During his 40 years at Cunningham & Walsh, Carl Nichols built a distinguished career, a major American advertising agency and success as a champion for the freedom of our industry on the simplest of foundations: an endless regard for, fascination with and faith in people.
As a young market researcher, he learned what motivated people to buy and promulgated a life-long personal philosophy for successful advertising: "Tell people the truth — with enthusiasm."
Nichols rose meteorically through the ranks and became, at age 37, president and CEO. He practiced a management credo that saw the agency grow tenfold and became a major creative marketing force.
Nichols¿ optimism was infectious, his belief in the people of the agency unshakable. For more than 30 years, the people fortunate enough to be his clients never failed to benefit from his personal attention. Under his leadership, Cunningham & Walsh received the first Advertising Age "Agency of the Year" award in 1974.
Throughout his long career, Carl Nichols never tired of giving unselfishly to numerous industry associations to better educate the public on the important role of advertising in our society.
Carl Nichols will long be remembered as an advertising man who could listen as well as lead. A man with instinctive good judgment about advertising and people. A man who helped to raise his agency and the standards of the industry to new levels.