Vernon Deloss Walker was a notable advertising executive and political campaign consultant. Walker founded the Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

-based advertising firm Walker + Associates, Inc. in October 1965. Walker played a major role in politics, corporate marketing and philanthropy throughout the South from the 1960s to 1990s.

Political Campaign Consulting

Noted by Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine as a political Media Mesmerist, Walker and his firm consulted with and managed the successful campaigns of some of the South’s most preeminent politicians including Albert Gore, Jr., and Jim Sasser

Jim Sasser

James Ralph "Jim" Sasser is an American politician and attorney. A Democrat, Sasser served three terms as a United States Senator from Tennessee and was Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee...

 of Tennessee, Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 and Dale Bumpers

Dale Bumpers

Dale Leon Bumpers is an American politician who served as the 38th Governor of Arkansas from 1971 to 1975; and then in the United States Senate from 1975 until his retirement in January 1999. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Senator Bumpers is currently counsel at the Washington, D.C...

 of Arkansas, Fob James

Fob James

Forrest Hood James, Jr., known as Fob James , is an American politician, a civil engineer, and an all-American half-back...

 of Alabama and Joe Frank Harris

Joe Frank Harris

Joe Frank Harris is an American conservative Democratic politician who served as the 78th Governor of the U.S. state of Georgia from 1983 to 1991....

 of Georgia.

Recalling Alabama's 1978 Governor’s race in which Fob James defeated a number of seasoned political veterans, Alabama political columnist Steve Flowers wrote, “Fob realized he was no political professional…so he sought out professional advice. He had the money to think big and wanted to know who the best political consultant in the South was. It was an easy answer: Deloss Walker, a political public relations genius who lived in Memphis, Tenn. His track record for electing governors of southern states was 5-0. The scenario was the same for all five upset victories. He took an obscure, unknown candidate and elected him governor over a well-known incumbent or favorite. He had just taken an unknown school board member named Dale Bumpers and made him Governor of Arkansas. Deloss Walker was the most renowned and expensive political guru in the country in 1977."

In his 1998 autobiography Joe Frank Harris, Personal Reflections on a Public Life, the former Governor of Georgia recalls the hiring of Deloss Walker and Walker + Associates to run his campaign in 1982: “The broadcast and newspaper media are, of course, a potent force, and if you can gain access to them effectively and with enough repetition, you can move name identification along very quickly. We were able to do that with the assistance of Deloss Walker and Walker and Associates, a public relations group from Memphis, Tennessee whom I had met though a mutual friend…At the time we signed on Deloss had handled some fifty political campaigns and had won all but two of them.”

Advertising Agency Leader

Deloss Walker's firm, Walker + Associates, Inc. has served a variety of notable clients, including the regional co-op for McDonald's

McDonald's

McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...

, the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development, and Lucite International. In 1987, Deloss Walker was named the Silver Medal Award winner. The award is the Memphis Advertising Federation's highest honor, recognizing an "entire career of outstanding accomplishment and contribution in advertising."

Since 1996, the firm has been led by president and chief executive officer Ceil Walker.

Early years

Deloss Walker was born in O'Kean, Ark. He attended Southern Baptist College, in Walnut Ridge, Ark. Walker served in the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

 and was awarded the Bronze Star in combat in the battle of Heartbreak Ridge

Battle of Heartbreak Ridge

The Battle of Heartbreak Ridge , also known as the Battle of Wendengli , was a month-long battle in the Korean War fought between September 13 and October 15, 1951...

. Before founding Walker + Associates, Inc. advertising agencey, Deloss Walker was general manager of Jonesboro, Arkansas

Jonesboro, Arkansas

Jonesboro is a city in and one of the two county seats of Craighead County, Arkansas, United States. According to the 2010 US Census, the population of the city was 67,263. A college town, Jonesboro is the largest city in northeastern Arkansas and the fifth most populous city in the state...

 radio station KNEA

KNEA

KNEA is a radio station broadcasting a Southern Gospel format. Licensed to Jonesboro, Arkansas, USA, it serves the Jonesboro area. The station is currently owned by East Arkansas Broadcasters of Jonesboro, LLC....

.

Community involvement

Deloss Walker led or supported many initiatives to improve the community. In 1996, the Memphis Symphony honored Deloss and Ceil Walker with the Hebe Award for outstanding contributions and service to the arts. That year, well-known historian Shelby Foote

Shelby Foote

Shelby Dade Foote, Jr. was an American historian and novelist who wrote The Civil War: A Narrative, a massive, three-volume history of the war. With geographic and cultural roots in the Mississippi Delta, Foote's life and writing paralleled the radical shift from the agrarian planter system of the...

was also honored by the Symphony with its Amphion Award.

Walker + Associates Today

The communications agency Deloss Walker founded in 1965 continues to operate today. In fact, many of Walker + Associates' clients have stayed with the agency long-term, including McDonald's, which has been a client for more than 15 years.

The agency continues to win industry awards such as International MarCom Creative, Communicator, ADDY, and VOX awards, among others. On March 13, 2009, the Memphis Business Journal highlighted Walker + Associates' platinum International MarCom award for a movie poster parody titled "No Country for Old Couches."