It began badly. On a balmy June Thursday, eminences from the world of advertising arrived at a Manhattan auditorium for the first round of 1991's Clio Awards, the industry's high-profile, hotly pursued "Oscars." But Clio's tuxedoed officials were oddly absent, as were the tickets that some attendees had paid $125 for.
Things got worse. The caterer was pressed into service as an emcee. When no script appeared, print-ad winners were asked to identify themselves as slides of their work appeared on a screen, sometimes backward or out of focus.
It got worse still. Upon hearing there was no list of radio-commercial winners, irate ad folk rushed the stage demanding an explanation. Unclaimed Clios were snapped up by anyone who could grab one.
Then, four days later, things really got bad. The banquet honoring TV commercials was canceled outright when the Clio company couldn't come up with the cash.
The blame for the double disaster landed squarely on Bill Evans, owner of the Clio Awards since 1972. Evans' energetic promotion of Clio had solidified its prestige -- and profitability. The company raised $2.5 million a year in revenues, mainly from the $70 to $100 fees paid by each of more than 25,000 entrants.
But in 1989 Evans began to reduce his role in the Clios -- and, say former employees, increasingly spent money like there was no tomorrow. As this year's ceremony approached, it seemed there might not be one. Bills piled up. Says ex-vice president Nancy Ross: "All the suppliers wanted money up front. We knew there wasn't going to be a show."
Former employees say they made desperate, unreturned phone calls to Evans. Meanwhile, he rejected several loan offers requiring him to cede control of the company's finances. In early May, claims of drug use among Evans' hangers- on gained credence when police arrested three at his Manhattan town house, charging them with possession of cocaine residue.
Finally, after nearly a month of payless paydays, the entire 11-member Clio staff quit at the end of May. The bizarre banquet now seems like a wake for a Madison Avenue institution. Don Catterson, a new Clio spokesman, blames the company's collapse on staff intrigues and predicts Clio's return next year. Others are not so sure that the man who made a fortune off the image business will ever recover from an image problem of his own.