Friday, November 27, 1998 Advertising Stuart Elliott Leo Burnett is named one of the business leaders of the century. LEO BURNETT, the adman behind the Marlboro Man, has been selected as one of the 20 most influential business leaders of the 20th century. In 1935, Burnett started the Chicago agency, still bearing his name, that has grown into one of the world’s largest. Burnett, who died in 1971 at 79, specialized in strong client relationships and building brands through the creation of colorful characters – "critters" in the parlance ot the Leo Burnett Company – that personify the products they peddle, from the rugged Marlboro cowboy to the giddy Pillsbury doughboy to the tasteful tuna named Charlie. Burnett is the only advertising executive honored by Time magazine in an issue saluting the business leaders, the third in a series of six special issues called the Time 100. Among the Time editors who compiled the list, there were two runners-up to Burnett: William Bernbach of Doyle Dane Bernbach and David Ogilvy, 87, of Ogilvy & Mather. The issue – titled "Builders and Titans" in the glib Timespeak of tycoons and pundits – is to come out on Monday. A companion television program is scheduled to be broadcast by CBS at 10 P.M., Eastern and Pacific times, on Wednesday. Among the other honorees are two whose firms are today clients of the Burnett agency: Walt Disney of the Walt Disney Company and Ray Kroc of the McDonald’s Corporation. The list also inclutles Henry Ford; William H. Gates of the Microsoft Corporation; the cosmetics queen Estee Lauder, the only woman, and Akio Morita of the Sony Corporation. "You can’t look at the 20th century without looking at advertising," said Walter Isaacson, managing editor of Time, the news weekly published by the Time Inc. division of Time Warner Inc. in New York. "Advertising has affected our lives," he added, "and made us the type of consumer society we are." Bill Saporito, a senior editor at Time who is business editor, agreed: "The economy is two-thirds consumer spending," Mr. Saporito said, and it "one component of consumerism is an informed consumer," advertising is important in "giving the consumer information from which to make choices." "Is Charlie the Tuna that voice of information?" he asked, chuckling. "Not always. But clearly, advertising is a driver." Leo Burnett, left, founder of the Leo Burnett agency, was named by Time magazine as one of the most influential business leaders of the century. William Bernbach, center, and David Ogilvy were runners-up. The selections of Burnett and the other business leaders were made by a Time team that included Mr. Isaacson, Mr. Saporito and Stephen Koepp, an executive editor, in consultation with advertising industry executives and journalists. One agency executive polled was Patrick R. Fallon, chairman of FalIon McElligott, the Minneapolis shop, handling the Time account. "Leo Burnett, David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach are what most of us in this business would consider the Big Three,’ Mr. Fallon said. "But when they asked my opinion, I said there’s no comparison: it’s one person –Bill Bernbach, who for me personally changed the face of advertising." Mr. Saporito said: "It was a really close call. There was a really fierce group of Bernbach loyalists, and we heard from them." "At the end of the day," he added, "what people associate advertising with in a television age is the types of images associated with Leo Burnett. So he gets the nod." In an essay in the issue, Stuart Ewen, chairman of film and media studies at Hunter College, in New York, writes that Burnett "built his reputation around the Idea that ‘share of market’ could only be built on ‘share of mind,’ the capacity to stimulate consumers’ basic desires and beliefs." And the primary Burnett method for achieving’ that, Mr. Ewen writes, was through characters like the Marlboro Mail, "for better or worse one of the most enduring advertising icons ever devised," selling Marlboro cigarettes for the Philip Morris Companies; Charlie, for Star-Kist tuna; Tony the Tiger, for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, and the Jolly Green Giant, for Green Giant vegetables. The essay also discusses the significant shifts in advertising since the heyday of Burnett. "Though Burnett’s talismans endure, they occupy a world where consumers are increasingly caustic about the products that they purchase," Mr. Ewen writes. "The effort by marketers to capitalize on the cynical mindset of an MTV generation has overwhelmed the quest for universal human archetypes." A small article accompanying the Burnett essay discusses Bernbach, a co-founder of Doyle Dane, now part of the DDB Needham Worldwide unit of Omnicom Group, and Mr. Ogi Ivy, whose agency, now known as Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, is owned by WPP Group P.L.C. The article praises Bernbach, who died in 1982, for leading "a velvet revolution in advertising" in the 1960’s, "relying on creativity, sly humor and instinct." Doyle Dane work included the famous "Think small" campaign for the original Volkswagen Beetle, the "We try harder" ads for Avis and the "Hey, Mikey" commercial for Life cereal. The article compliments Mr. Ogilvy for working for only those clients "whose products he felt were beyond reproach" and creating such enduring brand imagery as the dapper "Man in the Hathaway shirt," always sporting an eyepatch, and the bearded Commander Schweppes, the veddy British spokesman for Schweppes mixers. Another reason that Burnett prevailed over Bernbach and Mr. Ogilvy may be that he is one of the few founders of modern Madison Avenue with a distinctive identity. His agency continues to promote the red apples he set out in bowls at the office, his black copy pencils and his sayings like "Reach for the stars." "Leo Burnett has always been a titan in our eyes," said Richard B. Fizdale, chairman and chief executive at the Burnett agency, "You cannot work here for any length of time and not come into contact with him." What Mr. Fizdale described as the "tiny eight-person shop" that Burrnett began now ranks No. 13 among the world’s agencies, with estimated billings of $6 billion from clients like Disney, McDonald’s, the Coca-Cola Company, the Kellogg Company and the Procter & Gamble Company. The timing of the Time selection is serendipitous for the agency. After difficulties with lost accounts and turmoil among top executives in 1996 and 1997, there has been a rebound in recent months that included new assignments from P.& G., Diageo P.L.C., the H. J. Heinz Company and the Sara Lee Corporation. Next Article Press Archive