Biography

[b]Birth[/b][br /]
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Advertising genius, Leo Burnett, was born on October 21, 1891 at St Johns, in Michigan State of the USA. He was first of the four children of Rose and Noble Burnett. Leo was to be christened as George, but ‘Leo’ name stuck to him accidentally. His father had a tendency to abbreviate. So, he wrote Geo for George and because of his illegible handwriting, hospital officials preparing the birth certificate misread it and wrote Leo Burnett.[br /]
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[b]Childhood[/b][br /]
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His parents had a dry goods store in Michigan. Leo started learning what, why and how people bought goods at the store. His inquisitive mind helped him probe as to how his parents sold things to the buyers that generated interest in him towards marketing at a very young age. He wondered how communication influenced buyers. The first advertising message that Leo remembered to have noticed was seeing the store’s name and slogan on the umbrella of its delivery cart. Advertising copy and pictures interested him a lot and his first advertising experience was designing and lettering show-cards. Since childhood, Leo was able to perceive things around him in a different manner. In his childhood, he claimed that one could hear the corn growing during the nights. As a young schoolboy, he was shy and took interest in reading and writing. During his school days, he became a reporter for several local weeklies.[br /]
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On passing out from high school, he joined a small school in rural St Johns as a teacher and taught in a one-room school. However, the position was temporary and he soon had to leave the job. Destiny had already set him on course to reach great heights, to scale great ideas elsewhere.[br /]
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[b]At University Of Michigan[/b][br /]
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At the age of 19, Leo entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His interest in mass communication was already developed in high school where he reported for county-seat weeklies and chose to pursue a degree in journalism. While studying at the college, he paid the fees by working as a night editor for the Michigan Daily. Along with that, he did designing and lettering of show cards for a department store. Recognition of his work at these part-time jobs made him realize of his strong sense of visualization and an ability to communicate effectively. He enjoyed the company of his classmate Owen B Winters, who later became a great adman and exchanged communication ideas with him.[br /]
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[b]Entering The Competitive World[/b][br /]
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He joined Peoria Journal in Illinois for his first job immediately after college where he made $18 a week. The automobile industry was booming at that time and his former classmate, Owen Winter motivated him to take up a job with an automobile company.[br /]
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After almost a year with Peoria Journal, one day, a former college professor informed him about the position of editor of an in-house magazine at the Cadillac Motor Car Company in Detroit. Excitedly, he applied for the position in all earnestness. A thought-provoking essay on ‘Neatness’ won him the job at the Cadillac. Along with editing of the house magazine, he was assigned advertising responsibilities of the company. He loved advertising and thus began his most intense love affair with advertising. He started producing brilliant communications for the brands at Cadillac.[br /]
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[b]Marriage[/b][br /]
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While at Cadillac, he frequented a nearby restaurant. Once while paying his bill, he saw restaurant cashier Naomi Geddes, reading William De Morgan’s book A Likely Story. He found her like-minded and suggested her to read Joseph Vanice. In fact, he passed on his copy of the book and surprised Naomi when she found the book on her counter the next time she reached the restaurant. Their common interests resulted in a strong friendship and in love, eventually. In 1918, Leo married Naomi in Detroit.[br /]
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[b]Leaving Cadillac[/b][br /]
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Leo then was considered for the US Navy during World War I. During his six-month long tenure, he was engaged in building a breakwater in Lake Michigan, which he believed caused a major agitation among the German forces. Leo resumed his duties at Cadillac after his stint with US Navy but shortly a breakaway group of employees formed a new company, LaFayette Motors. Leo switched over with them to Indianapolis as advertising manager and positioned LaFayette as ‘American Rolls-Royce’. Unfortunately, the company suffered insurmountable financial and operational problems leading to its acquisition by the competitor, Wisconsin.[br /]
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[b]Entering The World Of Advertising[/b][br /]
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Leo then resigned from LaFayette to sign on as creative head of Homer McKee, an advertising agency in Indianapolis. He served advertising accounts and created amazing campaigns for its clients. During his 10-year long association with Homer McKee, he established himself as a man with power-packed ideas. The great stock market crash of 1929 followed by recession effected loss of an important automobile client to McKee. By now his family had grown with two sons and a daughter, making him think to migrate with his family into a more stable environment.[br /]
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[b]At Chicago[/b][br /]
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The year 1930 saw him move to Chicago to join Erwin Wasey, the largest advertising agency in the world then. Just before Leo joined Erwin Wasey as Creative Vice President, the agency had decided to move their headquarters to New York. The agency had started adopting hard-sell New York approach and were not servicing its Mid-western clients as well as it served its Eastern clients. Several Mid-western clients were not satisfied with Erwin Wasey but they had no choice, as most of the big agencies were concentrated at Madison Avenue in New York. Leo had earned good reputation among the clients and three of such clients started pressurizing Leo to start his own agency. Leo was not confident but when he saw one of the fellow executives walking away with good accounts like Buick, Goodyear and General Motors to start his own, he realized that it was time to start his own agency.[br /]
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[b]Leo Burnett Company Inc.[/b][br /]
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Leo was 44 when he finally opened his eponymous agency on August 5, 1935. He borrowed $50,000 against his life insurance policy, mortgaged his home and spent every cent he had, to set up his own shop. He was Joined by his friend Jack O'Kieffe. He was keen to show his counterparts in New York what his style of advertising was all about. Leo wanted to create superior advertising models, away from traditional strategies, which were based on narrative tales on the self-proclaimed qualities of the product they sold. Clever ad copy and catchy slogans dominated strategies in the advertising world of 1950s. He never believed in such sophisticated, slick advertising. He advocated that the advertisement should be built around the inherent importance or appeal of a product itself rather than elaborate narratives and imaginary stories.[br /]
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They started with three accounts - Green Giant, Hoover, and Realsilk Hosiery. The revenue generated by the end of the first year was $900,000. The amount was nowhere near a profit making point. They wanted the Hershey Chocolate and Wringley Gum accounts, but they met with repeated failure in procuring them. Their untiring efforts were strengthened as Dick Heath, another aspiring adman. Unfortunately, it helped the firm little. Some small dispute between Leo and Dick caused a split, but O'Kieffe brought them together again and then the company took off for higher recesses.[br /]
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[b]Breaking The Rule, For Better[/b][br /]
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At his studio, Leo started creating path-breaking advertising campaigns. He carved his image around the idea that ‘share of market’ could only be built on ‘share of mind’. He was of the opinion that creativity is an intuitive ability to identify the inherent drama that resided within a product through the conscious use of imagery. A print campaign for the American Meat Institute, is an illustrative example of what he meant by inherent drama within a product. It was obvious that the virile image of meat is best-expressed in red, raw meat but at that time, it was quite unusual and repugnant to display uncooked meat in advertisements. He excitedly broke the code to produce full-page ads portraying thick chops of raw red meat against a bright red background. This was the purest form of inherent drama within the product that he could visualize.[br /]
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Burnett brought images at the center of advertising and argued in 1956 that advertising works at its best by impression. Visual eloquence was his hallmark and he was obsessed with visual triggers that could effectively resemble consumer’s critical thought. He asserted that visual imagery appealed to the basic emotions and instincts of consumers and was far more persuasive than everything else.[br /]
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[b]Hard Work Pays[/b][br /]
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At the agency, his day started at 5 o’clock and he used to work till midnight. He worked even on weekends. His capacity to work endlessly was the envy of the industry that inspired dedication in his employees too. It was his habit to visit his art director’s offices between 8 and 8:30 every morning that kept him abreast of the creative output of his agency. Commenting on his vitality David Ogilvy once said that he turned down Burnett’s proposal to merge because Burnett was the only person who worked harder than he did.[br /]
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Leo Burnett loved the advertising business. He saw advertising as fun side of the business. Hiscolleague once said that Leo had more fun at work in the agency than a person taking the day off to play golf. At times under tremendous work pressure, in the middle of a meeting he would suddenly jump, look around and comment ‘Isn’t this fun?’ Such was the amalgam of seriousness with playfulness at work that helped him relieve the ‘steam’ out of his work.[br /]
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In 1942, Leo bought a farm near Lake Zurich, Illinois and developed intense love for nature. He planted more than 20,000 plants and acquired knowledge on wild flowers.[br /]
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[b]'Sessions At Farm'[/b][br /]
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Later, Leo plunged into work for The War Advertising Council. He volunteered agency’s time in the crusade to collect scrap metal for the war effort. Leo attended the War Production Board meeting in Washington on behalf of the council with his plans for a campaign and stunned the Board with his work. In 1945, he was honored for his contributions to wartime advertising. That year, he suffered a mild heart attack, which forced him to ease his schedule to some extent. This initiated the famous ‘sessions at the farm’. On weekends, his account executives, art directors, research and media staff gathered at the farm where several great ideas took birth resulting in memorable campaigns. The tradition continued for many years.[br /]
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[b]Climbing Higher[/b][br /]
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Within few years, his roster of clients grew rapidly and by the 25th anniversary of the agency, the Leo Burnett Company was the sixth largest agency in the US, with billings over $ 100 million, 900 employees and 24 clients on the roster.[br /]
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Leo Burnett was not the one to live in his ivory tower. He worked ceaselessly for hours trying to understand his clients well and was found working in studio with his sleeves rolled up. In contrast to a typical advertising man, Burnett was not gregarious and extrovert by nature. He was short, shoulder-slouched and had a paunch. His most prominent feature was his lower lip protruded in a bulky pout.[br /]
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[b]His Gems[/b][br /]
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He spent much time encouraging his staff to identify those icons, symbols that preoccupied a major share of the consumers’ consciousness. He confirmed that each advertising message his company produced was accepted by consumers at least subconsciously, if not consciously. He went on to create a range of archetypes that endorsed his clients’ brands and etched lasting impression on consumers’ mind. With Jolly Green Giant, he resurrected the harvest god to sell peas of Green Giant Farm Products. His creations like the large, playful Tony the Tiger which endorsed frosted flakes from Kellogg, masculine Marlboro Man to transform the image of filter cigarettes of Phillip Morris and cuddly Doughboy that symbolized Pillsbury home-baking products, delivered immense mileage to the brands they endorsed.[br /]
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[b]Honors[/b][br /]
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He featured on the cover of Time magazine’s October 1962 issue in which the


publication featured an article titled ‘Madison’. In 1963, University of Missouri conferred upon him the Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism and in 1966, the Chicago Chapter of American Marketing Association honored him as Marketing Man of the Year. Burnett served as director and chairman of the Advertising Council several times.[br /]
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[b]A Unique Man[/b][br /]
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Burnett was loved and admired by his employees and his clients. Art directors produced better ads when he rejected their ideas after long working hours without the sign of negative motivation and account executives kept their cool even when in the middle of client presentations, he interrupted them with his thought-stirring ideas.[br /]
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He was a client’s dream as his integrity towards them was exceptionally high in order. He purchased 100 shares of stock of every new client. He personally consumed brands he advertised. Once, when he fainted because of low blood sugar, someone ran for a candy bar, he shouted at him to make sure it was a Nestle – his client. He smoked Marlboro cigarettes, wore shoes made by Brown Shoe Company and had Special K regularly as breakfast till he died. Such was the nature of his brand loyalty towards the brand he built.[br /]
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He always achieved what he set out for and that was to create brilliant advertising for his clients. In doing so, he created the Chicago School of Advertising. He condemned ‘slick’ advertising that he felt was typical of Madison Avenue agencies and ‘opportunistic’ copy from the US West Coast agencies. Leo’s style had its own identity in what was known as the Creative Trinity of advertising – David Ogilvy, William Bernbach and Leo Burnett himself. While Ogilvy was an elegant rationalist and Bernbach, a hipster, Leo created his unique way of nonverbal communications.[br /]
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[b]Later Years[/b][br /]
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Approaching mid-sixties, illness frequently kept him away from office. He needed more rest and could not keep pace with the agency. His enthusiasm and interest in the agency’s work, however, never waned. In 1967, he took retirement from active management declaring that he was stepping down but not stepping out. His valedictory remarks to his staff titled ‘When to take my name off the door’ served as the agency’s standards of work even today. Even after his retirement, he kept visiting office at least twice a week and kept contributing at his own pace.[br /]
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June 7, 1971 was his last day at office. He worked for several hours, and traveled back to farm at Lake Zurich. After taking dinner with his wife, he died quietly of heart attack in sleep. He was 79 then.[br /]
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Even 30 years after his death, the icons created by him are as fresh as they were then and with electronic media becoming more and more dominant, his principles and strategies of visual imagery seem to be more relevant. His influence on world advertising would remain all pervading.[br /]
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