Doyle Dane Bernbach

Doyle Dane Bernbach, currently known as DDB Worldwide, is an ad agency that handled Jack in the Box's marketing from 1967 to 1977. It has been called "the most influential agency in the history of advertising."

History

Doyle Dane Bernbach was founded in 1949 by Bill Bernbach, Ned Doyle, and Mac Dane. Dane ran the administrative and promotional aspects of the business, Doyle had a client focus, and Bernbach played an integral role in the writing of advertising, leading the creative output of the agency.

The agency's first ads were for Ohrbach's department store exemplifying a new "soft-sell" approach to advertising, marked by catchy slogans and witty humor contrasting the repetitive and hard-sell style in vogue until then. The new agency was initially successful in winning business for clients with small budgets. Their campaigns for Volkswagen throughout the 1950s and 1960s were said to have revolutionized advertising, with the 1959 Think Small campaign voted the No. 1 campaign of all time in Advertising Age's 1999 The Century of Advertising.

In 1959, the firm created the character Juan Valdez for the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia. The following year, the agency won the account of Avis, then the number-two auto rental company. Its cheeky slogan, "We Try Harder Because We're Number 2," was a major success and remains part of Avis's slogan today: "We Try Harder".

One of DDB's most well-known television commercials was the controversial 1964 Daisy ad for Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign, which depicted a young girl killed by a nuclear bomb, implying Johnson's opponent, Barry Goldwater, would start a nuclear war. Another enduring campaign was the 1972 Little Mikey commercial for Life cereal, which ran continuously in the United States for twelve years.

In 1986, the firm merged with Needham Harper to become DDB Needham, later becoming DDB Worldwide in 1996. It is owned by Omnicom Group, one of the world's largest advertising holding companies.

Since Doyle Dane Bernbach commenced a US relationship with Volkswagen in 1959, it has been a consistent and significant client in various parts of the world. Needham Harper started working with McDonald's in the 1960s and that client has worked with DDB in several countries unceasingly since then. A global relationship with ExxonMobil has been consistent since the 1960s. As of 2020, longstanding broad worldwide relationships continue to be held with Unilever and Johnson & Johnson.

Jack in the Box

Jack in the Box hired Doyle Dane Bernbach in February 1967. One of the agency's first commercials for the chain, 1968's The Naked Lunch, stirred controversy; three television stations in the Los Angeles area refused to air it.

Rodney Allen Rippy.

In 1972 , the agency was tasked with creating an ad campaign to introduce Jack in the Box's Jumbo Jack hamburger. While competing chains like McDonald's and Burger King had used athletes to promote their burgers, DDB went the opposite direction and instead auditioned young boys. Rodney Allen Rippy, a 4 year old boy who'd previously appeared in a Kellogg's ad, was cast alongside three other boys in a 1972 Jack in the Box commercial. Rippy emerged from the spot as an overnight sensation, and a subsequent ad campaign was built around him. In the ads, Rippy struggled to wrap his mouth around the super-sized Jumbo Jack. His line "It's too big to eat!" (pronounced "It's too big-a-eat!") became a catchphrase. Another spot featured him giggling while singing the song "Take Life a Little Easier," which was released as a single by Bell Records in the fall of 1973 in the wake of the commercial's popularity.

After a two year hiatus, DDB brought back Rippy, then 8, for a "comeback" campaign in 1977 with the slogan "What Ever Happened to Rodney Allen Rippy?"

Radio commercials for the chain featured the comedy duo Stiller and Meara.

DDB's business relationship with Jack in the Box ended in July 1977, with the chain reassigning its account to Wells, Rich, Greene.