Leo the Lion

He was a short, stout, balding, rumpled, plain-speaking man who viewed the world through black-rimmed bifocals and generally liked what he saw. He was, in brief, the antithesis of the popular conception of the sleek, cynical advertising man. Yet when Leo Burnett died at 79 after a heart attack last week, he was one of the ad world's giants. Along with a handful of others --Bruce Barton, Albert Lasker and Stanley Resor--Burnett was an American original who brought a distinctive viewpoint to the often imitative business of mass persuasion.

Love the Product. At his death, his Chicago-based Leo Burnett Co. was the world's fifth largest ad agency; it handled billings of $389 million last year. It is by far the biggest agency west of the Hudson, and Burnett never felt the need for the creative flash of Manhattan. "Ideas don't know where they are born," he said. His own ideas were based on keen appraisals of consumer wants and were often disarmingly wrapped in homilies. His agency created the Pillsbury Doughboy, as well as the Marlboro Man, the Jolly Green Giant, Star-Kist's Charlie the Tuna, Maytag's dependability campaigns, and the slogans "You're in good hands with Allstate," "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer," and "Fly the friendly skies of United."

A perfectionist, perpetually unsatisfied editor, Burnett was inarticulate on the podium but superb on paper. Armed with a stubby black pencil, his hands and shirt often smudged with lead, he worked over copy until it passed his tough standards. His staff sometimes called him Leo the Lion--and not always affectionately. "I've seen him throw away campaigns that a client had accepted just because he had come up with a better idea," says Leonard Matthews, the agency's president. Burnett championed the "Chicago School of Advertising," which abhors slick promotions. He once told his staff: "We want the consumer to say 'That's a hell of a product' instead of 'That's a hell of an ad.' "

Stars and Apples. Burnett started out lettering advertising signs for his father's dry goods store in St. Johns, Mich. He became a police reporter for the Peoria Journal, later joined G.M. and rose to head Cadillac's ad department. In 1935 he borrowed against his insurance and mortgaged his house to get $50,000 to start his own agency. Legend has it that Burnett worked from before dawn until after dark 364 days a year--and took Christmas morning off. He had put in several hours at his desk on the day he died.

In the gossamer realm of advertising, Burnett sometimes seemed too real to be real. His own slogan, printed on all agency stationery, was "Reaching for the Stars." In 25 countries around the world, the agency's reception rooms always had big bowls of red apples--a small, folksy offering for all visitors. The unpretentiousness of Burnett's work may have provoked the scorn of some young admen, yet many in the agency field contend that his influence was a major force for reasonableness in advertising. Says veteran Adman Emerson Foote: "If there were more people like Leo, there would be no antiadvertising movement today."

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