Advertising Legends

You may not know his name, but if you ever picked up a newspaper or magazine ANYWHERE in English speaking North America from the 1990s through the 2000s… you saw his ads.

His insertions ran in Parade, USA Today, AARP Bulletin, Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Woman’s Day and HUNDREDS of other publications.

His name is Tony Presutto and he mined a mountain of response during the last great chapter of print advertising.

He battled against the big guns
of direct response…

For years, I noticed some of the best long copy print ads coming out of that HOTBED of direct response in Canton, Ohio.

They hailed from the Leader Co., Inc. and I often wondered: “Who’s behind these DYNAMITE insertions?”

Well, at last I found out about Tony.

Not only does he have the CHOPS when it comes to copy, marketing and product creation, BUT you can judge a marketer by the quality of his BIG ideas. [Read more…] about Interview with an Under-the-Radar SUPER STAR Who Sold 200,000 Books a Year

“Albert Lasker was the father of modern advertising and – yes – of Madison Avenue. The revolution in promoting and selling which Lasker started in the early 1900s has swept across, and beyond,the Western world. Lasker himself, having taken more money out of the advertising business than anyone else ever has or will, moved on to other concerns: politics, medical research, art, philanthropy.”

Here’s an early 1920s piece when Albert Lasker — and his superstar copywriter, Claude Hopkins — was still at the helm of Lord & Thomas. Alas, he would not allow the name to continue after stepping down and so was born Foote, Cone and Belding.

Salvaging the Shipwreck

Albert D. Lasker ought to make a success of his newest job since he has specialized the handling of business concerns that were headed for the rocks.

ABERT D. LASKER, new Chairman of the Shipping Board, has taken charge of what he himself styles the most colossal commercial wreck the world ever knew. His job is to salvage this derelict of the war. One runs back but to 1880 for the beginning of Albert Lasker. He has put much behind him and come to a high post at the age of 41.

In 188o, in the town of Freiberg, Germany, up by the Swiss border where people go for their health, Albert Lasker was born. No, he was not a German by birth, but an American. His mother was in poor health and had gone over for treatment. She was American born and her husband was an American citizen though he had originally come from Germany. So the boy, in his citizenship, is not disbarred from the presidency, though this is a post which has never come to one of his race, which is that of Baruch and Brandeis and Disraeli. [Read more…] about Ad Legend Albert Lasker and “Salvaging the Shipwreck”