OUR HISTORY

WHAT’S DONE IS HISTORY. WHAT’S AHEAD IS THE CHALLENGE.

In pausing to celebrate its 100th anniversary by tracing the course of what has happened to date, the Dallas Advertising League can point with pride to the many significant accomplishments of the past in the lives and works of the members who created the League and made it grow.

By reviewing the past, the Dallas Advertising League can find inspiration and guidance for ever-increasing achievement in the future. This is not a full chronicle of that century of progress, only a brief look at some of the ways the Dallas Ad League has helped shape the enormous economic prosperity experienced in Dallas, and the impact made throughout the American Advertising Federation and District 10.

Nine of the DAL’s eleven charter members gathered on June 17, 1908, planning to work for safer and saner advertising in Dallas. Includes George Baker, first president, along with Gus Thomasson; Fred Johnson of Johnson Printing Co.; Albert Chaney, Titche-Goettinger Ad Manager; Richard Haughton, Founder of Haughton Brothers Printers; James Kirkland, Ad Manager Sanger Brothers; and Doc Wynn, Owner of Dallas’ first advertising agency.

DALLAS’ FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION

In 1911, Dallas pioneer Gus W. Thomasson led a Dallas delegation numbering 87, plus 50 from other ad clubs in the state, to the annual AACOA national convention in Boston. They traveled in a special nine-car train with a display entitled Texas Under Six Flags designed to dispel the notion that Texas was only a land of cowboys, Indians and badmen. Their mission was to land the next AACOA convention for Dallas. They did.

In 1912, Dallas had its first national convention with the League playing host to 3,000 delegates from every part of the United States and five foreign countries. Convention headquarters were set up at Commerce and Akard in the magnificent Oriental Hotel built in 1893, which was said at the time to be the finest hotel in the South.

The Dallas Ad League is the city’s oldest continuously operating service organization and has been meeting regularly for the past 100 years. The League has set the pace of progress in civic activity while expanding the advertising influence of Dallas throughout the region and the nation. Although the DAL was the first, many organizations that followed, such as the Rotary Club, the United Fund, the Better Business Bureau and the Salesmanship Club, all had their roots in Dallas Advertising League membership.

THE ADVERTISING CODE OF AMERICAN BUSINESS

The nine-point document that constitutes a basic statement of advertising policy for all U.S. businesses originated in Dallas through the efforts of the DAL. The eyes of the advertising world were focused on Dallas in 1966 when many of its most distinguished leaders came to the city for the kickoff of the new self-regulation code that would soon be adopted and endorsed by business and trade groups throughout the nation. The event, sponsored jointly by the DAL and the BBB was held in the grand ballroom of the Adolphus Hotel and was supported by 30 top business and civic leaders representing a broad cross-section of Dallas area industry and commerce.

To help other advertising clubs and local BBB’s with their own code implementation programs, kits containing an outline of what had become known around the country as the Dallas Plan and samples of materials were prepared and made available by the League to other organizations. The DAL had a big hand in initiating the Advertising Code of American Business, which stands today as the basic statement of advertising principles.

THE TEXAS CENTENNIAL

In the mid-thirties, Dallas became one of the first cities in the nation to pull out of the Depression, and the Ad League began the task of promoting the Texas Centennial celebration. League-written ads that ran throughout the country proclaimed Dallas as the Little New York of the Southwest.

On June 6, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt opened the Dallas celebration of the Centennial, and by the time the gates closed in November, six million people had been drawn to Fair Park. The next year, the League helped promote the Pan-American Exposition and Pan- American Olympic Games at Fair Park, which drew an additional four million people.

MYTHICAL KUDOS COLLEGE

In keeping with the Ad League’s way of doing things, often half-serious, half-tongue-in-cheek, a mythical institution was created in 1949 when the Kudos College was inaugurated to honor those who put Dallas in the national spotlight. In return for creating favorable publicity for Dallas, these men and women were made presidents of the imaginary university, given official diplomas, and awarded life membership in the Ad League. SMU’s Doak Walker, Stanley Marcus, and Margo Jones were installed as Kudos College’s first presidents.

Although Kudos College ceremonies are serious, the presentations are fun. The symbolism is that of an actual university graduation ceremony. There is the pomp of conferring upon the honoree an appropriate degree, an appointment to a compatible department or school and finally, installation as president of the imaginary college. The select group of Kudos College presidents includes former Texas Governors John Connally and Bill Clements, Jr.; former Dallas Mayors J. Erik Jonsson, Wes Wise and Jack Evans; famed comedian Bob Hope; entertainers Charlie Pride and Trini Lopez; the Dallas Cowboys’ celebrated coach Tom Landry and quarterback Roger Staubach; golfer Byron Nelson; merchandising innovators Mary Kay Ash and Stanley Marcus; and a host of other notable Dallasites who have brought acclaim to the city of Dallas.

TEXAS TOURIST DEVELOPMENT AGENCY

In the 1940s the Ad League was part of another educational project of a different kind – that of convincing

voters that amending the state constitution to permit the use of public funds for tourism advertising would be good for Texas. Success did not come quickly or easily, but persistence ultimately paid off with the creation in 1963 of the TTDA (Texas Tourist Development Agency). The League’s Clifton Blackmon chaired the District’s state advertising committee, and later the District’s legislative committee during that effort. This would eventually lead to a state advertising budget and Texas Tourism’s most famous campaign, “Texas. It’s like a whole other country,” created in the early 90’s by GSD&M in Austin.

A COMMITMENT TO COMMUNITY SERVICE

In 1950, the League established a Community Service Committee as a continuing activity. The purpose was two-fold: to promote worthy Dallas charitable and civic projects; and to win greater recognition among business top executives for advertising as an organized activity in Dallas by substituting group participation for scattered individual effort in the field of community service.

Chief among its projects for many years had been the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas. Also, in 1965, a model campaign was planned and produced to curb school dropouts. The program, designed by the League in conjunction with the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, was duplicated by other organizations throughout the country.

In 1992 Dallas was being torn asunder by internal turmoil that included City Council in-fighting, racial tensions, a rapidly declining downtown, and a weakened economic climate. Mayor Steve Bartlett asked for the League’s help to revive Dallas’ spirit, so the League responded with Marketing Dallas, a Mayoral Task Force. DAL president Jim Cole spearheaded a collaborative campaign designed to promote the City to its citizens. Spencer Michlin creatively directed a campaign entitled, “Love Where You Live,” a high-spirited, multi-media campaign designed to uplift Dallas citizen’s spirits by reminding people of what makes Dallas great.

The campaign was then extended outward through the Chamber of Commerce, Dallas Convention and Tourism Bureau and other channels to persuade business people that Dallas was the place to “hang their hat.” Two years later, Marketing Dallas, chaired by Dennis D’Amico, undertook the task of coordinating multiple promotional efforts to “Welcome the World” as one of the sites of the 1994 World Cup.

HOST CITY TO AAF NATIONAL CONFERENCES

The Dallas Ad League followed up its hosting of National Advertising Conferences in 1912, with 1958 (as part of the celebration of the League’s 50 years), and 1981, but its biggest and best yet was 2004. On June 12, over 1,000 advertising professionals representing all industry segments – advertisers, agencies, media companies and service providers/suppliers – convened at this premier industry event hosted at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas. The AAF’s 2004 National Conference featured high-profile speakers, sought after networking sessions, an Ad Expo, the first Conference Golf Tournament, an evening of Beers, Bulls, and BBQ (sponsored the Dallas Morning News), and star-studded events such as the Worldwide ADDY Awards Show and the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC). This four-day conference, locally chaired by Frank Kopec and Steve Wellman, generated a lot of industry buzz for Dallas advertising, and brought the Dallas advertising leadership together in a way not seen in many years.