Albert Lasker

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Albert Lasker

Albert Davis Lasker (born May 1, 1880 in Freiburg , † May 30, 1952 in New York ) was an American entrepreneur; he is often referred to as the inventor of modern advertising. He was born in Freiburg when his parents Morris and Nettie Heidenheimer Davis Lasker visited their home country, Germany . He grew up in Galveston ( Texas on), where his father worked as a director of several banks.

Life

Early years

He began his career as a reporter for the newspaper; however, his father persuaded him to go to Chicago to take a job at the advertising agency Lord & Thomas . In 1898 he began to work there as an office worker, before one of the sales outlets became vacant after a year and he took it over. During this time he designed his first advertising campaign for a manufacturer of ear plugs . He hired a friend to design some display texts, which he combined with photos of a man protecting his ear. The company's CEO, George Wilson, took over the campaign and sales of the product increased.

Owner of Lord & Thomas

When one of the agency's founders, Lord, retired in 1903, Lasker took over his shares and became a partner. In 1912 he finally took over the rest of the shares and became the sole owner of the agency at the age of only 32.

Alongside New York, Chicago was the center of the American advertising industry; Lasker, also known as the founding father of modern advertising, laid the foundations for his success here as chairman of Lord & Thomas. Here he developed a writing technique to convey advertising messages to the consumer in a psychological way. He touted Lucky Strike cigarettes by promising women who rarely smoke that they will stay slim by smoking. The use of the radio as an advertising medium, but especially his campaigns for Palmolive soap, Pepsodent toothpaste, Kotex products and Lucky Strike cigarettes, not only revolutionized the advertising industry, but also became part of the popular culture of his time.

Printed sales technique

Lasker thought a lot about the basics of advertising, what advertising is, and how advertising works. In 1904 he met a friend who told him what advertising was; If Lasker thought up to now that advertising was a kind of news about products, then Lasker explained to him that advertising was something very simple, "printed sales technology".

The first customer to accept this way of working was The 1900 Washer Co. The success of the collaboration was so overwhelming that the customer increased their advertising spend from $ 15,000 a year to $ 30,000 a month, and one of the largest advertising firm in the country.

In 1908 he was able to win Claude C. Hopkins for the agency, the first joint campaign was for the Van Camp Packaging Company, the collaboration between the two lasted 17 years.

Lasker is also responsible for the popularity of orange juice in the USA; his agency won Sunkist Growers, Inc. as a customer in 1910 , during this time the Californian citrus production was in decline, the growers stopped growing or even declined their citrus plants to stop overproduction. The campaign motivated consumers not only to eat oranges, but above all to drink orange juice , so that consumption rose again and deconstruction could be stopped.

Further groundbreaking contributions were the promotion of schools, including the introduction of sex education for young girls to explain menstruation and thus to be able to promote tampons from the manufacturer Kotex. He is also held responsible for the invention of the soap opera , as he was the first to recognize that radio and TV are advertising-driven media. He is also said to have been the head of Republican Warren G. Harding's election campaign for the presidency in 1920.

Other business activities

Lasker was now the owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team : he first participated in the team in 1916, and took over the majority of the shares a little later. During this time he prepared a report for various reformations in the organization of the game operations, which led to the creation of the office of a representative of baseball, the predecessor of the current manager of Major League Baseball . Together with his business partner Charles Weeghman, he was responsible for ensuring that the club was able to move to its current home at Wrigley Field , which at the time was still called Weeghman Park after its partner. In 1925 he sold the team to his junior partner William Wrigley Jr. , founder of the well-known chewing gum manufacturer Wrigley .

In addition to various company shares and a. At Pepsodent, a client of the agency, Lasker also owned one of the most beautiful golf courses in the world, located on his property in Lake Forest, Illinois . In 1939 it was ranked 23rd on the list of the 100 most beautiful golf courses in the world by the National Golf Review magazine. Lasker's maintenance of the course became too expensive, so he donated the entire property to the University of Chicago after the Great Depression .

politics

Lasker was active for the Republican Party and was always looking for new ways to support the party and its candidates with his advertising techniques. He is considered a key figure in the campaign for the election of Warren G. Harding in 1920. Harding became the 29th President of the United States after scoring a landslide victory made possible by nationwide advertising on newsreels, posters and newspapers during the election campaign.

After his election, Harding wanted to fill many public offices with people from the private sector. In June 1921 he persuaded Lasker to take over the chairmanship of the national shipping authority . Lasker, who had actually flirted with a cabinet post, finally agreed to take on the post for two years. Lasker was confronted with the difficulties of the overcapacity of the national merchant fleet , which had arisen through the participation of the USA in World War I. He tried to solve the problems with the help of privatization and subsidies , irregularities were found by the congress, the Lasker confirmed the office as planned after two years, in the year 1923. For Lasker this time in Washington was very frustrating, so that he withdrew from politics forever, including an offer from President Calvin Coolidge to return to the civil service.

Sale by Lord & Thomas

His son Edward Lasker from his marriage to Flora Warner joined the company in 1933, but decided to go to Hollywood in 1942 to work as a film producer and lawyer, he married the actress Jane Greer and had three children with her, including the film producer Lawrence Lasker .

After 30 years at the helm of Lord & Thomas, Albert Lasker finally sold the company to his three senior partners in 1942. The company was renamed Foote, Cone & Belding, after a merger with Draft Worldwide in 2006 it is now called Draftfcb .

Estate, Lasker Foundation

Albert Lasker's mausoleum in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, NY

Lasker was married a total of three times, from his first marriage to Flora Warner he has two daughters and a son, his short marriage (1938–39) to actress Doris Kenyon remained childless.

Lasker, and especially his third wife, Mary Woodard Lasker , became the greatest and most well-known philanthropists in the United States, so they sponsored the National Institutes of Health , which increased their budget from $ 2.4 million to $ 5 from 1945 to 1985, 5 billion could increase the fight against cancer and various museums and universities.

They also founded the Lasker Foundation , which mainly supports various programs in biomedical research and public health and has been presenting the lavish Lasker Awards since 1942.

Albert Lasker died of stomach cancer on May 30, 1952 at the age of 73 in New York . He is buried in a private mausoleum in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow , NY.

He was inducted into the American National Business Hall of Fame , which honors prominent figures in US business life.

literature

  • Barnouw, Erik. "The Land of Irium". In A History of Broadcasting in the United States: Volume 2: The Golden Web . Oxford University Press US, 1968, p. 9 ff.
  • Fox, Stephen. The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and Its Creators. William Morrow and Co., 1984. ISBN 0-688-02256-1
  • Gunther, John. Taken at the Flood: the Story of Albert D. Lasker. Harper and Bros., 1960. (1990 ed. ISBN 0-89966-729-5 )
  • Morello, John A. Selling the President, 1920: Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding . Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2001. ISBN 978-0-275-97030-7 .
  • Thomas, Lewis. The Lasker Awards: Four Decades of Scientific Medical Progress. Raven Press, 1986. ISBN 978-0-88167-224-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ALBERT LASKER - American National Business Hall of Fame, ANBHF. In: Anbhf.org. Retrieved February 1, 2016 .
  2. ^ Arthur W. Schultz, "Albert Lasker's Advertising Revolution," Chicago History, Nov. 2002, edition. 31, pp. 36-53
  3. ↑ Albert Lasker Ad Samples ( Memento from May 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Chicagoland Golf - "Ghost Courses" by Phil Kosin
  5. ^ John A. Morello, Selling the President, 1920: Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding (2001)
  6. ↑ René De La Pedraja, A historical dictionary of the US merchant marine and shipping industry ( digitized version )
  7. ↑ Werner (1935), Privileged Characters , pages 328-329
  8. ↑ Albert Lasker in the Notable Names Database (English)
  9. ^ Lasker Foundation . Accessed February 23, 2011.

Web links

Commons : Albert Lasker  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Lasker, Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lasker, Albert Davis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Freiburg , Germany
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1952
Place of death New York City