual who entered the agency every phase of the agency's work. It was a community of scholars and experts who would give the business new standards of precision and rationality. It embodied Resor's perception of what advertising and an advertising agency should be, which was, "a highly organized factory, composed of many specialized departments(kreshel Fall 1990, p.84)." Whereas advertising was once supposed to have a single, simple aim - to create art designs and to write copy - this training program tackled advertising from all aspects of advertising and allowed the agency to become a "full service agency". It helped the Thompson men to learn more about its own company, and to offer its clients the resulting benefits(Fortune 1947, p.96).

"Every employee above the clerical level spent time in the various agency departments, with some training in each, before specializing in the work that most suited them. In order to acquire a visceral feel for retail problems and consumer tastes, copywriters and artists were sent into the field to sell behind the counter or to ring door bells and interview housewives," described by Stephen Fox in The Mirror Markers(1984, p.84).

The Thompson T-Square

As Resor considered it was important to represent the thinking of his agency to the client as well to acquaint the agency with the client's problems and what the client wanted as solution, the Thompson T-Square was designed to provide facts about the product, the market, the trade, the organization and the competition. There were 5 questions needed to be answered before the development of any marketing plan(Kreshel Fall 1990, p.85):

What are we selling?

To whom are we selling?

Where are we selling?

When are we selling?

How are we selling?

The T-Square integrated the 2 principal components of Resor's philosophy, fact-finding and the view of advertising, as part of the marketing process. The T-Square, according to the company's promotional literature, was fundamental to the creation of quality advertising because it demanded that answers to the questions must be based upon irrefutable evidence of scientific research(Kreshel Fall 1990, p.85). The T-Square helped JWT to achieve the image as an effective decision-maker.

Testimonial

Stanley Resor and Helen Resor gave an old technique, testimonial, the most consistent and intensive workout during their presidency in J. W. Thompson(Fortune 1947, p.226). The testimonials appealed to irrational drives. "The spirit of emulation," Stanley Resor called it. "We want to copy those whom we deem superior in taste or knowledge or experience," he explained(Fox 1984, p.90). The testimonial gave the reason-why argument to the ads. While Mr. Resor relied on social science for the logic behind the use of testimonial, Mrs. Resor gave this old technique a new credibility by using her knowledge with psychology by obtaining endorsements from famous, reliable people(Fox 1984, p.89-90). Some of the examples of testimonials were the use of a handsome man in Woodbury's facial soap ad; the use of English women to endorse Pond's Cleaning Creams and the feeling of graceful old South in the ads of Maxwell House Coffee(Fox 1984, p.90; Fortune 1947, p.226). The ads below are some examples of the Woodbury's facial soap and Maxwell House Coffee:

Maxwell House Coffee: The feeling of the graceful old South.

Source: The Mirror Markers(Fox 1984, p.145). Source:Historty & Development of Advertising(Presbrey 1968).

Woodbury's Facial Soap: Use of handsome men to target at women

Source: The Mirror Markers(Fox 1984, p.145). Source:Historty & Development of Advertising(Presbrey 1968).
Going International

The J.W. Thompson was the first American advertising agency to go international. According to Fortune(1947, p.220), Thompson originally set up its foreign offices to handle the General Motors Export Co. account in Europe. The business of the General Motors Export had slowly faded away during the Great Depression in 1929. However, this did not lessen Resor's belief in the international function of advertising. When J. Walter Thompson acquired a big new account, it was often the existence of the foreign offices that helped its business. When Stanley Resor retired in 1961, JWT was the largest ad agency in the U.S. with its billings over $370 million and had a staff of 6,225 employed in 55 offices in the U.S. and abroad(Keding 1994, p.270).
J.Walter Thompson's Clients During Resor's Time

Pond's Extract Co., Libby, McNeill & Libby, Lever Brothers, Ford Motor Co., Eastman Kodak Company, Parker Pen, Johns-Manville, RCA, Scott Tissue, Shell Oil, Owens-Illinois Glass and the Swift & Co. (Fortune 1947, p.206).

Resor's Life and Personality	Resor's Philosophy
Back to Introduction Page	Bibliography

	Maxwell House Coffee: The feeling of the graceful old South.
Source: The Mirror Markers(Fox 1984, p.145).		Source:Historty & Development of Advertising(Presbrey 1968).

	Woodbury's Facial Soap: Use of handsome men to target at women
Source: The Mirror Markers(Fox 1984, p.145).		Source:Historty & Development of Advertising(Presbrey 1968).