A guide to L.A.'s advertising industry all-stars.

Michael G. Agate President Select Resources International Inc. Age: 63

When Michael G. Agate returned to his native Los Angeles in 1992 after a four-year stint with Grey/Daiko in Tokyo, he found that his nearly four decades in the advertising business had left him "too overqualified, too old and too overpaid" for practically any available executive work in town.

"So I went into consulting because I wanted to stay close to the business," said Agate, whose Select Resources International Inc. acts as a sort of matchmaker for advertisers looking for agencies.

"Agencies have a tendency to over-promise, and we get them to be realistic," Agate said. "Advertisers often don't know who is out there that would suit their needs, and we help them find the right one."

Agate has earned a reputation as a consultant who is hands-on, but doesn't stick his nose where it shouldn't be.

"In working with consultants, I found that Mike does a terrific job of smoothing things between the two sides without being overbearing," said Tom Hollerbach, executive vice president and general manager of BBDO West.

"He stays outside of the process when he should, which isn't the case with others who have to be there for every part of the negotiations, and that sort of thing can get in the way."

Agate began his career as an account management trainee with Grey Advertising after serving in Europe in Army counter-intelligence. He worked his way up to senior vice president Grey International Worldwide.

Agate moved on to become a corporate marketing consultant, founded a corporate identity and graphic design firm that was eventually bought by Chiat/Day, and then spent four years in Asia before returning to Los Angeles to form Select Resources.

- Wade Daniels

Jeff Alperin Chief Executive Officer Grey Western Division Age: 43

Jeff Alperin wouldn't exactly describe himself as a gambling man, but just the same he sees the insides of a lot of casinos - and he has a strong familiarity with California's lottery.

Alperin is CEO of Grey Western Division, which this year won the prestigious and highly visible California Lottery account. His firm also represents the Caesar's Palace casinos in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe and Atlantic City.

The new accounts bring billings for the division's Los Angeles office up to about $268 million a year, and to $56 million for its San Francisco office.

It's unusual for an ad agency to manage two accounts in the same industry. But as Alperin points out, the accounts do not compete with each other.

"Those aren't conflicting because there is no casino advertising in California, as Caesar's Palace is only advertised as a (holiday) destination - we don't advertise the gambling there," said Alperin, who explained that each account an agency takes on must be approved by its other clients.

"Those were OK because nobody is going to fly to Vegas instead of playing the lottery and vice-versa," he said.

The ad division's largest account is Lucky Markets, which brings in $40 million worth of billings a year and which Grey could only take after it parted ways with Vons in 1987.

Food products and supermarkets are Alperin's specialty. During his first 18 years at Grey, he managed accounts for San Miguel and Dos Equis beers and Knudsen and Kern foods. He also managed accounts for Vons and Lucky before assuming the post of CEO in 1995.

"This is my area of expertise and (the Western region) is the most competitive arena in the country," Alperin said.

- Wade Daniels

Andrew Butcher Chairman/CEO International Communications Group Age: 52

Andrew Butcher likes the advertising business here, especially when he compares it to the ad game in his native Britain almost a generation ago.

In London, where Butcher got his start at age 19, rewards were often based on years in the business. Here, he says, it's based on one thing: merit.

"The big difference here in America was that your performance and how hard you worked was what counted, whereas over there it was your age and number of years with the company," he said.

But the global market has changed all that, he said, to where merit also rules in Britain and the "industry operates the same in both places now."

Butcher is chairman and CEO of International Communications Group, the media buyer which he co-founded in 1979 with partners Bruce Milner and John Record.

But ICG is no longer his firm, at least on paper. In a deal just completed, the New York-based media buyer Carat North America (owned by the London-based Aegis Group plc) acquired ICG to form an operation with 11 offices with 260 employee.

Carat simultaneously purchased the Media Marketing Assessment research firm, "which will mean we'll have access to considerably more research specific to our clients to pinpoint their target audiences," Butcher said.

The deal was beneficial for ICG in light of the consolidation of media companies. Eventually, he predicted, there will be four or five "media planning and buying points in the country, and ICG wanted to be part of one of them."

- Wade Daniels

Rick Carpenter Co-Managing Director/Chief Creative Officer DDB Needham Worldwide Advertising/Los Angeles Age: 37

Rick Carpenter isn't about to exaggerate about his success, even though a character he created for a famous car ad just might.

Sitting around one day in the early-1980s, Carpenter dreamed up the idea of a car salesman with a penchant for fibs - and thus "Joe Isuzu" was born.

It was an idea that captured not only industry acclaim, but later helped land him a job as co-managing director at DDB Needham. "I think it did a lot more than launch David Leisure's career," he said about the actor who played Joe Isuzu. "It really helped launch mine."

Carpenter graduated from California State University, Fullerton in 1980 with a B.A. in advertising. Since then, he's worked in various capacities at Della Femina, Travisano & Partners and Dailey & Associates. He has won more than 300 local, national and international awards for his clients including eight Golden Lion awards from the Cannes Film Festival. His most notable campaigns have been for Carl's Jr., Bugle Boy jeans, and General Telephone.

Currently, Carpenter is the mastermind behind the L.A. Times' "cliffhanger" series - in which advertisements display sentences with key words missing. The campaign was a finalist earlier this month at the Advertising Club of Los Angeles' Belding Awards.

"The work I do tends to get very good results for our clients' business, and at the same time has been recognized for creativity," said Carpenter. "We're always trying to do more, and better, by pushing creativity for our clients as much as possible."

- Joe Bel Bruno

Lee Clow Chief Creative Officer TBWA Chiat/Day Inc. Age: 54

Think of a major ad campaign that has burrowed its way into the public consciousness in the last decade or more. Chances are, one of the following images comes to mind:

An eery "1984"-style ad for Apple Computer in which a lone runner throws a hammer through a screen. A pink Energizer bunner that keeps going and going. Nike's "Air Jordan" launch. A clown-headed CEO named Jack. Or, last year, a Japanese man with rose-colored glasses urging people to "Enjoy the Ride."

Lee Clow was the creative impetus behind all those campaigns. As creative director at Chiat/Day since 1977, Clow has achieved a level of respect and admiration enjoyed by a select few ad executives around the country. That was reflected in his induction two months ago into The One Club's Creative Hall of Fame.

Clow's three favorite words are "breaking the rules," a mantra he has expressed in numerous interviews.

"I think our job as communicators is, how do we help the brand or companies we work for stand out?" he told the Business Journal, when asked what elements make for great advertising. "If you just go down the same tried and true paths, you usually end up with a pretty uninteresting brand or company."

Perhaps because of his long hair and casual style, Clow presents a public image as a laid-back suffer-type. But people who work with him say that's not at all the case.

"He is one of the most conservative, old-school ad executives you'll ever meet," said one former Chiat/Day employee.

- Dan Turner 

Tom Cordner Creative Director/Co-Chairman Team One Advertising Age: 52

In 1988, Tom Cordner was offered the opportunity to live a businessman's wildest dreams: To start up a company from scratch according to his own design - and with someone else's money.

It was Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide that offered Cordner the chance to start a division in order to handle a new car called the Lexus.

"It was like being given a clean sheet of paper, being able to do everything I want and without having to inherit any creative people or account people that I didn't want," said Cordner, the company's creative director and co-chairman.

Before Team One, Cordner served in head creative posts in Los Angeles at Chiat/Day and Ogilvy & Mather, where he helped pitch and win the Microsoft account.

Team One's staff is mostly young, and Cordner expects many of them to move on after a few years.

"We're not one of the five or six firms in Los Angeles where people aim to end up working. Team One hires young people, we help each other, and usually they move on," he said.

Although the agency was created to handle the Lexus account, Team One has since acquired other clients - including Boston Market, America West Airlines and Addidas America.

Even so, Lexus still accounted for about 75 percent of the agency's $266 million in billings last year.

Cordner said the one main surprise he has encountered at Team One is the relative infrequency of successes for its pitches.

The company's pitches succeed about 25 percent of the time; the goal is to win its pitches 33 percent to 50 percent of the time.

"There are pitches we go into where we can't see why we didn't win them, but it's all a part of paying your dues and learning how to earn new business, and that's what we're doing," Cordner said.

- Wade Daniels

Court Crandall Co-Creative Director Ground Zero Advertising Age: 31

Starting from ... well ... ground zero just three years ago, an obscure little ad agency in Santa Monica is emerging as one of the hottest new players in the business.

Who are these guys, anyway? That's a question heard with increasing frequency at major ad awards presentations this year, as Ground Zero walks away with some of the most prestigious honors in the industry.

The creative team of Court Crandall and Kirk Souder met while working at now-defunct Stein Robaire Helm, and set out on their own in 1994 along with former Lord, Dentsu & Partners chief Jim Smith.

Together, they have developed groundbreaking spots for such clients as video game developer SegaSoft, ESPN2, Yamaha jet skis, Diamond Back mountain bikes and Michael Jordan cologne.

Frequently pigeonholed as a Generation X agency because of the nature of its clients, Ground Zero likes to think of itself more as a place for outside-the-box thinking than a shop skilled at targeting young audiences.

"I think we're more unconventional than young," Crandall said.

A journalism major in college, Crandall worked briefly as a newspaper sports writer before following in his father's footsteps and switching over to the advertising business at the age of 24.

With a name like Court, perhaps it's no surprise that Crandall gave his son, now a toddler, an equally unusual name - Chase.

- Dan Turner

Joseph J. Cronin President/CEO Saatchi b Saatchi Pacific Vice Chairman Worldwide - Saatchi & Saatchi Age: 52

One of the experiences Joe Cronin most relishes is one that many others dread - overseas flights. "I know it's weird, but the time spent on long flights is the most relaxing time I have," he said.

Cronin has been wracking up plenty of frequent flier miles in his many roles for Saatchi & Saatchi, particularly on the Toyota account, on which he serves as worldwide account director.

Tokyo, New York, London, Brussels and Chicago are all regular stops on his itinerary, with Toyota expanding into 21 countries.

Cronin's career with Saatchi & Saatchi took off in 1984 when he was named executive vice president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. He has steadily advanced up the agency's management ladder, including promotions within the Torrance office as well as the agency's New York-based parent.

Cronin is responsible for daily operations in the Torrance office, and as part of his duties as vice chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising, he travels to agencies throughout the world, overseeing Toyota's international business.

"I have the unique experience of having been on the agency side of advertising with BBDO and Kenyon Eckhardt, (and on) the client side, working for the Chrysler Corp.," he said.

When he taught advertising at Boston's Northeastern University in the early 1970s, he had to approach advertising from a different mindset. It allowed him to step back from the industry and observe how it functions and why. "That is when I learned the most about advertising," he said.

Today, Cronin copes with the pressures of advertising by regularly retreating into solitude. "I have this room at home that has no chairs - we call it my nesting area," he said. "When I need inspiration, I go in there and lie on the floor. Everybody laughs, but for me, it works."

- Julie Sable 

Clifford J. Einstein Chairman/Corporate Creative Director Dailey & Associates Advertising Age: 57

Cliff Einstein recently took a day off from his duties at Dailey & Associates, not for a round of golf with clients, but to play the role of a surgeon operating on the Nicholas Cage character in the upcoming film, "Face/Off."

Landing such a role might be a great career mark for some, but for Einstein, who comes from a showbiz family (his brothers are Albert Brooks and Super Dave Osborne), it was more of a kick.

"I've acted over the years, and someone thought I would fit the part of the surgeon. They called me up and I said 'Sure,'" said Einstein, chairman and corporate creative director of Dailey & Associates.

In fact, Einstein has appeared in most of Brooks' movies, including "Defending Your Life."

What really excites Einstein these days (at least as it involves his own shop) is Dailey's recent acquiring of the Countrywide Credit Industries' account. The new business comes on the heels of the company's parting with Great Western Bank last fall after 22 years. Great Western's new management chose to conduct a competition, and Dailey & Associates chose to bow out.

Dailey then contacted Countrywide. "We were able to graduate from a very good regional company to a very good national company, the largest in the field," Einstein said.

Dailey is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Interpublic Group of Companies, one of the world's largest holding companies of ad agencies. Einstein co-founded the agency in 1968 after working in product development and agencies in New York and Los Angeles.

One other thing Einstein is excited about is the agency's new change of address. In July, Dailey's 220 employees will set up shop in the Pacific Design Center's green building.

"It didn't take much to convince the management to allow us in," he said. "We asked them to reconsider the word 'design' in the name and proposed that it include conceptual design and creative design."

- Wade Daniels

Robert Farina Partner Cimarron/Bacon/O'Brien Age: 45

Ask Robert Farina his idea of taking risks in life, and he'll probably talk about some bold move that clinched an advertising deal.

But dig a little deepen, and he'll tell you about the time his Atlantic Formula race car slammed into a cement wall at 100 m.p.h.

"It was not a pleasant experience," said Farina, founder of Los Angeles-based Cimarron/Bacon/O'Brien. "But I guess it does show you the need to take chances in life, as well as at work."

The company he founded in 1979 has captured a niche in the entertainment market, mostly by making promotional trailers for movies.

His portfolio will be familiar to most film-goers: "Terminator II," "Basic Instinct," "Die Hard With A Vengeance," "Star Trek," and "In the Line of Fire." He also has closed deals with Fox Sports, and for the video release of the "Star Wars Trilogy."

There are numerous advertising agencies that specialize in promotions for the entertainment industry. But with an impressive list of clients, CBO is regarded as one of the industry's leaders.

Before a feature film comes out, the studios give Farina a rough cut, which his staff then edits into a short promotion that will run either as a TV spot or as a theater trailer.

"You are only as good as your last campaign...there's a lot of very talented people in this industry that won't let you just sit back," said Farina, who worked in the marketing department of Warner Bros. for 12 years before forming his advertising firm. "You have to take risks, gamble and try something new."

By the way, Farina, who owns his own car and races in the Sports Car Club of America league, wasn't seriously injured in the race car wreck.

- Joe Bel Bruno

Brian Fox Founder/Chief Creative Officer B.D. Fox & Friends Age: 46

Before launching B.D. Fox & Friends, one of the industry's leaders in television and motion picture promotional ads, Brian Fox was heading down an entirely different career path.

He was a toy designer - his claim to fame being a top selling model of the Goodyear Blimp, complete with messages that light up. "The toy had a lot of the qualities that a good ad campaign should have," said Fox of the Revell Inc. model that hit the market in 1973. "It had entertainment value, it was interactive and it got the message across."

After a few years designing toys, Fox decided to switch directions and become an artist for a small advertising agency. When the company went out of business, Fox converted a spare bedroom into an office and launched his own agency.

At the time, he had just one client - the laser light show "Laserium." From that start, he now heads a 75-person company.

Most clients come to the firm for entertainment marketing expertise involving interactive and multimedia software, music, video, cable and syndicated television.

Fox's promotional work has been seen in Universal Pictures' "E.T.," Warner Bros.' "Batman" and Tri-Star Pictures' "Steel Magnolias." His agency also produces on-air promotional spots for CBS Television.

Fox graduated from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1973. His early career included managing undiscovered rock bands, in addition to creating those toys.

He also is an accomplished artist. His lithographs are sold at 38 Z Gallery stores nationwide.

"It's all about image and attitude," Fox said of the advertising industry. "It's all about creating and entertaining, while getting the message across. That's what I do."

- Joe Bel Bruno

Dennis Holt Chief Executive Officer Western International Media Corp. Age: Declined to state

Dennis Holt remembers the simple days of the advertising business, back in the early 1960s when agencies were self-contained operations and agents earned flat 15 percent commissions.

That was back before there were people like him - specialists.

In those years, Holt worked as a radio time salesman for KEZY (FM 95.9) in Orange County and had the idea to start a company that did nothing but buy media.

At the time, agencies would not only develop ads, but oversee their placement in newspapers, radio and television. To Holt, it was an inefficient system; ads were placed based more on personal contacts than on matching the best audience for the product.

In 1965, he found an investor and began U.S. Media, the world's first media buying agency. "For a few years after I started the company, I was the most hated man in the industry," said Holt.

He sold the company in 1969 and then founded Western International Media Corp. Now, as CEO of the world's largest media buyer (with more than $3 billion in billings last year in the U.S.), Holt is one of the most revered men in the industry. But he also is in the process of passing on the company to a new generation of leadership-namely, president and chief operating officer Michael Kassan.

Holt said he likens the profession of media buyer to that of a doctor, in that both need to stay current with the latest developments.

Specifically, buyers need to prepare for the Internet and other technologies that will change the nature of media - and with it, media selling.

"It changes so fast that you've got to keep going back to school, just like a doctor, who is never done learning," he said.

- Wade Daniels

Diane Murray Krouse Managing Director D'Arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles/Los Angeles Age: 42

Diane Krouse once lived in New York's fast-paced ad industry and loved it. Even so, she thinks it's more "interesting and dynamic" in Los Angeles, where DMB&B transferred her in 1985.

"Here there are smaller, more entrepreneurial ad houses that call on the individual to be more creative and resourceful, because you don't have all these departments to do the work for you," said Krouse, who joined DMB&B in New York as an assistant account executive in 1979 and is now managing director here.

"The pace of business here is every bit as fast as New York, and L.A. is in the global market, but the quality of life here is better," she said.

DMB&B/Los Angeles competed and in late March won the Gateway 2000 computer company account, valued at more than $100 million. The office reported $125 million in billings for 1996.

Gateway representatives in the company's South Dakota head offices told Krouse that the Los Angeles office won partly based on its "strategic understanding of the brand and how to link it to customers" and "how they felt about the process of conducting business with them."

Krouse is well-liked in the industry as someone with charm and charisma, and who doesn't mind the spotlight. Perhaps that's a family trait - Krouse's father is Jan Murray, the popular comedian and stage and screen personality in the 1950s and 1960s and who still performs today.

- Wade Daniels

Robert Kuperman President/Chief Executive Officer, North America TBWA Chiat/Day Inc. Age: 56

Robert Kuperman can trace back his interest in art from his days as a boy growing up in Brooklyn.

On report card day, Kuperman often brought home bad marks mostly straight-Cs. As a way to divert his parents from those mediocre grades, Kuperman would also show them his drawings.

"They loved my drawings, and it kind of cushioned the grades. ... I told them I wanted to be a commercial artist," he said. "I figured that's what I can do to get attention and compliments ... and I started doing art even more."

Decades later, it's clear that focusing on art has paid off for Kuperman, who just last week was promoted to president and chief executive officer of TBWA Chiat/Day's North America operations. He previously was president and CEO of the firm's Venice office.

During his tenure, the Venice office has produced such work as Jack-in-the-Box's "Jack" campaign, Nissan's "Enjoy the Ride" spots and the Energizer Bunny.

Kuperman began his career at 14, designing doggie sweaters for his uncle's manufacturing company. Years later, he attended New York's Pratt Institute, graduating in 1963 with a bachelor of fine arts degree.

Kuperman then went to work at Cunningham & Walsh and later moved to Doyle Dane Bernbach (now called DDB Needham). By the age of 26, Kuperman had been promoted to vice president and was running DDB's U.S. ad campaign for Volkswagen.

He left DDB in 1971 and worked as creative director for several other agencies - developing classic campaigns for Alka Seltzer and other clients. Kuperman later came back to DDB in 1982 to run the agency's Western operations.

He joined Chiat/Day's Venice office in 1987 as creative director and was appointed president of the agency two years later.

Through the years, Kuperman also has garnered industry honors: the Volkswagen campaign won the Clio award, his Meow Mix ads are in the Clio Hall of Fame, and his agency's campaigns for Energizer and Nissan were cited by Adweek magazine as Campaign of the Year.

- Joe Bel Bruno

David Lubars Chief Executive Officer/Chief Creative Officer BBDO West Age: 38

Since joining BBDO West in 1993, CEO and chief creative officer David Lubars watched as the agency's core account, Apple Computer Inc., "almost imploded in front of him," as one ad industry observer put it.

And yet despite its problems, Apple has kept BBDO West as its agency - a testament to the computer company's recognition that the ads weren't the problem, according to Tom Hollerbach, executive vice president and general manager of BBDO West.

"Companies usually strike out first at their ad agencies when they have problems such as these," said Bollerbach.

Apple's television ads have won widespread recognition for their creativity and sense of humor. But Lubars said the ads didn't always run long enough to have the desired effect - something that he expects to change.

"A lot of the Apple campaigns were good and needed to run longer than they have, and now we're going to run them longer and make them more focused on the products and innovations," Lubars said.

"David Lubars deserves a combat medal for navigating the Apple account through a rough period," said Bradley Johnson, Los Angeles bureau chief for Advertising Age. "David has also worked to diversify BBDO's account roster to make it less dependent on Apple Computers."

Lubars came to head BBDO's creatives at the invitation of its then-CEO Steve Hayden, who shortly thereafter cut town for a job in New York, leaving Lubars to take over.

Part of Lubars's job is to ensure the firm won't itself sink if Apple bites the dust or walks to a new firm.

He seems to be doing that. The agency has seen more than $200 million worth of new billings over the past two years, the most recent of which came in its April 2 announcement that it won the $18 million Best Western Hotels account.

Under Lubars's leadership, BBDO West took first place at this year's Beldings awards in the "Complete Campaign" category for its L.A. Cellular campaign.

- Wade Daniels

Jerry McGee President Ogilvy & Mather Age: 52

For Jerry McGee, the most satisfying aspect of advertising is to watch an idea come to life.

When a campaign is wildly successful, he says it can be an exhilarating feeling. The best example of this might have been when McGee was hard pressed to come up with a new idea for Hershey's chocolates.

"I was sitting eating a Hershey's Kiss one day and the thought just struck me - they should have something to represent hugs," said McGee, who is president of the company's west coast operations.

"When I saw the first Hershey's Hugs on the shelf at the store - I went ballistic," he said. "You feel so proud, that your work matters, and that you've accomplished something."

While working on a campaign for Owens-Corning Fiberglas, he came up with the company's mascot - "The Pink Panther." Other products he's helped promote include Shell Oil, Mattel's Barbie and General Food's Maxwell House coffee.

McGee has also produced television spots for politicians including Gerald Ford's bid for re-election and Gil Garcetti's most recent campaign for district attorney.

McGee's success is a far cry from what he was doing before advertising.

"I went to the University of Arizona not to study, but to play baseball...I was an awful student," said McGee, who dropped out of college to hold down jobs as a disc jockey and used car salesman before going into advertising.

"I got lucky and landed a job in advertising, and found out that it was finally something I was good at," he said. McGee has kept many of his original clients over the years - including Mattel and General Foods. He handles several big name accounts out of the L.A. office - including Dolly Parton's Dollywood in Tennessee, Korean Air and FHP International Corp.

- Joe Bel Bruno

Jordin Mendelsohn Executive Creative Director Mendelsohn/Zien Advertising Age: 46

Last year, Mendelsohn/Zien attracted headlines when a TV commercial it created for juniors clothing retailer Clothestime was rejected by all the major broadcast and cable networks.

There's a reason the networks were concerned: The spot portrayed a completely naked man talking about certain male biological responses that occur when a man gets a look at a sexy woman clad in Clothestime attire.

It wasn't the first time a TV network, newspaper or magazine has rejected a Mendelsohn/Zien advertisement, and it probably won't be the last. The agency and its executive creative director Jordin Mendelsohn have a reputation for pushing the envelope of edginess - or at least of good taste.

Mendelsohn's main target is young men, the demographic the agency has corraled in spots for Carl's Jr. restaurants that depict gooey hamburgers dripping ketchup and mustard.

One spot, which drew concerns from network censors but which ultimately was allowed to run, features horror-movie-style footage of a man with a knife running through a house, tracking what seems to be puddles of blood (actually ketchup from a Carl's hamburger).

To attract the attention of young people today, you have to go as far as the censors will allow, Mendelsohn says. Or beyond.

"I don't think it's possible to go far enough for our target audience - because the networks won't let you," Mendelsohn said.

But not everything he puts out has an edge - the spots Mendelsohn has created for the BMW Dealers of North America, for example, are considerably more conservative.

- Dan Turner

Bruce Miller President Suissa Miller Advertising Inc. Age: 44

Bruce Miller is on the business side of the hot Suissa Miller Advertising agency - the guy who makes sure the creative artists have the tools they need to get the job done.

And fight now, he's been busy - helping the firm ramp up after landing America Honda Motor Co's Acura automobile account last fall.

"It's been a wild ride," Miller said of the past five months, during which he has overseen a doubling of the staff from 70 to about 140, along with a doubling of the company's yearly billings from $119 million.

Miller, who co-owns the firm along with its founder David Suissa, has overseen everything from the move to bigger quarters in West Los Angeles down to "the wiring for the computers," all of which has "left me with big bags under my eyes."

With all the company has gone through, Les Koll, the senior vice president of marketing for Jenny Craig Inc., said the level of attention his account receives hasn't changed.

"We like the fact that we can work with the principals, because the personal touch is important for a company which deals so much in one-on-one relationships," Koll said.

Miller earned his business degree from Dartmouth College (where he was Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude) in three years and then became one of Stanford's youngest MBA grads.

After college, he went to work for Procter & Gamble, but then moved into advertising - holding senior positions at DDB Needham and Foote and Cone & Belding, then joining Suissa in 1992.

Since then, the agency's billings shot up from $15 million annually to $240 million a year.

- Wade Daniels

Jo Muse Chairman Muse Cordero Chen Inc. Age: 46

Jay Chiat, David Ogilvy, William Bernbach and Howard Zieff may be the titans of advertising, but for Jo Muse - chairman of Muse Cordero Chen Inc. - there was another man who most motivated him into the business: Darren Stevens.

"'Bewitched'" did it for me," said Muse about the 1960s television program in which an advertising man was married to a friendly witch. "I was a TV kid ... and Darren's job just seemed so great to me."

Muse was also intrigued by the commercials that popped up during the program breaks.

"You grow up not only watching all the sitcoms, but also by watching the commercials," he said.

Since its founding in 1987, Muse Cordero has become one of the industry's leading minority advertising agencies.

Muse has led the Los Angeles-based company on clients including American Honda, AT&T Wireless and Nike Inc.

If awards are any indication of success, than Muse has been doing well. Besides national and local industry recognition, he also was named best creative director in the west by Adweek Magazine in 1993.

Most recently, his work for Nike in Spanish markets earned the firm a Belding award in the foreign language category.

He began in public relations - then shifted to advertising soon after graduating from Michigan State University in 1972. Muse's biggest achievement, he says, has been helping minorities succeed in what is typically a tough industry to crack.

"The business isn't any more attractive or friendly to people of color, particularly in L.A.," he said.

- Joe Bel Bruno

Dave Park Chairman DDB Needham Worldwide Advertising/Los Angeles Age: 54

Dave Park is into power and passion, and he gets most of his inspiration by surrounding himself with people who are passionate about their work.

Following his philosophy that clients need more than just a good advertising campaign, Park has diversified the L.A. agency into four marketing communications units - advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion and entertainment marketing.

"It is important that a client have the ability to communicate on different levels," Park said.

To that end, he works with the creative team to determine overall marketing strategies for all clients.

"It's not at all uncommon for Park to roll up his sleeves and join in on meetings," said Ken Kaess, president of DDB Needham's U.S. operations in New York and Park's boss. "He runs the agency with an open-door policy."

Kaess worked under Park in the L.A. agency before being promoted to the parent office in New York.

"Back in the late 1980s, I came to him with an idea for representing clients in the entertainment business," Kaess said. "It took just one two-hour dinner meeting for us to bond."

It was Kaess' love of entertainment and Park's entrepreneurial instincts that helped launch the entertainment unit of the L.A. office, which counts Universal Pictures as a client.

"I have always approached agency work the same way - a group process in which everyone focuses on one core aspect," Park said. When he can afford to get away, Park seeks solitude at his cabin in Big Bear and on annual boating trips to the Pacific Northwest.

- Julie Sable

Larry Postaer Executive Vice President/Director of Creative Services Rubin Postaer and Associates Age: 58

Larry Postaer's early advertising career was spent on the shores of Lake Michigan, where he channeled his creative juices into campaigns for Wrigley Field, Hubba Bubba bubble gum and Bud Light.

As one of the youngest creative directors in America in 1964, Postaer oversaw the creation of "The Racer's Edge" for STP Corp.

In 1981, after stints at several Chicago-area agencies, Postaer was asked by his bosses at Needham Harper & Steers to transfer out of the agency's Chicago office and join a guy named Gerry Rubin in the agency's Los Angeles office.

Since then, Rubin and Postaer have been an inseparable part of Los Angeles advertising - and in 1986, they formed their own firm, buying out Needham L.A.

Postaer says his style is to get out of the way and let his team's creative juices percolate. "I assemble a team very carefully, based on their strengths and talents," he said.

"I don't personally compete with people at this point in my life. I feel that this way we get better work out of them," he said. "I do provide guidance and counseling in the early stages of a campaign - encouragement as well as discouragement, if necessary."

Postaer credits his durability to good grounding. His steps up the ladder have been on "tippie toes" - from his first job as a catalog copywriter for Sears Roebuck & Co. to ever-larger agencies with increasing levels of responsibility.

Postaer calls his long-running work for American Honda Motor Co. the crowning achievement of his career. "There's no question that we have had a very good, long run with Honda," he said. "I feel like I have never embarrassed myself - yet."

Postaer laughs about the agency's am/pm Mini-Markets "Two Cokes" campaign - in which a twenty-something tries to limit his purchase at the store to just two cokes. He has a great critic for the convenience-store chain's ad - his 18-year-old son who loves to shop there.

That son, a musician now attending USC, is the only one of Postaer's three sons not following in their father's advertising footsteps.

- Julie Sable

Gerry Rubin President/CEO Rubin Postaer and Associates Age: 57

Finding a creative rush can be the bane of any advertising executive's existence. But Gerry Rubin need only turn to his apartment above the Broadway Deli in Santa Monica to be inspired. "It's the aroma that gets me going, especially the corned beef and matzo ball soup," he said.

Rubin had prepared for a career in acting or sports announcing, but decided to take a stab at advertising with Chicago's Leo Burnett Co. Inc. His outgoing personality and creative flair were a natural fit in creating advertising campaigns, so he decided to stick with advertising, eventually changing over to Needham Harper & Steers, where he would work for the next 18 years.

In 1973, Rubin transferred to Needham's Los Angeles office, where Larry Postaer joined him in 1981. Five years later, the two launched their own firm.

"After all that time at big firms, we decided that it didn't matter much to clients here in Los Angeles whether you were joined to a large worldwide or national firm," Rubin said. "Knowing that, Larry and I struck out on our own when Needham sold and it has been a real positive thing for us."

American Honda Motor Co. Inc. became an anchor client for the new agency. "The L.A. market is somewhat unique in the sense that it is dominated by the automotive industry," Rubin said.

This domination, while feeding and growing the agency scene on the West Coast, "has forced us to look outside the local area to find talented employees for the agency and has driven up salaries."

Like other ad executives, Rubin uses the word "passion" to describe his work.

"You must have an emotional reason to care in order to survive in this business," he said. "I tell the younger generation that comes through here that I am happy to teach them business skills, but there is one thing I can't teach them - passion."

- Julie Sable

Kirk Souder Co-Creative Director Ground Zero Advertising Age: 35

Kirk Souder was a physics major at the University of Delaware when

he had an epiphany during his junior year.

"I watched some of these grad students coming up from a basement where I was probably going to spend the rest of my life, and I got really depressed," Souder said.

Instead of a basement, Souder works in a bizarre warehouse office in Santa Monica stuffed with such artifacts as a pop-art papier mache TV set with a red flashing light in the middle of the screen, and giant blown-up baby photos of all the Ground Zero employees, including himself.

As half of the creative partnership that has made Ground Zero one of the nation's hottest young agencies, Souder isn't just enjoying himself a whole lot more than he would have as a physicist - he's making a much better living.

Ground Zero currently has billings of $55 million after only three years in existence, and that figure is expected to balloon this year.

Souder and creative partner Court Crandall launched their agency with a bang in 1994. In order to get money to fund the start-up, they sold their talents as freelancers to BBDO West, developing an ad for that agency on behalf of Pioneer Electronics.

The commercial. which portrayed a wildly swinging bridge that was apparently being rocked by the sound waves from a young man's Pioneer car stereo - ended up winning a Clio, an Effie, and a host of other industry awards.

- Dan Turner

David Suissa Chairman/Executive Creative Director Suissa Miller Advertising Age: 40

To David Suissa, an advertising campaign is not unlike a military battle - especially when the campaign involves luxury automobiles.

Suissa joined the fight five months ago when the agency won the coveted account for the Acura Division of American Honda.

"It's an extremely competitive market, with Mercedes Benz, to Infiniti and Lexus," said Suissa. "It's a war out there."

Suissa Miller's campaign, which begins this month, centers around the words: "The True Definition of Luxury. Yours."

The agency, which went from $119 million a year in billings to $240 million with the Acura account, has a guerilla-like approach to bringing in new business, scoping out "blue chip" clients and then going after them. Suissa said the agency has convinced the likes of Andrew Jergens, Hunt-Wessen and Beech-Nut's baby foods division to drop their respective ad agencies and switch to Suissa Miller.

Much of the firm's success is directly attributable to the syles of Suissa and his partner, the firm's president, Bruce Miller. "(They are) a real yin and yang team," said Alice Cuneo, west coast agency reporter for Advertising Age magazine. She describes Suissa as a sort of tough guy half of the team, noting that "David is brassy and has street smarts and knows how to get to the heart of things."

Even with the firm's growth in recent years, Suissa said little has changed for the way he operates at home and at work.

"Nowadays I get maybe a hundred voice mails a day instead of 40, but it hasn't changed what I do every day and I still get home for dinner," he said.

- Wade Daniels

Richard Zien President Mendelsohn/Zien Advertising Age: 47

Mendelsohn/Zien doesn't rank among the biggest ad agencies in L.A. But it scares the heck out of competitors at far bigger and better-known shops.

That's because Zien and creative partner Jordin Mendelsohn do things a little bit differently than everybody else. For one thing, they participate in relatively few reviews (the selection process in which clients audition ad agencies by evaluating a sample ad campaign). Zien contends that the review process is "demeaning" to agencies.

They also make advertising with a very hard edge, and they encourage clients to expect their campaigns to have an immediate financial impact.

More important, they tend to get results.

The watershed event at the 14-year-old agency happened in 1995, when it won the Carl's Jr. account. At the time, stock in Carl Karcher Enterprises had sagged to a price of $6 per share after years of declining sales. Eighteen months later, after Mendelsohn/Zien's "If it doesn't get all over the place, it doesn't belong in your face" campaign created a new identity for the restaurants among young males, CKE's stock was trading at $36 a share.

"It's been the most dramatic turnaround, I think, in the history of the advertising business," said Zien, who is seldom accused of being self-effacing.

Zien is officially in charge of business development and strategy for his agency, but he frequently gets involved with the creative side just as Mendelsohn plays a role in business issues.

"The best creative people in this business are really good business people, too," Zien said.

- Dan Turner