Chicago Advertising | Chicago Billboards | Lord & Thomas | Leo Burnett
Inter Ocean, June 8, 1878
Lord, Brewster & Co., advertising agents, compelled by increasing business to seek larger quarters, have taken the commodious rooms Nos. 3 and 4 McCormick Block. They are enterprising, ebergetic young men, and we heartily wish them the success they deserve.
Inter Ocean, February 8, 1881
The advertising firm of Lord, Brewster & Co., who have become well known throughout the West, has been dissolved. Mr. Brewster retires to engage in other business. Mr. Lord continues the business at the old stand, and has associated with him Mr. A. L. Thomas, who, for ten years past, has had the management of the office of one of the leading advertising agencies of Boston. The new firm will be known as Lord & Thomas, and with the qualifications that each possess for his special department, will make a strong team.
Chicago Daily Telegraph, February 19, 1881
A NEW FIRM.
Mr. D. M. Lord, of the late advertising agency of Lord, Brewster & Co., has now formed a business connection with Mr. A.
L. Thomas, a gentleman who has long been identified with the advertising agency of T. C. Evans, in Boston. The new firm, owing to the long experience of its members, will be able to transact the business entrusted to them in a satisfactory manner.
Chicago Tribune, April 14, 1883
Every Trade Must Have Its Man.
The frontiersman must be enough of a blacksmith to shoe his horse and enough of a carpenter to build his cabin. After a time the blacksmith and carpenter become his neighbors and the work is properly divided. So the merchant who starts a store in a new town must deal in all articles known to the trade. By and by a druggist arrives, and the general merchant orders no more drugs. Then comes the grocer, and the handling of groceries is relegated to him. The hardware merchant, the tinner, the clothier, etc., follow in quick succession, and the pioneer merchant soon finds himself with a stock on hand composed exclusively of dry goods. The same division of labor is seen in every well-regulated store in Chicago.
Within the last few years there has been a revolution in the ways of advertising, and it has been effected by the advertising firm at Lord & Thomas, and they already have as their clients many of the largest wholesale and retail firms here. The plan is very simple, so far as the advertiser is concerned. He decides monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually how much money he desires to expend, informs his agent, gets the full benefit of his large experience, facilities, and information, closes the contract, and has no further trouble. The relations, being similar to those of attorney and client, are confidential, and the advertiser assured that service rendered will be of the the best.
Under this new system Lord & Thomas’ business has assumed immense proportions. Formerly they occupied only Rooms 9 and 10 in McCormick Block, but recently they have been compelled to add to them Rooms 7, 8, and 11 in the same building, or nearly three times the space they had before, and still they are crowded. A glance through their busy establishment is of interest. Room 7, at the extreme north end of the suite, is the private office, occupied by the proprietors, Messrs. Lord & Thomas. Adjacent to this is Room 8, used as the general business office, where eight clerks are busily engaged. Here also is the desk of Mr. R. S. Thain, the manager of the city department.
In Room 9 are the order and general registry and checking departments, in charge of Capt. Samuel Hildeburn, who also superintends the file department. From this room orders are sent to city and country newspapers with the aid of phonograpby and typewriter. Some idea at the magnitude of the business may be had from the fact that 6,000 newspapers are regularly received and handled here. Each one has to be scanned and checked for advertisements published under contraet with the firm. By an ingenious system of check-marks the bill rendered to the advertiser shows everything that he may desire to know in connection with his particular “ad.”
Of the great file-rooms—a labyrinth of pigeonholes reaching from floor to ceiling—it is enough to say that of the 6,000 papers received the weeklies are kept for six months and the dailies for three months for the inspection of all advertisers dealing with the firm. Lord & Thomas claim that their daily mail is larger than that of any other similar concern in Chicago. In developing their perfect system Lord & Thomas have kept three things prominently. in view-viz.: that an advertisement should be printed in an attractive style; that it should be published in the right medium-that is, where it will do the most good; and that the cost should not be in excess of its actual value. The firm have a printing department, and in this connection it may be stated incidentally that Lord & Thomas deal largely in printing materials, such as type, ink, roller composition, etc., for the supply of country newspapers. The idea that governs some advertising agencies is to get ail the money possible out of an advertiser. Lord & Thomas ides, and the one on which they have increased their business fivefold within two years, is to take only what a man or firm ean judiciously expend, and place it where it will bring in the most ample returns.
A special feature of Lord & Thomas’ business is the control of the advertising columns of the six leading religious papers in Chicago. Mr. C. D. Paine is the manager of this department. Lord & Thomas claim that theirs is the only thoroughly equipped agency in Chicago, and its equipment is only in proportion to the amount of business done. These gentlemen have so thoroughly systematized advertising as to make it almost one of the exact sciences.
Inter Ocean, March 13, 1886
In New Quarters.
Messrs. Lord & Thomas, of Chicago, the well-known and popular advertising agents, are about to move into new quarters, which are so spacious, so elegant, and so original and novel in their appointments, that they deserve more than a passing notice.
The building, Nos, 45, 47, and 49 Randolph street, between State street and Wabash ave-nue, is at once the most striking in appearance and the moet elegant in Chicago. Built of sandstone, it is 70 by 174 feet, practically fire-proof, and lignted on four sides. Three large elevators and two spacious stairways give adundant facilities for passengers and freight.
Messrs. Lord & Thomas will occupy the entire third floor, giving them a superficial area of nearly 12,000 square feet. This beautifully lighted room is unbroken by partitions, save a private office in one corner, thus bringing the entire working force of about sixty clerks into one spacious room, certainly the largest office of any advertising agency in the country, if not the largest business office of any kind on the continent.
The various departments are so arranged that the work passes along with almost mechanical regularity.
While the entire appointments are elegant, the filing department is arranged on an entirely, new principle, which amounts to an important invention. Heretofore advertising agents have filed their newspapers in wooden pigeon-holes, which not only excluded the light, but caught and retained the dust, and thus proved a nuisance. The new filing department of Messts. Lord & Thomas is made entirely of wire-work; a separate compartment is made for each newspaper, magazine, and periodical in the United States and Canada, about fourteen thousand in all. The various sections are suspended from the ceiling, and hang clear of the floor, leaving a space under each one so that the entire floor can be swept.
Space will not permit us to describe this important improvement in detail. The principles upon which it is constructed will be covered by letters patent.
The National Wire and Iron Company, of Detroit, Mich, have been awarded the contract of the work, and are rapidly pushing it forward to completion.
Our friends who wish to see a copy of our paper when in Chicago can always find it on file at the agency of Messrs Lord & Thomas.
Lord & Thomas
One Chicago ad agency—Lord & Thomas—overshadowed all the rest, achieving greater national influence and notoriety than any other agency in the United States. Albert Lasker started at Lord & Thomas as a floor sweeper. In 1904, became general manager at a salary of $52,000 per year, and within a decade owned the agency. Preaching that advertising was “salesmanship in print,” he clarified client account/creative partnerships, held firmly to the 15% commission, financed some campaigns for clients, scorned research and trained many future agency leaders.
Lasker drove L&T to No. 1 rank, left in 1921 to serve in Washington, returned to a faltering agency in 1923, ruthlessly revived it, built Kimberly-Clark Corp.’s Kotex and Kleenex businesses and created Lucky Strike cigarette ads aimed at women. In 1942, he sold his L&T holdings so that the shop could reopen — in January 1943 — carrying the name of the key executives in the agency’s New York, Chicago and Los Angeles offices — Foote, Cone & Belding.
He traveled the city in a yellow chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce and maintained a suburban estate with a staff of 50. Lasker hired the best copywriters in the business and taught them that advertising was “salesmanship in print”—probably the best-known definition of the advertising business in twentieth-century America.
Lasker sold the public on the idea of orange juice (people previously only ate oranges), built brands such as Goodyear and Van de Kamps, established a “records of results” department that monitored its clients’ advertising impact with catalog-response precision, and even used advertising to help defeat Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations. Advertising legend David Ogilvy rightly ranked Lasker as one of the “six giants of modern advertising.”
The most legendary American advertising copywriter was Lord & Thomas’s Claude C. Hopkins. In his popular autobiography, My Life in Advertising (1927), Hopkins captured the populist style of Chicago advertising as literature for the common people. Hopkins is probably the father of consumer advertising for branded goods. He dubbed Schlitz the “beer that made Milwaukee famous,” created unparalleled brand equity for Palmolive soap and Pepsodent toothpaste, wrote the “shot from guns” slogan for Quaker Oats, and invented free product sampling through print coupons. Hopkins penned the most influential book ever written about advertising—Scientific Advertising (1923). s one of the greatest copywriters in the history of advertising, Claude C. Hopkins made a lasting impact on the way advertising is created. At the same time he brought great success to his clients and earned himself an unparalleled salary of $185,000 a year, in 1907!
Palmolive Advertisements
1899 (left) and 1909 (right) featuring one of the first uses of coupons.
He wrote one advertisement for Van Camp Evaporated Milk that caused more than 1.46 million coupons to be redeemed. By learning the science of brewing beer, Hopkins was able to create a campaign that lifted Schlitz Beer from fifth place to a tie with Budweiser for first.
Lord & Thomas and Lasker blazed an impressive track record. They were responsible for branding the California orange crop and creating Sunkist, a more marketable product since oranges now had a name that could be promoted. The agency also promoted the invention of the juice machine and subsequent popularization of orange juice as a daily morning beverage. It also worked similar magic with raisins (Sun-Maid) and took Lucky Strike, an obscure cigarette brand, and made it a top seller.
An early proponent of radio advertising, the company sponsored the infamously hilarious minstrel comedy, “Amos ‘n’ Andy,” and later picked a relatively obscure wisecracking comedian to star in a show sponsored by Pepsodent, a toothpaste client. Thus was Bob Hope’s career launched. Lord & Thomas also broke ground by first advertising a product whose purpose was deemed unmentionable — Kotex sanitary napkins.
As a window to an earlier era, and a source of insights into the commercial and cultural origins of the advertising industry (and one of its guiding lights), this portrait of Lasker is a worthy contribution.
Good Copy
Lord & Thomas Advertisement
Harper’s Magazine
July 1905
Lasker sold Lord & Thomas in 1942 to three employees (Messrs. Foote, Cone & Belding). Fairfax Cone led the new company into an unparalleled era of creative broadcast advertising. The agency built some of the most successful broadcast advertising brands of all time, including the “Hallmark Hall of Fame,” Clairol’s “Does she or doesn’t she?” and Dial soap’s “Aren’t you glad you use Dial?” Cone’s client-sponsored broadcast programs helped make superstars out of such performers as Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope. Cone also led the Chicago advertising industry into public philanthropy, supporting the University of Chicago, opera, and many other endeavors.
Printers’ Ink, April 18, 1906
The Lord & Thomas Agency, in Chicago, with a branch office in New York City, now claims the distinction of being the largest general advertising agency United States Some interesting figures are made public back this claim:
During 1905 more than 3,000 000 worth advertising was placed by Lord Thomas, or $265,000 month The total for 1906 will $4,000,000. No American Advertising Agency has ever made a statement showing as much business as they show.
They claim leadership not only in the gross amount of advertising cleared through their organization, but also in the number of individual accounts on their books.
These numbered 685 in February.
It is said that no other agency has ever shown more than 200.
Lord & Thomas gave the following extensive insight into their methods the other day for Printers’ Ink. They said:
While ours Is the largest aerency In the country, we do not seek to handle large accounts to the exclusion of small ones.
In fact, we would hesitate to confine ope rations to a half-dozen very large accounts.
We seek particularly accounts ranging from $1,000 to $000 a year, and to scatter a number of, them over a wide range of commodities.
So we are placing advertising today for a
“der range of commodities and articles,
rhaps, than any other agency.
We are the largest agency because we
ava built up hundreds of small accounts.
For this reason our whole organixation
la designed to give the smallest, as well as
the largest, advertisers individual attention.
Our growth depends on it.
And we have data about results from so
many advertisers that our service could
not possibly be obtained from any agency
X with fewer accounts and a narrower range
of commodities to push.
The very fact that we market so many
liferent articles through advertising gives
is experience and judgment Invaluable to
any advertiser.
Our accounts are divided into two great
branches – General Advertising and Mail
“rder Advertising
This year we will place approximately
$2,500,000 In general business and S1.5UO.000 in
mail order lines, a total of S4.O0O.UOU.OO.
Our mail order accounts bring us absolute
ataupon the pulling power of different forms
f copy and also show the pulling power of
_ach individual newspaper, magazine, mail
Order, farm, religious and. trade journal.
On this data we depend for knowledge
that enables us to start a general advertiser
the right copy, in the right mediums from the very beginning, and give him
returns that mean growth, without the waste
of money that would com« from experl-1
mental work.
Our contract* names twelve duties which
we agree to perform for the advertiser, con
stituting what we understand by the word
sen- ice.
It also binds the advertiser to certain
duties which he must faithfully carry out
for our guidance.
He must.. when and where it Is practicable,
make a weekly report on returns from his
advertising, specifying the. number of replies
and orders received from each separate
piece of copy and each separate medium in
mail order campaigns, and the amount ol
traceable increase in sales due to his adver
tising when goods are sold through retailers.
On our part, we bind ourselves to com
pare the returns and sales shown in each
advertiser’s report with reports and sta
tistics of other clients, ascertaining each
week whether his advertising is paying as
well as it ought to and discovering defects
when it Is not. Of course, we treat all these’
reports in strict confidence. This informa
tion is tabulated in what we call our’Record
of Results.”
The latter is the guiding spirit of our busi
ness.
It gives us positive knowledge about copy ?,
and mediums in widely varied lines of pub- I
licity, minimises experimental veork, elimi
nates the element of chance.
By making more certain the returns for
our clients it means our growth, and we have
developed this Record -of Results for six
years.
No other agency in the world has anything
like it.
With this body of information, pouring
in weekly from scores of advertisers in
all lines, embr acing returns from every good
publication iL the country on clothing, foods.’
stoves, medicines, mail merchandise and
every form of commodity, we quickly dis
cover obscure publications that are strong,-
prominent ones that are weak.
Sixty-six per cent of general advertising
checked by thirty-four per cent of mail order ,
publicity is a ratio we carefully maintain,
. because we believe that mail order advertis
ing is an invaluable guide to safe procedure,
in general advertising when properly Inter-‘
pretext.
The same kind of copy that pulls best for
a mailorder commodity will, when rightly ‘
adapted, also get money out of people’s
pockets in the stores. i
Our Record of Results shows many sur- 1
prising cases where small publications pail
better than big ones.
When a publication begins to pay It can’t
remain hidden long from us because of our
Records.
Many old publications of immense prestige
have circulations that have been worked
over and over again, 10 that their general reputations among advertisers Is often out
of all proportion to the actual returns they
bring from keyed advertisements.
Other mediums, comparatively new or just
being built up, without much prestige, may
have amew, live growing circulation that
} makes them highly profitable.
For example, in a certain Southern .city
I there is a certain daily newspaper of wide
I reputation, old and great in circulation.
It has a competitor In the same town, new
‘ and with smaller circulation.
We tried out both papers on mail proposi
tions with astonishing results In favor of the
j smaller paper.
Then a general commodity, selling in stores
was tried in both with the same result.
Many of our clients were then put into this
new medium, and nearly all got sales and
Inquiries at one-third the cost In the older
paper. Our clients get Into such a medium
long before its reputation is established gen
erally.
Our system pf centralized records based
m reports from advertisers, not only
indicates the line of least resistance
quickly and infallibly, but the expenditure of
our largest client serves as a guide in the
development of our smallest, and vice versa.
Advertisers seldom realize how quickly
, the character of a circulation may change.
A mail order advertiser, for instance, may
tind a certain publication one of his most
– profitable mediums for several seasons.
He drops out some summer.
When he begins in the fall that paper does
not pay. for some reason.
The publication has always paid, and it is
}\ the lust thing he blames.
Five or six failures may be necessary boore
he is willing to distrust the paper.
But we have received. a report of failures
r from a dozen advertisers on that paper.
So the paper comes under suspicion.
If it is really weak, all our advertisers are
out within a month, and there is a big aggre
gate saving.
Think what this means in. dollars to the
small advertiser.
How does this work out for a general ad
vertiser?
Well, take the case mentioned of the two
dailies in the Southern city.
The returns for mail advertising in the
smaller paper woke us up.
We investigated at close range and found
that all the retail advertisers in that city
were using the smaller paper, too.
They were alive to conditions.
So* we put our general advertisers into it.
One of them sent us J2000 for the older
paper while this investigation was going on.
We explained the situation.
He sent a representative to that town and
‘ found that his advertising would probably
-bring three times as much results in the
f /smaller paper, or 300 per cent more returns
1 ? for his money.
. He changed his order, and got the increase
1 expected.
Other advertisers and agencies are still
, going into the wrong medium on Its general
putation Our centralized records also i
most effective kinds of copy.
A page In Munsey ‘s coats S500.
It may bring S5000 to an advertiser In
returns, or only $2
The difference In results from so good
medium will be due to copy—nothing else
whatever.
What goes into the space— that makes the .
difference.
Our Copy Department Is so organized that
no writer handles more than twelve accounts
a year— or fewer, probably, than with any >.
other agency in the country-
While our knowledge of mediums Is vital,
our Record of Results brings It. you might
say, almost automatically.
Therefore, ninety per cent of the thought,
energy and cost of running our agency goes
into copy.
The line between successful and
cessful copy Is not broad.
But It Is definite.
General advertising copy has always been
allowed a wide margin for errors because
results could not be traced under old condi
tions.
Mail order advertisers have allowed no
margin for errors, buf demanded exactitude 1
and keyed replies.
With our records from mail order adver- |
tising we know to a certainty the copy that ‘
brings the greatest returns in actual sales 1
and this definite knowledge we apply to gen- J
eral advertising so far as practical. J
And our copy department Is so on_
that though a writer were the best copy-man I
in the country the element of personality In 1
his work for any of our clients would have |
less to do with the pulling power of t
than the selling reasons it emb
on our Record of Results
The lesson constantly taught by I
cords to our staff makes each writer stronger
because he is guided by positive knowledge, 1
and his work is more certain than It possibly
could be without our org ” 1
he is working on definite c
lines, for definite ends.”
Lord A Thomas took a great deal of t
to show Printers’ Ink the inner workings of j
the Record of Results department.
Kight people do nothing else but tabulate 1
and file information from scores of advertJ-J
sers* reports.
The cold, hard figures, in dollars and cents,
go down on cards that are classified accord
ing to copy and publications.
Probably the pulling power of copy and .
media is nowhere shown up so completely—
at least this side of Judgment Day.
Pull out a card and there will be found on {
it the record of returns for the last week on ?
from three to three dozen different com-:
modifies.
Each piece of copy and each medium 1
brought so many replies and sales for eachj
advertiser at such and such cost— and there 4
is no way of getting behind the returns.
In the past six years it has cost 1
tain this record cabinet.
Chicago Tribune, May 28, 1930
Daniel M. Lord, founder of the ad- vertising firm of Lord & Thomas & Logan 5nd a pioneer Chicagoan of the era of M[ Field and Potter Pal- mer, died yesterday in Ncew York City at the age of SG. The body be brought here for burial at Oakwoods –fnet-rv. tomorrow morning on the Twentieth Century. Services will be In the cemetery at noon.
– Mr. Lord had lived in New York City 196. lie retired from the firm in I904 , of nis Interests to C: R. Irvin, D. L. Taylor, and Albert 1j. Liiskcr, now chairman of the board and president.
Surviving him are two sons, Arthur D, Lord a New York broker; Danlel 31. Log.Jr., with Halsey Stuart & Cc.. too daughters, Mrs. Alice Lord ‘ and Mrs. Florence Lord lough.
Starts Business ! on F3RtIL”
Mr. Lord, who came to Chicago as a boy from Long Island, N. Y., In 1h7,6. to see the business he on “faith and a shoe- string” become an international agen- cy placing a volume of advertising In excess of $20,000,000 annually.
Ills career here began with the In- terior, a Presbyterian paper, started shortly before the fire. It later be- came the Continent. Soliciting for It, Mr. Lord met many prominent Chica- goans. He used to recall that Alfred Cowles Sr., when business manager of TiuE TninuNE, told him in the ’70’s that “If THE E ever places an advertising solicitor on the street Its death knell will be rung.”;
In his early days as president of Lord & Thomas lie placed much of the advertising for Palmer, Field & Leiter and as illustrative of the conservatism then, lie would cite the fact that the largest ads were not more than six or seven inches deep.
. of Early Days.
Ills memories of early Chicago were rich in personal lore. After the fire he had offices in the Linns block at the east end of the 1Randolph street bridge. Carter Harrison, the older, had desk room with him. Mr. lord never forgot Air. Harrison’s method of enjoying a short rest at luncheon time. fie would take a billiard ball out of a drawer, place It in the palm of his hand and lie down on a lounge. As soon as he had completely relaxed the ball would fall to the floor. That would be the signal his rest was over.
For thirty years, until Mrs. Lord died, Mr. Lord lived at 5450 Cornell avenue. IHe then moved to the Chi- c.igo Athletic association, In which he was an active leader arid once served atd president. He was also a member of the Union League club.
lie was deeply in phil- work, and contributed to the United Charities.
Pians for Rtetircntent.
In announcing his retirement from Lord & Thomas on his 60th birthday, Mir. Lord revealed lie had made up his wind to do that 25 years before.
“I counted on having a amount of money at that time,” he ox- . “I have It. Any man can do the same. It matters not whether he Is making $1,000 or $100,000 a year when he begins. If he knows what to do with his money he can quit at 60 This nation will be better off when it becomes the custom for its men to retire while they are young old men.’
Mr. Lord was born in Newton Cor- n( rs, just outside Boston. He ob. tained his original capital In the ship- ring business during the civil war.
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1930/05/28/page/18/article/daniel-m-lord-founder-of-ad-agency-is-dead#text
Founded in Chicago by Daniel Lord and Ambrose Thomas, 1881; Albert Lasker joined the agency, 1898; Mr. Lasker became sole owner of Lord & Thomas, 1912; L&T merged with Thomas Logan Inc. and briefly added Logan to its name, 1926; resumed operations as L&T, 1928; Mr. Lasker relinquished presidency, 1938; Mr. Lasker gave the agency to the heads of its three main offices, 1942; opened as Foote, Cone & Belding, 1943.
Lord & Taylor
Pearson’s Magazine
October 1902
http://archive.fortune.com/2010/09/17/news/companies/Mad-Men_Lucky-Strike_Lasker_excerpt.fortune/index.htm
How the real Don Draper sold Lucky Strikes
don_draper.top.jpg By Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. SchultzSeptember 19, 2010: 4:12 PM ET
FORTUNE — In an excerpt from “The Man Who Sold America” authors Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz explain how Albert Lasker, an enigmatic ad man, invented many of the tactics still used in advertising today. Here, in what served as inspiration for Don Draper’s character in the AMC series “Mad Men,” Lasker convinces his client American Tobacco to focus their ad budget on one brand — Lucky Strike — and to play up the benefits of the industry-wide practice of “toasting” tobacco.
Lord & Thomas’s first piece of advice to American Tobacco must have come as a surprise: Stop advertising most of your brands.
sold_america_cover.03.jpg
Lasker argued that rather than maintaining many modestly successful small brands, the company needed to create one overwhelmingly powerful product that could compete with Camels and Chesterfields. “You can’t live unless you have this one brand,” Lasker recalled saying, “because 80 or 90 percent of the cigarette business in this country today is on this one type of cigarette.
These other cigarettes and other products were a different type of goods . . . Instead of spending a little money and a moderate amount of money on each of these fifty products, milk them all. Take what you spend on them and the milking of their profits and put it in a big push behind Luckies.”
[George Washington Hill, son of Ameritcan Tobacco CEO Percival Hill, and entrusted with managing the Lucky Strike brand] agreed. As a result, the money formerly spent advertising Blue Boar — the original Lord & Thomas account — and most of the other minor American Tobacco products was diverted to support Lucky Strike.
The first Lord & Thomas campaign on behalf of the now-favored brand built upon the earlier concept of “toasting,” which attempted to differentiate Luckies based on the preparation of the tobacco. The copy stressed the unique benefits of toasting, including improved flavor and reduced acidity, supposedly making it easier on the throat. It was classic Claude Hopkins [a Lasker protegé who later became chairman of Lord & Thomas]: true, the tobacco used in Lucky Strikes was heated to somewhere between 260 and 300 degrees during the manufacturing process — but this was common practice in cigarette manufacturing.
From “toasted” to “Precious Voice”
The brand still wasn’t doing well enough to satisfy the hugely ambitious Hill, so in 1927, Lord & Thomas began complementing the “toasted” theme with a series of advertisements that became known as the “Precious Voice” campaign. This new campaign argued that, in addition to making cigarettes easier on the throat, the vaunted toasting process actually helped protect the throat and voice.
One thing that distinguished “Precious Voice” was its target audience. At that time, the social stigma against women smoking was still powerful. Although Philip Morris had introduced the first women’s cigarette in 1924 (claiming that it was “mild as May”), few women smoked openly, and most restaurants and other public places prohibited smoking by women.
But women were beginning to smoke in the home, and Lasker realized that a vast new market was ready to open up. This was brought home to him one afternoon at the Tip Top Inn, a restaurant near his Chicago home, where he was lunching with his wife. Flora tended toward obesity, and her doctor had suggested that she take up smoking to curb her appetite. But on this particular day, when she attempted to light up after lunch, the restaurant’s proprietor rushed over and said that he could not permit a woman to smoke in the main dining room. If Flora wished to smoke, he continued, the Laskers would have to retire to a private room.
“It filled me with indignation,” Lasker recalled, “that I had to do surreptitiously something which was perfectly normal in a place where I had gone so much. That determined me to break down the prejudice against women smoking.”
No doubt the prospect of doubling the potential market for Luckies also influenced his thinking. Lasker took his idea to George Washington Hill, and told him that if American Tobacco acted decisively, the women’s market might be theirs for the asking.
Precious Voice — one of the few postwar campaigns that was largely conceived and directed by [the aging] Lasker — grew directly out of this decision. Lasker decided that testimonials from well-respected foreign women might start to overcome the prejudice against women smokers, and he started with opera singers. “It was very natural that my mind went to the opera stars,” he explained, “because at that time there were only one or two American stars, and the rest were foreign. And if I [could] get the women of the opera, it [wouldn’t] be long until [I’d] be able to get the women of the stage.”
The subtext, of course, was that women — sophisticated, worldly, even exotic women — who earned their livelihood by singing were willing to trust their precious voices to Luckies.
Precious Voice was one of the first Lord & Thomas advertising campaigns to rely heavily on testimonials, and very quickly, the campaign expanded to include almost all the stars of New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Just as Lasker had anticipated, stage and screen stars (both women and men) also rushed to join the chorus of artists praising Luckies. Incredibly, none of the individuals testifying for Luckies were paid for their contributions; they considered the free publicity compensation enough.
The campaign enjoyed immediate success. “Overnight,” Lasker later boasted, “the business of Luckies went up like the land in a boom field where oil has just been found.”
Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpt from The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (But True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker. Copyright 2010 Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz. All rights reserved. To top of page
First Published: September 17, 2010: 12:52 PM ET
Though New York is the epicenter of American media, Chicago cemented a leading role in advertising more than a century ago, thanks to the success of hometown catalog companies Sears Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery Ward & Co. As industries from canned food to clothing began creating mass-produced goods, manufacturers, catalogers and retailers such as Marshall Field’s scrambled to lure buyers with snappy text and appealing drawings.
The city’s agency roots date to 1881, when Daniel Lord and Ambrose Thomas formed Lord & Thomas in the Loop. The firm eventually became Foote Cone & Belding, a predecessor of today’s DraftFCB. Crain’s sister publication Advertising Age was founded here in 1930.
Even though it lacked the glamour of Madison Avenue, Chicago’s ad world factored significantly in the industry’s creative revolution of the 1950s and ’60s. A middle-aged, bespectacled Michigan native in perpetually wrinkled suits, Leo Burnett didn’t look like the hip art directors and copywriters flooding New York, but he churned out icons including the Jolly Green Giant, Tony the Tiger, the Pillsbury Doughboy and, most famously, the Marlboro Man.
This was advertising’s golden age. Television was coming into its own, and consumers were cheerfully opening their wallets. Advertising dramatically influenced consumption habits: Philip Morris & Co. sales skyrocketed from $282.8 million in 1954, before Mr. Burnett’s ads went national, to $386.2 million.
That creative revolution was followed by a structural upheaval in the 1970s and ’80s. During a protracted economic slump, large agencies snapped up smaller shops and began to expand abroad. The eight major U.S. shops then merged into larger, often foreign-owned entities. By the mid-’80s, the industry was dominated by a handful of large public holding companies, four of which remain: Paris-based Publicis Groupe, London-based WPP PLC, New York’s O
Chicago Tribune, June 26, 2009
A lost jewel of golf
Snubbed millionaire’s backyard course stumped legends, then disappeared
By Robert Channick, SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE
Duffers and history buffs alike will get to follow in the footsteps of Bobby Jones and Bob Hope this weekend as they retrace a vanished golf course considered one of the best in the country in its day.
The beautifully manicured fairways of Mill Road Farm, built in the 1920s, were replaced by subdivisions after World War II. Last winter 30 Lake Forest College students used original plats and satellite images to flag about 10 holes.
“What we found more than greens and tees were bunkers,” said Holly Swyers, an anthropology professor who led the expedition. “A lot of the bunkers were still there, overgrown but clearly in the same shape that they were on the map.”
The course was the brainchild of Albert Lasker, head of Lord & Thomas, a now-defunct Chicago ad agency that was among the largest in the U.S. Lasker rubbed elbows with celebrities, helped launch commercial radio and bought a stake in the Chicago Cubs, according to the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society, which is hosting the tour Saturday as part of an exhibit on local golf history.
Despite his success, Lasker, who was Jewish, couldn’t wrangle an invitation to the exclusive Lake Forest golf clubs where he longed to play. In 1921 he bought 480 acres of farmland north of Half Day Road on the western fringes of the town and set up an even more exclusive club — in his own backyard.
“He wasn’t invited to play at some of the other courses, so he built his own,” said Laurie Stein, curator of the historical society.
From 1927 to 1942, the 7,000-yard Mill Road Farm golf club stymied even legendary pros. With its own clubhouse, caddy shack, resident pro and groundskeepers, it also may have been the best-kept secret in golf with only a handful in Lasker’s inner circle ever getting to play there. The estate was designed by renowned architect David Adler and built between 1925 and 1928 for about $3.5 million. It featured a 50-room, 25,000-square foot French provincial mansion and 26 outbuildings. Those included a horse barn, cocktail house and an air-conditioned theater. Lasker’s favorite amenity may have been a converted farmhouse that served as woodsy clubhouse and caddy shack overlooking the first tee.
The William Flynn-designed course was built at a cost of about $1 million and was immaculately maintained. A who’s who of golf made the rounds with Lasker, including Gene Sarazen, Johnny Farrell and Bobby Jones, who reportedly called the course one of the three best in the country.
“It really was what we would think of today as a U.S. Open layout because it was very long and all the greens were heavily bunkered,” said Daniel Wexler, a golf historian and author of the book “The Missing Links: America’s Greatest Lost Golf Courses & Holes,” which includes a chapter on Mill Road Farm. “On paper, this is certainly comparable in difficulty to most of the courses that you see major events played on today.”
So challenging was the course that Lasker offered $500 to any pro who could break par, a feat not accomplished until 1934, when Tommy Armour collected the prize after shooting a 69.
The course’s run ended just a few years later. Lasker’s wife of 33 years, Flora, died in 1936, and Lasker retired from the advertising business, devoting himself to public affairs and philanthropy. In 1940, he donated the estate to the University of Chicago.
In June 1940 his course hosted its only tournament, the Western Junior Championship. Two years later, it closed to make way for development.
Lasker remarried in New York. In 1942 he and his wife established the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation to support medical research. Lasker died of colon cancer in 1952 at age 73.
Key findings by the Lake Forest students include the second green in the 1800 block of Farm Road, where the hole has long served to hold a backyard tetherball pole. The 16th fairway is in the 1100 block of Oak Knoll Drive.
The two-hour tour Saturday costs $70 and starts at 10 a.m. from the Lake Forest Telegraph Road train station. It includes visits to the restored clubhouse and Lasker’s mansion, at 1352 Estate Lane, which survived a brush with demolition in the early 1990s.
Dr. James Milgram, 70, an orthopedic surgeon, bought the property for just over $1 million at a 1992 auction.
“We live like millionaires without being millionaires,” he said.
Chicago Tribune, May 31, 1952
ALBERT LASKER DIES; PIONEER IN ADVERTISING
Former Chicagoan Noted for Philanthropies
Albert Davis Lasker, a former Chicagoan, one of the nation’s outstanding advertising executives, a philanthropist, and former chairman of the United States shipping board, died yesterday in New York City. He was 72.
Mr. Lasker died of cancer in Harkness pavilion at Columbia-Presbyterian medical center. He had contributed thousands of dollars to cancer research and thru liberal donations to the Lasker Foundation at the University of Chicago, financed study and research in the field of degenerative diseases and birth control.
Began Working at 15.
Mr. Lasker, who pioneered modern advertising methods, was born in Freiberg, Germany, in 1880 of American parents traveling in Europe. He was reared in Galveston, Tex., and began his working career at 15, later becoming a reporter on the Galveston News and the Dallas News.
In 1898 he came to Chicago to work at $10 a week with the advertising firm of Lord and Thomas. Twelve years later he owned the business. One of his outstanding advertising feats was to sell the public on canned condensed milk.
It was Mr. Lasker who showed industry how to enjoy tremendous sales increases by trebling their advertising budgets.
In his career with Lord and Thomas, the firm placed more than 750 million dollars worth of advertising and became one of the largest and wealthiest agencies. He liquidated the company upon his retirement from active business in December, 1942.
Once Part Owner of Cubs.
Mr. Lasker once was part owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team and took an active part in the reorganization of baseball following the Black Sox scandal of 1919. This was completed with the appointment of Judge Kenesaw Landis as baseball commissioner. Mr. Lasker later sold his holdings in the Cubs to William Wrigley.
Mr. Lasker, an early golf enthusiast, helped establish public courses with “grass greens” to promote scientific putting. These were in Pasadena, Cal. Similar greens later were installed thruout the country.
He built an 18 hole course on his Mill road estate in Lake Forest, a fabulous #3,500,000 farm which he donated to the University of Chicago for recreational purposes as well as research. The estate is noted for its beautiful gardens, pools, hiking trails, and wooded areas. In its center is a 50 room French manor house.
Chicago Tribune, June 6, 1925
Lasker Sells Cubs Stock to Wrigley
A. D. Lasker, former chairman of the United States shipping board, has sold his large holdings in the Cubs, Chicago’s National league ball team, to William Wrigley Jr., the other majority stockholder, It was learned yesterday.
The transaction took place some time ago, but there was no announcement at the time. Mr. Lasker made it clear that there had been no misunderstanding between himself and Mr. Wrigley in any degree.
Lasker Still a Director.
“Mr. Wrigley und I have been warm personal friends for many years,” Mr. Lasker said. “We still are the warmest of frlenda and, although I have sold him all but a few of my shares in the Cubs, I still hold a place on the board of directors and am a trustee of the club.”
In connection with the sale it wan reported that a perfectly friendly difference of opinion existed between Mr. Wrigley and Mr. Laskcr concerning the methods of training the Cuba.
Mr. Wrigley, it was said, was for the less formal ways of whipping the players into shape annually, although ho demanded when they got on the field that they must exhibit championship baseball.
Sought Rigorous Training.
This, it was reported, was not Mr. Lasker’s method. The former chairman of the shipping board, believed In the more Spartan training, the rigorous, denying, self-sacrificing grind was what he thought built up the fiber and sinews of the playero until they were invincible on the field. This reported difference of opinion was denied, however.
“Please make it plain that that is not so,” said Mr. Lasker.
“It was all very amiable,” explained Mr. Lasker. “I simply went to Mr. Wrlgley and I said to him: ‘Bill, I’m not a baseball man and I don’t understand thLs stuff the way you do. Maybe, my views are all wrong. You buy me out or I’ll buy you out. Let’s one of us run this ball team to suit himself.'”
Sold Slock at $150.
Mr. Laskcr then said he made Mr. Wrlgley a proposition. He offered to buy all Mr. Wrigley’s stock in the Cubs for $200 a share or to sell all his holdings to the latter for $150 a share. He said he knew that Mr. Wrigley was highly interested in baseball and that he would rather buy Mr. Lasker out at $150 a share than to sell to him at $200 a share, and that was why he made Just such a proposition to his friend, Wrigley.
Mr. Wrlgley could not be interviewed on the matter; he is on the high seas on his way home from Europe on tho Leviathan. He is said now to hold about 75 per cent of the stock In the Cubs, and although the team has not been a pennant winner in recent years, it la said to be one of the most popular In the league, a drawing card always, and a money maker.
William’ L. Veeck, president of tho Cubs, and Adolph Splelmann and W. M. Walker, merchant and commission men. are the minority stockholders.
Lasker was the early guiding force for the Cubs and even baseball. Among his contributions:
–He hired William L. Veeck, a sportswriter, to be president of the club. Among other things, it was Veeck who was credited with planting ivy on the outfield walls at Wrigley. Influenced by his father, his son, Bill, became one of the most colorful owners in baseball history.
–Lasker bought future Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander and catcher William Killifer from the Phillies in 1918 for the unheard of sum of $50,000. It signaled the Cubs would be willing to spend money to field a winning team.
–Outraged by the Black Sox throwing the 1919 World Series and other reports of gambling infiltrating the game, Lasker pushed for outside people to govern baseball. First, he thought of a three-person commission; a leader for the American League, National League and the minor leagues.
Eventually, Lasker felt one person should serve as baseball’s commissioner. Through an associate, they approached Kenesaw Mountain Landis about taking the job.
–Ever the advertising man, it was Lasker who changed the name of Cubs Park to Wrigley Field. “This will do your chewing gum business a lot of good,” he said to Wrigley.
Lasker reportedly got tired of baseball. In 1925, he sold his controlling interest in the Cubs to Wrigley.