Bryan Anna Professor Hester Advertising Book Report 7 14 2006 A Big Life in Advertising By Mary Wells Lawrence About the Author Mary Georgene Berg was born in Youngstown Ohio in 1928 At a young age she attended dance drama and elocution classes in hopes of one day becoming an actress She was one step closer in fulfilling that dream when her mom brought her to the New York Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre She attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburg for two years before returning to Youngstown Her first job was as an advertising writer for McKelvey s department store In 1952 she was back in New York to work as a fashion advertising manager at Macy s From there she took a job with the advertising firm of McCann Erickson as a writer and copy group head From there she moved to the firm Lennen and Newell to fill the position as a brain trust Her next big step was in 1957 when she landed a job with the firm Doyle Dane Bernbach During her seven years there she worked on advertising campaigns such as Volkswagen and Avis She was known for her flair and brilliance and was eventually promoted all the way to vice president and associate copy chief She went on to other various companies and worked on ads such as Alka Seltzer and Braniff Airways before starting her own firm It was called Wells Rich Greene Inc and was made up of many employees who Wells worked with at her previous jobs She took the company public in 1968 but within a decade made it private again because she did not like the scrutiny and pressure from the shareholders She became the highest paid woman in the United States and was the most recognizable woman in American business She was named Advertising Executive of the year in 1969 and was inducted into the Copywriter s Hall of Fame Abstract Mary Wells helped shape her profession and left her mark on the advertising world forever She was a revolutionary creative thinker who helped create ads with slogans and jingles that can still be remembered today She starts the book by looking at her childhood and what led her into the advertising business She started small and slowly and patiently worked her way up through the business world improving her position with regards to both her position of power and salary She started in a department store in her hometown and moved into an advertising agency which was the beginning of her long career in New York City One of her greatest steps in her young career was at Doyle Dane Bernbach She referred to many instances where she would learn from others and was on a team that created ad campaigns for Alka Seltzer and Braniff Airways Soon after this she talks about her quest in opening her own firm She learned everything she knew from her experience at other firms and brought many of her previous co workers with her when she was outfitting her new company The greatest achievements of Mary Wells came from her thinking outside the box and being creative She seemed to always have a way to connect to consumers and could create a catchy phrase that could be recognized by almost everyone Summary Mary Wells Lawrence starts this book at one of the key time periods in her career as an advertising mogul She was a young copywriter in the 1960 s working at Doyle Dane Bernbach in New York She looked up to Bill Bernbach as an almost father figure in the business of advertising and he was the person who seemed to launch her into her career He can be credited as managing one of the greatest ad campaigns with the Avis account He could never compete with the giant car rental company Hertz so he advertised the company as the second best He also used this second best mentality to tell the consumer that they would work harder for their business It instantly made Avis a credible company Wells was also in the company and helped work on the Volkswagen campaign They used a think small idea to change Americans minds about cars Current users were obsessed with a bigger is better mentality and the company with Bernbach and Wells knee deep in the assignment played off this idea to make people fall in love with there smaller quant cars For how little the ads said it was revolutionary with the regards to the effect it had on the public s opinion Through these campaigns and many others she learned what it meant to be creative and how to see into the consumer s thoughts and needs She sums up what she learned about advertising from Bernbach by saying It was as if he had cordoned off Madison Avenue and set up a stage where he called for advertising to be honest and candid smarter and more interesting 4 It was more than just showing a product It was connecting with the consumer on some level to persuade them that the product fit somewhere in their lives DDB was just a stepping stone in her career and she writes about how sad she was when she finally was ready to pack her bags and leave She said that her seven years with the company was magical and speaks of Bernbach in the highest light She left for a new ad company This change could have been the most challenging of her career because she finally was stepping out of any kind of shadow and she was ready to make the work her own It was finally going to be on her shoulders to produce at the top level She did not skip a beat The pop pop fizz fizz ads for Alka Seltzer were in her near future and she began to prove herself She writes about how the ad got back to the basics and communicated clearly with the customer It only involved two tablets getting dropped into a glass of water and went along with an easy to remember jingle that can still be recognized today The point of this ad in her career was bigger then just a small success out of many She proved that simplicity and just being creative can out perform some lavish expensive commercial She found a way to communicate to the customer by simply telling them exactly how to use the product and what benefits it would give them Another ad which marked this part of her career was for Braniff Airways They were struggling in a growing market because they were dull and didn t show the customer why they should fly with them Aviation is always an interesting business to advertise because safety comes first and then after that all the airlines seem to be the same and seem to go to the same places She talks about how the airline was functioning well as a business and had good potential because of things like the quality of the planes and the routes they were