Advertising's `Big Bang' Is Making Noise At Last

When Bruce Crawford met Allen Rosenshine for drinks at Manhattan's Century Club in August, 1988, Rosenshine's dark mood seemed to capture the disillusionment of Madison Avenue in the late `80s. Rosenshine, then chairman of ad conglomerate Omnicom Group Inc., lamented that he couldn't find a new chief for one of his big agencies, BBDO Worldwide Inc. And as a former copywriter, he was fed up with hawking debentures instead of honing ad slogans. So Rosenshine made Crawford a strange offer: Would Crawford take over Omnicom and let Rosenshine go back to running BBDO?

Crawford, also a onetime BBDO chairman who at the time had the plum job of managing the Metropolitan Opera, startled him by saying yes. The switch proved to be an inspired bit of casting. Says Philip H. Geier Jr., chief executive of archrival Interpublic Group of Cos.: "First, they had a great advertising man put it together. Then, Bruce came in to sort out the business."