Albert Davis Lasker (May 1, 1880 – May 30, 1952) was an American businessman who played a major role in shaping modern advertising. He was raised in Galveston, Texas, where his father was the president of several banks. Moving to Chicago, he became a partner in the advertising firm of Lord & Thomas and then its owner. He created and produced many successful ad campaigns. He made new use of radio, changing popular culture and appealing to consumers' psychology. A Republican, he designed new ways to advertise election campaigns, especially the Warren Harding campaign of 1920, and became a philanthropist.

Early life and career

Lasker was born on May 1, 1880, in Freiburg, Germany, the son of Nettie Heidenheimer Davis and Morris Lasker. His family was Jewish. Morris had emigrated from Prussia in 1856, while Lasker's mother was an American citizen. They lived in Galveston, Texas, but Morris had moved Nettie to Germany during her pregnancy for better medical care. The family returned to Galveston within six months, and Lasker spent the rest of his childhood in Texas.

Lasker started working as a newspaper reporter while he was still a teenager. He assisted the successful Congressional campaign of the Republican Robert Hawley in 1896. After he worked as an office boy for a year, one of the agency's salesmen left and Lasker acquired his territory. During this time, Lasker created his first campaign. He hired a friend, Eugene Katz, to write the copy for a series of Wilson Ear Drum Company ads. They featured a photograph of a man cupping his ear. George Wilson, president of the Ear Drum company, adopted the ads and his sales increased.

CEO of Lord & Thomas

When Daniel Lord retired in 1903, Lasker purchased his share and became a partner with Ambrose Thomas. Lasker purchased the firm in 1912 at the age of 32.

Chicago, along with New York, was the center of the nation's advertising industry. Lasker, known as the "father of modern advertising," made Chicago his base from 1898–1942. As head of Lord & Thomas, Lasker devised a copy writing technique that appealed directly to the psychology of the consumer. He taught America to drink an orange for breakfast to sell the perishable fruit in the Midwest, and to buy the Sunkist brand in bulk to compete with Florida oranges. Women seldom smoked cigarettes; he told them if they smoked Lucky Strikes they could stay slender. Lasker's use of radio, particularly with his campaigns for Palmolive soap, Pepsodent toothpaste, Kotex products, and Lucky Strike cigarettes, not only revolutionized the advertising industry but also significantly changed popular culture.

Salesmanship in print

Lasker had an inquiring mind about what advertising was and how it worked. In 1904 he met John E. Kennedy, a former Canadian mounted policeman who had entered advertising. Lasker had believed that advertising was news, but Kennedy told him, "[N]ews is a technique of presentation, but advertising is a very simple thing. I can give it to you in three words, it is 'salesmanship in print'".

Among Lasker's pioneering contributions was the introduction into public schools of classes that explained to young girls about puberty and menstruation (done to promote Kotex tampons). He is also credited as the creator of the soap opera genre, and using radio and television as media driven by advertising.

Business interests

Lasker was an early owner of the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball. He acquired an interest in the team in 1916 and soon purchased majority control. He originated the Lasker Plan, a report that recommended the National Baseball Commission be reformed. This led to the creation of the office of the Commissioner of Baseball. which had become an L&T client in 1916.

After developing a private estate, Mill Road Farm, in Lake Forest, Illinois, more specifically, West Lake Forest. Lasker had a golf course built on it. The National Golf Review in 1939 rated the Lasker Golf Course as No. 23 on its list of "Top 100 Courses in the World." Following the Great Depression, Lasker donated the entire property to the University of Chicago.

Politics

thumb|Lasker (front center-left) with US President [[Warren G. Harding (front center-right) at Yankee Stadium in 1923]]

Lasker was active in the Republican Party and showed the party how to use modern advertising techniques to sell their candidates. He was a key advisor in the 1920 Harding campaign, which resulted in one of the largest landslides in history, as Warren G. Harding appealed for votes in newsreels, billboards and newspaper ads and aimed advertising at women who had recently achieved the right to vote.

Later years

thumb|The mausoleum of Albert Lasker

After 30 years as its chief executive, Lasker sold Lord & Thomas to three senior executives: Emerson H. Foote, Fairfax Cone, and Don Belding. It became Foote, Cone & Belding in 1942. They founded and endowed the Lasker Award, which has recognized the work of many leading scientists and researchers.

On May 30, 1952, Lasker died in New York at the age of 72. to support philanthropic causes, particularly in the area of medical research.

  • Eighty Lasker Award laureates have received a Nobel Prize.

See also

  • History of advertising

References

Further reading

  • 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.
  • Cruikshank, Jeffrey L. and Arthur W. Schultz. The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century (2010)
  • Fox, Stephen. The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and Its Creators. William Morrow and Co., 1984.
  • Gunther, John. Taken at the Flood: the Story of Albert D. Lasker. Harper and Bros., 1960. (1990 ed. )
  • Morello, John A. Selling the President, 1920: Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding. Westport, CT:Praeger Publishers, 2001. .
  • Thomas, Lewis. The Lasker Awards: Four Decades of Scientific Medical Progress. Raven Press, 1986. .
  • Lasker Foundation
  • Albert Lasker Papers at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University