By Cliff Peale
The Cincinnati Enquirer

From the Kwik Brothers and Rubel's Rye Bread to "Skyline Time," local advertisements have defined the history of Cincinnati.

Icons such as Burger Beer earned their memories here with ads, and one famous jingle urged Cincinnatians to "Follow the signs, follow the cars, to Kash's Big Bargain Barn."

But for the local advertising industry, ads touting entities such as NASCAR, Jacuzzi and U.S. Bank are the key to the future.

Those national accounts, among the dwindling amount still created here, are the ones that keep Cincinnati holding on to its traditional place as an advertising center.

There are fewer full-service advertising agencies in the region now, as cities such as Minneapolis and Portland have become bigger regional centers than Cincinnati. But a healthy offering of brand consultants, market research and direct marketing firms do business with some of the world's biggest names, keeping marketing as one of the region's core industries.

"Certainly, this was a mecca for advertising," said Leigh Miller, president of Freedman, Gibson & White, a downtown agency with $50 million in annual capitalized billings. "I wouldn't say that's the case anymore. ... You can't survive on just local and regional business anymore."

Dale Brown, former president of Sive/Young & Rubicam - since acquired by the Powers Agency - remembers national accounts there such as the launch of the successful Super Soaker squirt gun.

And Cincinnati's Stockton West Burkhart helped create some of the earliest television commercials for Wendy's.

"It's not as big, but then that's true everywhere," Brown said. "Back in the old days, what you had was agencies who did whatever there was to do. I think what we're seeing is more and more targeted communications work."

As the Advertising Club of Cincinnati celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, local advertising veterans said agencies here are starting to bid more for national business.

The region's biggest advertising assets include Northlich, the biggest agency at $127 million in capitalized billings last year and one of a smaller number of independently owned agencies left nationally, and HSR Business-to-Business in Sharonville, which has burnished a national reputation with clients including Kodak Professional.

There are about half a dozen Cincinnati firms listed among the nation's largest by trade journal Advertising Age, including Northlich, HSR, Loren Allan Odioso, Bridge Worldwide and Barefoot Advertising.

Barefoot president Doug Worple left Procter & Gamble in 1993 to form an agency that would concentrate on cutting-edge creative work. National accounts now include NASCAR and work for Cingular Wireless.

"Our goal is to become an agency of national stature," Worple said. "To do that, we have to have a certain caliber of work, which takes a certain caliber of person. Those caliber of people have been here, but not in quantity."

The biggest asset, of course, is P&G, one of the world's biggest marketers with a global ad budget of almost $4.4 billion. Like most big companies, Procter has consolidated its creative accounts with huge companies in New York.

But Cincinnati-based brand consultants have helped P&G plan packaging and strategy for brands from Pampers to Prilosec. And those companies can use that experience to get business with some of the world's biggest companies.

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E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com