|
|
"A Big Life
(in advertising)", a sort of auto-biography by Mary Wells Lawrence was
published in 2002. The book begins with Mary's account of her first jobs
(in the advertising industry and otherwise) and ends with a slight
political rant about women and their career goals. Mary describes the
book as her effort to record how her agency, Wells Rich Greene, came to
be, came to pass and how she feels about the whole endeavor. The book is
so much more than the agency life story however. In "A Big Life" Mary
writes about personal and professional adventures, and often it is
difficult to distinguish which adventures are personal and which
professional because both lives were so interconnected.
Mary Wells Lawrence entered into the business world at
a time (the 1950's) when very few women were inclined to do so. It has
been said by her critics that she used this gender issue to her
advantage, and at times that she didn't deserve what she gained. After
careful examination of her career and accomplishments it becomes quite
clear that while Mary may have manipulated the male dominated system to
work in her favor, her brains won her success far more often than her
beauty.
Working as a copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach Mary Wells Lawrence
was able to work under the great Bill Bernbach. During her time there
the agency worked on many accounts for which their work became famous:
Avis, Volkswagen and Polaroid. Mary was hired at DDB after working at
McCann Erickson, a fact for which Bill Bernbach wasn't prepared to
forgive her. Mary recalls, on page 5 of her book, the first thing
Bernbach said to her: "McCann Erickson is a terrible agency so you are a
big gamble from my point of view, but Phyllis [his chief copywriter]
sees something in you." She says she never forgot those precise words
due to the fact they took years to get over.
Through her time in the industry Mary went on to work at Jack
Tinker & Partners, start her own advertising agency, Wells Rich Greene,
and work with clients from Alka Seltzer to Braniff airlines. Mary writes
extensively about her clients at Wells Rich Greene, about their
successes and their failures. In a passionate section of the book she
discusses becoming the first female CEO of a company traded on the New
York Stock Exchange. She tells stories of her travels all over the
world, her adventures with love and a family. Mary also discusses her
movie Dirty Little Billy and we even get a picture of her with
co-star Jack Warner.
"A Big Life (in advertising)" is an inspirational and
adventurous read for anyone interested in advertising. I do feel,
however, that women in the industry can feel empowered and excited about
becoming successful women in advertising by reading about the difficult
and arduous journey Mary took.
What the Critics Say
"A Big Life covers more than just the remarkable,
creative career of Lawrence. It is the brutal, inside sory of
advertising itself and documents the importance of advertising in our
daily lives. Lawrence is a fascinating women, and her story is as sharp
and focused as the advertising copy that made her a leader in the
industry."
-Josephine Hart
"Lawrence delivers a beguiling look inside thirty years of the zippy,
fast-moving ad culture and does so with the kind of witty, charming
self-deprecation often seen in the ads she created."
-Publishers Weekly
"In
the nineteen-sixties, the stiff, information-heavy ads of the previous
decade were buried beneath a wave of hip, daring TV commercials and
print campaigns as the Wasps who had ruled Madison Avenue gave way to a
more diverse crowd of copywriters and art directors. Lawrence was the
head of the ad agency Wells Rich Greene during this period, and her
account is true to the spirit of that revolution: insouciant, ebullient,
and, above all, stylish. She provides a behind-the-scenes look at some
of the best ad campaigns she was involved in, including "Plop, plop,
fizz, fizz," "Flick your Bic," and "I Love New York," and, along with
descriptions of day-to-day combat with clients and competitors, offers
vivid sketches of life in the swinging sixties. The result is that most
unusual of books -- an entertaining business memoir."
-New Yorker
Buy the book here
|
