Griffin-Bacal Advertising was a global

advertising agency An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generall ...

founded in 1978 by Tom Griffin and Joe Bacal. One of their first clients was

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment holding company founded on December 6, 1923 by Henry, Hillel and Herma ...

, which employed their services for coming up with advertising campaigns for several of their toy lines such as '' G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero'' and ''

Transformers ''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Tomy, Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the heroic Autobots and the villainous Decepticons, two Extraterrestrials in fiction, alien robot fac ...

''. At the company's peak, it was the 67th largest advertising company in the world. In 1994, Griffin-Bacal was bought by

DDB Worldwide DDB Worldwide Communications Group LLC, known internationally as DDB, is a worldwide marketing communications network. It is owned by Omnicom Group, one of the world's largest advertising holding companies. The international advertising networks ...

, but Hasbro ceased employing their services in 2000. This resulted in Griffin-Bacal laying off two thirds of staff. Following these events and the retirement of Tom Griffin and Joe Bacal, DDB's parent company

Omnicom Omnicom Group Inc. is an American global media, marketing and corporate communications holding company, headquartered in New York City. Omnicom's branded networks and specialty firms provide services in four disciplines: advertising, customer r ...

decided to merge Griffin-Bacal with Moss/Dragoti in 2001. Griffin-Bacal's co-founder Joe Bacal died in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, on October 24, 2019.

References

{{Hasbro cartoons mid 80s American companies established in 1978 American companies disestablished in 2001 Advertising agencies of the United States Marketing companies established in 1978 Companies based in New York City 1978 establishments in New York City 2001 disestablishments in New York (state) 1994 mergers and acquisitions