Women in Advertising - The Real Story (Part 2)

By Wendy J. Miller

1977 and Onward! Milestones for Women...

• 1977 - Caroline Jones became the first black female VP at a major ad agency (BBDO)
• 1981 - Rochelle Udell heads Calvin Klein's in-house agency and creates the "You Know What Comes Between Me and My Calvins?" campaign
• 1992 - Charlotte Beers became the chairman and chief executive of global ad agency Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide in 1992.  Charlotte Beers was adept at combining her business acumen with a little Southern Texas charm and was highly successful in the extremely competitive of advertising.  Exceptionally hard working, she carved out successes for her company and herself at a string of jobs.  First as a market researcher for Uncle Ben's, next as an account executive at J. Walter Thompson, where she became the first female VP in the firm's 106-year history. Disappointed when she was denied further promotion, she left Thompson for Tatham-Laird & Kudner where she worked 100-hour weeks for two years to turn around the firm's low morale and shaky finances. Beers became CEO, and under her reign over the next decade increased profit margins to double the industry average, tripled billings to $325 million, and lured in major new business accounts. She resigned in 1992 and was heavily courted by several firms, before accepting a position with the $5.4 billion, 8,000 employee Ogilvy & Mather.  She stayed at Ogilvy & Mather for four years, increasing billings by $2 billion, before passing the reins to Shelly Lazarus, a long-time Ogilvy employee.  In October, 2001, Beers joined US Secretary of State, Colin Powell as Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, where she introduced modern marketing and communication techniques to jump-start dialogue with areas of the world where the US faced silence or hostility. Ms. Beers held this position until 2003. 
• 1997 - Linda Kaplan-Thaler began her career at J. Walter Thompson, but she left JWT to start her own agency: The Kaplan-Thaler Group - known for the "duck" campaign created for insurance company, Aflac.
• 2004 - Janet Kestin and Nancy Vonk, with client Silvia Lagnado caused a stir when they used real women, not models, in Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty." The now legendary campaign was shot by another female legend, photographer Annie Leibovitz.
• 2008 - Nancy Hill is appointed the first female CEO of the 4As (American Association of Advertising Agency) - a national trade association founded in 1917 that represents American industry.
• 2012 - the American Advertising Hall of Fame has inducted thirteen women into its fold as of this date - the earliest being Erma Perham Proetz in 1952, and the most recent, Tere. A. Zubizarreta, aka Tere Zubi, in 2012.

Other notable women in advertising include:

• Andrea Alstrup - retired as corporate vice president, advertising, Johnson & Johnson; her 37-year career began in 1964.
• Laurel Cutler - first woman to be honoured as "Man of the Year" in 1995, her career in advertising spanned over three decades.
• Jo Foxworth - began work as a copywriter at McCann-Erickson in 1955, and broke through barriers against women with her work for Westinghouse, Buick, Exxon, Hilton Hotels and Coca Cola.
• Katharine Graham - chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Co., and publisher of the Washington Post, Ms. Graham was the first women to head a Fortune 500 company, first to serve as director of the Associated Press, and the first female director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association. She received a Pulitzer Prize for her 1997 memoir, chronicling her remarkable life and career.
• Geraldine Laybourne - founded Oxygen Media, LLC, and launched Oxygen in 2000 to fill a void in the television landscape by creating a network targeted to younger women.
• Patricia Martin - the first woman chair of the American Advertising Federation, Ms. Martin championed and exemplified the ethics of advertising, serving as a role model to many in the industry.
• Tere Zubizarreta (Tere Zubi) - displaced from Cuba by the Castro revolution, Ms. Z. arrived in the US in 1959 and has been instrumental in helping shift perceptions about Hispanics and Latinos to the dynamic reality of multi-faceted consumer segments.
• Helen Landsdowne Resor, Mary Wells Lawrence, Shirley Polykoff, Phyllis K.Robinson, Jane Trahey, Charlotte Beers, Bernice Fitz-Gibbon, and Peggy Charren have also been included in Advertising Age's Top 100 Advertising People of All Time list.

Oh Canada, Oh Boy...It is very encouraging that these women were trail blazers in the industry and that they opened many doors for other women in advertising. It is also quite revealing and disturbing that there are extensive sources for advertising women and women in advertising, but that all sources lead to the US.  From all sources, it appears that women have never existed or participated in the Canadian advertising industry!

Women in Advertising - The Real Story (Part 1)

By Wendy J. Miller

Who said it wasn't until the 1960s?

For those TV viewers who think, as a result of watching the series Madmen, that women weren't involved in advertising until the 1960s, here's the real story.

The first ad woman (or Mad Woman) on record was Mathilde C. Weil. In 1870 she moved from Germany to New York, and not long after her husband died, leaving her with no means of support.  Ms. Weil thus began her career in advertising by booking magazine space for a friend, eventually starting her own agency - The M.C. Weil Agency in 1880.

What follows, is a list of other important historical dates relating to women in advertising. There is inconsistency  in documentation of dates, but the general time frames are in keeping with public records:

• 1907 - Helen Landsdowne was hired by Stanley Resor as a copywriter for a small Cincinnati agency
• 1916 - Helen Landsdowne become Creative Director of J. Walter Thompson (JWT, New York)
• 1917 - Helen Landsdowne Resor (now married to Stanley Resor), formed the JWT Women's Editorial Department, a creative group comprised solely of women - soon these women were overseeing 75% of the agency's billing of what was America's largest agency
• 1917 - Helen Landsdowne Resor created famous Woodbury's Facial Soap ad, using sex appeal to sell the product: "A skin you love to touch."
• 1926 - Nedda McGrath became the first female art director
• 1936 - copywriter, Dorothy Dignam, launched the Ford V-8 "complete style plan" for female consumers
• 1940s - Bernice Fitz-Gibbon specialized in retail advertising and became the highest paid women in advertising, earning over $50K ($800K in today's dollars); she did groundbreaking work for Macy's and Gimbel's, later publishing a book about her colourful career: Macy's, Gimbel's and Me
• 1946 - Jean Wade Rindlaub became BBDO's first female VP
• 1949 - Phyllis Robinson was hired by Bill Bernbach when he started his agency, and he named her Copy Chief. It would turn out to be the most influential agency of all time, called Doyle Bane Bernbach (DDB).  Robinson supervised some of the best and toughest admen of the era (1950s and 1960s).  Their "Think Small" campaign for Volkswagen revolutionized the ad industry.
• 1950 - Mary Wells started as a copywriter at DDB. In 1966, she created her own award-winning agency, Wells Rich Green, where she masterminded the timeless phrase, "Try it, You'll like it."  She also created the renowned "I Love New York" campaign, and introduced the 60 second television commercial (mini movies). In 1969, Wells was the highest paid ad executive.
• 1952 - copywriter, Erma Perham Proetz is the first woman inductee into the Advertising Hall of Fame.
• 1955 - Shirley Polykoff started her career in magazine and retail ad sales before taking a position at Foote, Cone & Belding where she created Clairol's famous "Does she...or doesn't she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure." campaign, earning her a place in the Advertising Hall of Fame.
• 1960s - Peggy Charren created Action for Children's Television to lobby reform on children's TV, which she felt was exploiting youngsters and using insensitive and over-commercialized TV shows to target children. By 1971, Charren's works had sensitized advertising to excessive violence, as well as inappropriate cereal, toy and fast-food spots.  In 1990, the Children's Television Act, setting standards for child-oriented programming, merchandising and advertising, was passed.
• 1968 - Jane Trahey launches the campaign, "What becomes a legend most?" for Blackglama. She went on to become the first woman in advertising to earn $1million a year.
• 1970 - Barbara Proctor opens Proctor & Gardner Advertising and is the first woman of colour to own and manage an ad agency

(to be continued...1977 and Onward!)