What It Takes: Ad agency founder stayed ambitious and struck out on his own

Doug Laughlin was drafted into the military right out of college and he says his time in the armed forces turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him, career-wise.

A stint in public affairs at the U.S. Army’s headquarters in Europe led to opportunities when he got out of the service to work on the Army’s “Be all you can be” and the U.S. Air Force’s “Aim High” advertising campaigns.

Then, in 1995, at an age when most of his contemporaries were contemplating retirement, he bucked the advertising industry trend of consolidation and founded his own independent agency in Arlington.

Today, LM&O Advertising, which initially focused on military and government accounts, has $153 million in annual billings, 70 employees and clients including the Army National Guard, Avis Budget Group and Sears Portrait Studio.

Laughlin, 68, recently received his first ad industry award, the silver medal from the American Advertising Federation.

He splits his time between homes in Arlington and rural Virginia with his wife, Grace. They have two grown sons: Chris, who is president of LM&O, and Scott, who is a member of the board.

HIS BIG BREAK

Laughlin earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Kent State University in Ohio in 1964. He was working at an advertising agency in Cleveland when he was drafted. “At the time, a lot of the mid-grade lieutenants and others were in Vietnam, so they were backfilling some of the jobs they would have held with folks with experience, like me … It wasn’t traditional public relations, but it was handling press inquiries and various things … It turned out to be a wonderful career-expanding experience … When I got out, I went to work for NW Air, a New York City ad agency, which had the U.S. Army account. President Richard Nixon had promised when he campaigned to eliminate the draft, so there was this marketing campaign so that they could attract people into the service. We came up with the slogan ‘Be all you can be.’ ”

FROM MADISON AVENUE TO THE NATION’S CAPITAL

He was recruited to work for the agency that became D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles to work on the account for the U.S. Air Force, then went to Bozell Advertising, where he headed the team that pitched and won the U.S. Army National Guard account. “The slogan that we came up with for that was ‘You Can.’ I worked at Bozell until 1992, when both my boys were in college, and then I started what I wanted to do when I grew up. I decided New York City and an agency were not where I wanted to be. I was able to negotiate a deal with Bozell that I would go out on my own and they would be my first client … In 1995, Bozell wanted to contract a little bit and I was able to work with them to acquire their Washington office, which became LM&O.”

WHY HE’S SUCCESSFUL

“There’s a side of me that always wanted to go to the next step. I was never satisfied with where I was.”

OBSTACLES HE OVERCAME

“I don’t think I had any serious obstacles until I launched LM&O. To have an ad agency in D.C. with basically one account, it was about convincing people that you are not a one-trick pony … We would do small projects to get experience in certain areas, then … leverage those into experience when the next big opportunity came along. We pitched and got Virginia Railway Express and did a good job of it, which caught the eye of Metro because both were in the public transportation sphere. The next time Metro was up … we bid and won.”

FIRST JOB

“On the line at Frontier Steel Manufacturing. They made those metal shelves for warehouses and storage rooms. Basically, they were fabricated at this place, and I was on the line where after they got painted, we’d take them off-line and put them in boxes and warehouse them. It was 110 degrees and the greatest bunch of guys I ever met in my life. I must have been 16 or 17. That job taught me discipline.”

SMARTEST MOVE

“Taking a real hard look at what lay ahead when I was 48-49 years old and said, I’m not sure I want to continue this and having the guts to say, ‘I’m going to do something different’ … It would have been easy to keep plodding along in the known and something that I was comfortable in, but I stepped out of my comfort zone and went in a different direction.”

BIGGEST MISSTEP

“When I got out of the Army, I sent out a number of résumés and got a number of job offers. One was from Proctor & Gamble, which in those days was the [ultimate] in advertising and marketing. I turned it down. I think looking back that I was a little afraid. My confidence failed me.”

WHAT’S NEXT

“It’s sort of the end of road for me. I’m 68. I’ve already conducted a transition for the boys to take over the agency and lead it into the future. I’ve given some thought to writing a book. I started out as a writer in public relations. I think there is probably something else in me, but I don’t know yet what that is. My wife and I both love traveling, not Paris or Rome, but the byways of America. We’ve always enjoyed the open road, so there could be some substantial travel, maybe in a trailer. Of course, we’d pull it up to a Marriott at night.”