Greg Beato calls Albert Lasker the original mad man:
At the time, most ads simply presented a product to the public, perhaps with an illustrated mascot and an uninspired tagline. “How would you like to have a fairy in your home?” went one that depicted a cute little girl. “Use Fairy Soap.” For Lasker, however, just saying a product’s name wasn’t enough. Advertising was news, he decided. It had to communicate something important. And then, with the help of a copywriter named John E. Kennedy, he further developed his philosophy. Advertising was, as Kennedy put it, “salesmanship in print.” You had to appeal to a consumer’s self-interest. You had to give potential customers a “reason why,” a directive that would make them understand how a product could dramatically improve their life in some way.
“A century later, this doesn’t sound like a particularly powerful insight,” the authors of The Man Who Sold America observe. But in 1898, Lasker’s approach to commerce was as revolutionary an idea as Amazon and eBay would be 100 years later. Combining persuasive, consumer-centric copy with a media network that could reach millions of people at once allowed manufacturers to move goods as never before. Over the course of his career, Lasker oversaw dozens of hugely successful campaigns and established Lord & Thomas as one of leading agencies in the United States. Lord & Thomas made oranges and raisins proprietary by creating the brands Sunkist and Sun-Maid. It helped Goodyear quadruple the sale of its tires in less than four years. It figured out a better way to market Kotex, offering it in a “wrapped box” that women could pick up and purchase without having to request it from a sales clerk. It turned Pepsodent and Palmolive into category leaders. It helped Lucky Strikes increase sales from 25 million to 150 million a day by positioning it as an alternative to sweets for women watching their figures. It brought Amos & Andy to NBC’s radio network, hired an unknown Bob Hope to serve as its pitchman for Pepsodent, and helped pioneer the soap opera genre with its radio show The Story of Mary Marlin.
In 1904, a 24-year-old Lasker purchased a 25 percent ownership stake in Lord & Thomas. Eight years later, he owned it completely. Under his guidance, the agency didn’t just craft pretty images and slogans to publicize its clients’ products. Instead, it served a more strategic role. In many instances, it encouraged the companies it worked with to reformulate products in ways that made them more compelling to consumers. In others, it hatched schemes to get consumers to use its clients’ products in ways the client had never pursued. To get people to buy more oranges, for example, and thus benefit its client, the California Fruit Growers Exchange, it hit upon the strategy of popularizing orange juice. First, it worked with a manufacturer to develop better juice extractors — electric ones for commercial use and simple glass ones for the home. Then, it launched its “drink an orange” campaign, with ads that advised consumers to look for the inexpensive glass extractors at their local retailer. This single campaign, the authors of The Man Who Sold America report, increased orange consumption per serving in the United States “from half an orange to between two and three.”