Dancer Fitzgerald Sample

Dancer Fitzgerald Sample (DFS & later DFS-Dorland) was a top tier Madison Avenue advertising agency during the 20th century originally founded in Chicago in 1923. It was acquired and merged into the Saatchi & Saatchi network in the 1980s.

History

Founded as Blackett-Sample-Hummert in Chicago in 1923, the business relocated to New York in 1948 in order to be closer to the exploding television broadcast business.

On February 24, 1986 Saatchi & Saatchi agreed to acquire Dancer Fitzgerald Sample for $75M and immediately announced that it would be merged with the Saatchi owned UK network Dorland Advertising. At that time Dancer Fitzgerald Sample was the thirteenth largest advertising agency in the US with billings of $876M and clients including Procter & Gamble, General Mills, Toyota, Sara Lee and RJR Nabisco. The new DFS Dorland Worldwide network was to be operated independently from the Saatchi and Saatchi Compton Worldwide network and was at that time the sixteenth largest agency network in the world.^[1]

Within a year however - by June 1987, DFS was merged with Saatchi & Saatchi Compton, the US subsidiary of Saatchi & Saatchi^[2]. At that point the merged business it became the largest agency in New York with billings of $2.3B. The consolidation ended DFS's relationship with Dorland which was at that was point the number-three-ranked London agency.^[1]

DFS founded Program Syndication Services in 1973 and The Program Exchange in 1979.

Legacy

Dancer Fitzgerald Sample was responsible for developing the "Oh What A Feeling" worldwide campaign for their client Toyota USA Inc and that legacy survives today in Saatchi & Saatchi's continuing global relationship with Toyota.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Goldman - Conflicting Accounts
2. ^ answers.com

Sources

• Goldman, Kevin Conflicting Accounts - The Creation & Crash of the Saatchi & Saatchi Empire, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997 ISBN 0-684-83553-3

See also

• The Program Exchange