Goodbye, Mr. Owl

Advertising men sometimes seem as eager to sell themselves as they are to promote their clients' products. A notable and reticent exception is Norman Hulbert Strouse, 61, chairman and for seven years chief executive of J. Walter Thompson, who quietly announced last week that he was going into early retirement. Closing out a 40-year career with the world's largest ad agency, Strouse wanted no fanfare and got none. From his corner office he sorted out personal belongings, which include 100 owls in a collection started in the days when a wise old owl was J. Walter's trademark. Strouse had a final cup of coffee and a last cigar with colleagues. Then he took a "down" elevator to Manhattan's Lexington Avenue and headed off to a retirement house in Northern California's Napa Valley.

Building on Blue Chips. His mode of departure reflected his belief in calm continuity. Well aware that ad agencies often slow down when their bosses grow old and linger too long, Strouse began planning his own retirement three years ago. He tapped Dan Seymour, a one time soap-opera actor who revitalized J. Walter's television department, to become president. Now Seymour takes full charge of a shop that, thanks to Strouse, is not about to lose its No. 1 ranking. Billings have more than doubled since Strouse was named president in 1955, and currently exceed $600 million. With blue-chip clients that include Eastman Kodak, Ford, Pan Am, Standard Brands and Liggett & Myers, J. Walter Thompson is also busily building sales for about 800 smaller companies in the U.S. and 27 other nations.

The agency was already on top of its field 13 years ago when Strouse moved from the Ford account--still J. Walter's biggest--into top management. Strouse, who was always more of an administrative man than a creative whiz, streamlined the agency and made it more profitable. "My basic thing," he recalled last week before leaving, "was to build a modern management structure." This he accomplished by separating senior executives from day-to-day operations so that they could think and plan better. He also introduced computerized operations wherever possible, cut back on the clerical help they replaced and "traded up on quality people." J. Walter's motto, coined by Strouse, was: "Fewer, better people, better paid."

Right to Intrude. Inevitably, as head of the industry's biggest agency, Strouse became a spokesman for advertising. In that public role, he defended his calling at the drop of an invitation against what he considered to be false charges of economic waste and social immorality. "Attacks on a so-called 'Madison Avenue,' " he said, "are in reality disguised attacks on our free-enterprise system itself." Within the industry, Strouse made many other speeches, and there his message was different. Advertising might not be immoral or wasteful, but he conceded that some of it--not, of course, from J. Walter Thompson--was too often brassy and offensive. "Every single advertisement," he insisted, "must win its own right to intrude."

In retirement, Strouse will continue to some degree to be a spokesman. Though he never went to college, he is an ardent bibliophile, reads books as avidly as he hoards them, and once wrote a guide to book collecting called How to Build a Poor Man's Morgan Library. Accordingly, the University of California at Santa Cruz has tapped Strouse to become a regent's professor. In that capacity, starting next March, he will lecture and conduct seminars on art, literature, the history of rare books, the philosophy of business management and pragmatic economics. He may also work in a few words on the subject of advertising.

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