Leo Burnett – Advertising Pioneer. Marketing Strategies Research Paper (300 Level Course)
In the middle of the great depression a man named Leo Burnett started an advertising company named the Leo Burnett Company. It began in Chicago’s Palmer House Hotel in 1935. The Leo Burnett Company started with only enough people to sit around a card table in the loby of the hotel. The company had three clients one, which was the Green Giant, which remains a client today. Leo Burnett only has two offices in the United States; its headquarters in Chicago and the other only other American office in New York, New York.
Leo Burnett offers brand team approaches to each client. This capacity gives each client the feeling that they are the only client Leo Burnett has to worry about. Each brand team has four representatives from the company and they are account management, creative service, planning, media, and production.
The executive officers are as follows: Linda Wolf, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Robert Brennan, President, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Stephen Gatfield Chief Operating Officer, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Kerry M. Rubie, ViceChairman, Leo Brunett Client Services Worldwide, David Winclechter Chief Financial Officer, Leo Burnett Worldwide.
Leo Burnett possesses an impressive client list such as Kodak, Philip Morris, the U.S. Army, Sara Lee, Polaroid, and the U.S. Postal service. Leo Burnett helped bring the Marlboro Man to life and to help America “Be all the We Can be.” Leo Burnett can be summoned up with this quote “Reaching for the stars, seeking big, enduring ideas to build our clients’ business is, and will continue to be what Leo Burnett is all about.”
The product I chose from Leo Burnett was the Philip Morris Marlboro Man ad campaign. I think this is one of the greatest ad campaigns ever. The image of the western landscape, the rugged cowboy is the embodiment of the Marlboro Man and Marlboro Country. Philip Morris has gone from being a little known cigarette producer in the 1950s to the leading tobacco manufacturer and seller in as little as twenty years. In 1975, Marlboro was named “top selling brand in the United States and the all-time best-seller in the world”(PM History 20). That is a huge feat, however, that feat did not come without its challenges. Philip Morris and its competitors have had an uphill battle in the 1990s with the pressing tobacco lawsuits.
Since this up hill battle has begun with the lawsuits and governmental pressures PM has made its marketing more responsible and its mission statements more and more about the adult smoker who chooses to smoke. The mission of PM is to be the most responsible , effective and respected developer, manufacturer and marketer or consumer products, especially products intended for adults. Our core business is manufacturing and marketing the best quality tobacco products to adults who choose to use them.(www.pmusa.com) Philip Morris U.S.A. is committed to acting responsibly in marketing its tobacco products to adults who choose to smoke.
We demonstrate this commitment by implementing all of out marketing programs in compliance with both the letter and the spirit of the laws, rules, policies and restrictions that govern our business practices. The following describes some of the key elements that govern and guide our marketing practices.(www.pmusa.com) Both of these statements are reactions to the lawsuits and settlement from the Masters Settlement Agreement.
In November 1998, the nation’s leading cigarette manufacturers, including Philip Morris, signed the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) with the Attorneys Generals of 46 states and 5 territories. The MSA, along with earlier agreements with Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and Minnesota, has forever changed the way tobacco products are advertised, marketed and promoted in the United States. In total, the tobacco settlement agreement will provide over $200 billion to the States over 25 years.
The tobacco settlement agreement is more than a financial agreement between the tobacco industry and the states, however. It addresses many of the fundamental controversies that have marked the tobacco “wars” for decades: youth smoking, corporate accountability for a risky, albeit legal, consumer product, and creating the kind of meaningful change that governments and the public health community have sought. The tobacco settlement agreement has fundamentally changed cigarette marketing and has placed the marketing and lobbying activities of the tobacco industry under a new level of state government scrutiny and restrictions.
This document highlights specific provisions of the agreement that you may not be aware of. It is a summary of some of the provisions of the Master Settlement Agreement. Some elements are subject to further exceptions or qualifications specified in the Agreement. This summary is not intended to alter, interpret or supersede any of the terms of the Agreement. The full text of the agreement is available in the “Tobacco Settlement Documents” section on the National Association of Attorneys General website at www.naag.org.(www.pmusa.com)
Philip Morris is now limited in the opportunities it has in reaching its clients in the USA. Philip Morris now does mostly mail campaigns because of the lawsuits and its Anti-Youth Smoking Campaign. In the February 6, 2002 issue of AdAge there is an article that tells how PM has stopped buying magazine ads. This could signal a near withdraw of the industries from the last refuge in mass media. The Marlboro Man left the television screen in 1971, and left the billboards in 1999 as part of the MSA settlement with states attorneys general. The Marlboro Man, was Advertising Age’s top ad icon of the 20 century. Him riding out of magazines is an estimated $114.7 million dollar lost in an already staggering economy. However, this cutback by PM could give the competition, mainly, RJR the fuel to turn that marginal Marlboro smoker to a Camel smoker. Since PM is the industry leader it has the luxury to pull back from the magazine ads, where its competitors RJR, Joe Camel, and British American Tobacco’s Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., can not afford to take their name out of the public eye.
“Marlboro. You get a lot to like, filter, flavor, flip-top box.”
“Where there’s a man…there’s a Marlboro-with a filter that delivers a smoke of surprising mildness.”
“Better ‘makins’. Marlboro…More flavor…More filter…More cigarette.”
“If you think flavor went out when filters came in-Try Marlboro.”
“Make yourself comfortable-Have a Marlboro”
“Marlboro. Why don’t you settle back and have a full flavored smoke”
“Settle Back. You get a lot to like here in Marlboro Country.”
“Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country”
“Come to where the flavor is.”
“Come to Marlboro Country.”
“Marlboro.”
A Western landscape, a rugged cowboy and the color red have come to embody years of advertising tag lines for Philip Morris’ Marlboro cigarettes. These three elements, combined or separate, are recognizable as the American call to Marlboro Country even without the brand name, sales pitch or slogan. The geometric box and aesthetically pleading symmetry is the Marlboro call. No matter where you are or what you are doing when you see a Marlboro Cigarette you feel as if you are in the beautiful wild west again living the American way. When observing the Marlboro Man ads, they take you to Marlboro Country where it is an a fresh, healthy, natural attitude portrayed in these cigarette advertisements that appeal to everyone, smokers, nonsmokers, men, women, old and young.
These ads are so great and suck in the viewer that one forgets that they are for cigarettes. These ads use great creative tactics. The life style shown in these ads is of the proud hard working American Cowboy. That is sexy and rugged. Then the Marlboro Country music is fantastic. The music is familiar and comforting and once again the consumer forgets that the ad is for cigarettes.
Since PM has stopped all television, radio, and magazine productions of the Marlboro Man the main medium now used for advertising is direct mail campaigns. The direct mail campaigns are used because of the decision PM made to stop buying magazine ads and the result of the Master’s Settlement.
The Marlboro Man’s target audience is the strong, outdoor, indepenent man, the person who tinks for himself, lives his own life, does his own thing. (The Worlds Greatest Brands, New York; John Wiley&Sons, 1992) This man has been and still is the major selling point for this cigarette. This strategy has lead to the Marlboro Man to be used in almost 150 countries around the globe. Marlboro sells the idea of being independent and hardworking.