Leo Burnett

For the company, see Leo Burnett Worldwide.

Leo Burnett
Born	October 21, 1891(1891-10-21) St. Johns, Michigan U.S.
Died	June 7, 1971(1971-06-07) (aged 79)
Alma mater	University of Michigan
Occupation	Advertising Executive
Known for	Founder of Leo Burnett Worldwide
Spouse	Naomi Geddles 1918–1971 (his death)

Leo Burnett (October 21, 1891 – June 7, 1971) was an advertising executive who created the Jolly Green Giant, the Marlboro Man, Toucan Sam, Charlie the Tuna, Morris the Cat, the Pillsbury Doughboy, the 7up "Spot", and Tony the Tiger.

He was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.

Biography

Born in St. Johns, Michigan, he studied journalism at the University of Michigan. His first job was as a reporter at the Peoria Journal in Peoria, Illinois.

In 1917, he moved to Detroit, where he went to work for the Cadillac Motor Company as a copywriter and became advertising manager in 1919. After a marriage to Naomi Geddes in 1918 he moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he worked for an advertising agency from 1923–1930. Later, he worked at Homer McKee Advertising in Indianapolis. In 1930 he was hired away from McKee by Erwin Wasey & Company of Chicago to assume the position of vice-president/creative head. Five years later Leo Burnett left Wasey & Company to form his own agency.

Leo Burnett Company

His own firm, the Chicago-based Leo Burnett Company, became the 10th largest advertising agency in the world, the eighth largest in the United States, and one of only a handful of top-ten American agencies not headquartered in New York City. It is best known for major advertising campaigns, grounded in traditional American values, for major American consumer products corporations.

The Jolly Green Giant, Morris the Cat, and Charlie Tuna are all Burnett inventions. And that is only the beginning of the list. The near-unemployed Maytag repairman, the Pillsbury doughboy, Tony the Tiger, and the legendary Marlboro Man are also examples of the Leo Burnett agency's talent for giving a product an image that endears it to the consuming public.

When Burnett first started his business in August 1935 he had one account, a staff of eight, and a bowl of apples on each desk in the reception lobby. The agency's only client was the Minnesota Valley Canning Company, which had formerly been with Leo Burnett's old firm. It had moved over to the fledgling Burnett agency because the management at Minnesota Valley liked Leo Burnett personally. "I want the little guy with dandruff and the rumpled suit," said the president of the company. To reward this display of confidence and loyalty, Burnett created the Jolly Green Giant.

In an industry centered in the fashionable Madison Avenue in New York City, the Chicago company was something of an oddity. Burnett's ads reflected a mid-American homeyness rather than eastern sophistication. The Green Giant and Kellogg campaigns typify this technique. Both have historically been aimed at the emotions of their respective audiences, portraying the products with a large degree of human warmth. Burnett used what he himself called "sodbusting corniness"--language and imagery that drive home a point by conveying a feeling of straightforward honesty.

During the 1950s, his company was able to reflect the American values of strength, tradition, comfort, and family in its advertising campaigns. This won a number of new and profitable clients and secured those accounts already in the Burnett agency. As an example, United Airlines, though possessing a large market share of the passenger air travel business, was feeling the pressure of new carriers. For years United had been associated with the cold stainless steel of its airplanes and began for the first time to worry about its image. When it received the account, Burnett focused on the people who ran the airline rather than on the plane itself. This gave rise to the "Fly the Friendly Skies" campaign.^{[citation needed]} Similarly, the thematic catch phrases of "the best to you each morning" for Kellogg's and "you're in good hands" for Allstate Insurance carry with them a familial warmth and all-American appeal.^{[citation needed]}

Marlboro Man, 1954

The most famous Burnett creation was the Marlboro Man. In his book, On Advertising, David Ogilvy writes that, "Without any doubt, Leo's greatest monument is his campaign for Marlboro."

In the 1950s filtered cigarettes were viewed as unmasculine, and Phillip Morris's filter-tipped Marlboros could never claim more than 1% of the market share. Burnett created a different image for it, a cowboy, exuding masculinity and American heritage. After the campaign's introduction in 1954, Marlboro became and has remained the number one-selling cigarette brand in the world. What was particularly striking was that the message translated so well from television to magazine print and billboard advertising—an absolute necessity after cigarette commercials were banned from network television in the United States in 1970. The Marlboro brand was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame in 1994, due to its "enduring success in the marketplace"

On the strength of its work for Phillip Morris, the Leo Burnett agency expanded to London by purchasing an interest in the firm of Legget Nicholson and Partners. In 1967 the company merged with Detroit-based D.P. Brother & Company, a move that added G.M.'s Oldsmobile to the company's list of accounts.

Continuing and Refining the Burnett Legacy: The 1970s

Leo Burnett died of a heart attack while having dinner with his wife Naomi at his home in Lake Zurich Illinois on June 7, 1971.

External links

• Art Directors Club biography, portrait and images of work
• Time 100 profile - Leo Burnett
• When to Take My Name Off the Door Speech, Video
• When to Take My Name Off the Door Speech, Text
• Leo Burnett Worldwide