Leo Burnett's Slow Mo' Makeover

For the first mile or so of his Sunday morning jogs, Leo Burnett Chief Executive William T. Lynch barely hangs on as Kelsey, his yellow labrador, drags him along by the leash. By mile three, though, Kelsey's tongue is hanging out and her brown eyes are pleading for mercy while her master pulls ahead. "I look over and say, `I got you again.' She just can't pace herself," the lanky ad man explains.

Lynch relies on the same kind of long-distance thinking at the office, where he runs the nation's largest independent ad agency. The privately held Chicago shop, where Lynch has spent his entire career, has become an icon by maintaining a folksy Midwestern image that would embarrass hipper agencies. In a business where loyalties shift as fast as the latest consumer craze, 30% of Leo Burnett Co.'s heavyweight clients have been on the roster for 30 years or more. Same goes for its employees: "Burnetters" often stay for life. Fads such as adland's merger mania of the late 1980s never seem to interest the folks at 35 West Wacker Drive, the 50-story office tower where Burnett concentrates all its U.S. operations. And the campaigns endure--from Tony the Tiger and the Marlboro Man, both of which first appeared more than 40 years ago, to the lonely Maytag repairman and the friendly skies of United.