Leo Burnett Worldwide, Inc.
TypeSubsidiary
IndustryAdvertising
FoundedAugust 5, 1935 (1935-08-05)
FounderLeo Burnett
Headquarters
Leo Burnett Building
Chicago, Illinois
,
United States
Number of locations
85 offices worldwide
Number of employees
9,000+
ParentPublicis Groupe
DivisionsArc Worldwide
Rokkan
Turner Duckworth
Websiteleoburnett.com

Leo Burnett Worldwide, Inc., also known as Leo Burnett Company, Inc., is an American advertising company, founded on August 5, 1935, in Chicago by Leo Burnett.[1]

In September 2002, the company was acquired by Publicis Groupe, the world's third largest advertising agency holding group and one of the largest agency networks.[2][3]

History

Leo Burnett Company, Inc. was founded on August 5, 1935, in Chicago by Leo Burnett, who had three accounts to start.[4][2] In 1944, the agency opened a branch office in New York City. In February 1967, the founder transferred all of his voting stock to a charitable organization. Billings were then "nearing $250 million".[5]

On March 20, 1967, the agency completed its acquisition of D.P. Brother & Co.[2] On June 8, 1971, the founder died at the age of 79.[6]

On November 3, 1999, Burnett and D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles announced the creation of BDM. BDM was quickly renamed Bcom3. Roy Bostock was named chairman and Roger Haupt was named CEO.

In 2000, Leo Burnett Kreasindo Indonesia is founded.[7] In September 2002, Bcom3 was acquired by Publicis Groupe.[8][2]

Brazil-based independent advertising agency Tailor Made was acquired by Publicis in 2011 and merged with Leo Burnett Brazil to form Leo Burnett Tailor Made. At that time, clients included Fiat, Procter & Gamble, Emirates and Chrysler.[9]

Andrew Swinand became CEO in 2017.[10]

Clients

Foods

The Pillsbury Doughboy was created for the Pillsbury Company by Rudy Perz, a copywriter for Leo Burnett.[11]

Agency employee Tom Rogers created the character Charlie the Tuna for StarKist Tuna. The ad campaign added the phrase "Sorry Charlie" to the American lexicon.[12] StarKist still uses the spokesfish to represent the brand.[13]

StarKist's relationship with the Leo Burnett Company began in 1958 and continued after Heinz bought StarKist in 1963. For Heinz, the agency produced a series of television ads emphasizing the thickness of their ketchup brand, including a memorable ad featuring the Carly Simon song "Anticipation".[14]

The Jolly Green Giant and Sprout advertising icons came out of the agency. The Minnesota Valley Canning Company originally created the Jolly Green giant character as a large, cave-man looking character to draw attention to the size of their Le Sueur peas. The Leo Burnett agency was hired to make the Jolly Green Giant more friendly-looking. In 1972, the Jolly Green Giant was joined by Sprout to appeal to children.[15][16]

Hamburger giant McDonald's began operations in India in 1996 and recruited Leo Burnett (India).[17]

The agency created the Rolling Can commercial for Chef Boyardee in 2005. In it, a can of pasta jumps off a grocery store shelf and follows a little girl home.

Other products

In 1961, the agency created the "Dependability" campaign for the Maytag brand. The campaign featured actual consumer testimonials on the reliability of their appliances. The campaign evolved into a radio call-in show in Canada where an appliance repairman would offer advice to customers. In 1967, the 'Ol Lonely character debuted on television. Jesse White played the role of the lonely Maytag repairman until 1989 when he was replaced by actor Gordon Jump.[18]

The agency guided Philip Morris (now part of Altria Group) in building Marlboro into a global brand, with an emphasis on manliness as typified by the image of the Marlboro Man on the American Frontier.[19][20][21] Previously the brand was "a feminine brand."[5][22]: p.LB-6 

Burnett created the popular brand mascot Morris the Cat for 9Lives cat food. Several dozen television commercials featuring the "finicky" eater were produced from 1969 until Burnett ended their relationship with parent company Heinz in 1994.[14]

Controversy

Guarita State Park was one of several articles affected by a covert advertising campaign. The article's previous main image was briefly replaced by one prominently featuring a man in a North Face jacket.

Pokémon

In the English dub of the Pokémon: The Johto Journeys episode The Whistle Stop, originally aired December 2, 2000, the character James gets partially swallowed by his Victreebel, and while struggling utters garbled dialogue consisting of the phrase "Leo Burnett and 4Kids are the Devil!" backmasked. Eric Stuart, James' English voice actor at the time, later explained[23] that this was in protest of the companies' decision to stop compensating Pokémon voice actors for the use of their audio clips in promos for the show. This scene was redubbed in later home releases.

North Face

In 2019, Brazilian-based subsidiary Leo Burnett Tailor Made engaged in product placement on Wikipedia, in which they placed images advertising The North Face products on Wikipedia,[24][25][26] and advertised that they had done so in a video posted on YouTube.[27][28] Once this was discovered, Wikipedia volunteers removed the images,[29] and the Wikimedia Foundation released a statement condemning Leo Burnett Tailor Made's use of Wikipedia for product placement.[30]

The North Face posted a response as a reply on Twitter, stating that they had ended the campaign and that "We believe deeply in Wikipedia’s mission and apologize for engaging in activity inconsistent with those principles."[31]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Company Overview of Leo Burnett Company, Inc". Bloomberg. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Leo Burnett Co". Retrieved May 31, 2018.
  3. ↑ "Leo Burnett Worldwide, Inc.: Private Company Information - Businessweek". Businessweek.com. Archived from the original on April 17, 2008.
  4. ↑ "Company Overview of Leo Burnett Company, Inc". Bloomberg. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
  5. 1 2 "Leo Burnett, still reaching for the stars after 60 years". Advertising Age. July 31, 1995.
  6. ↑ "Leo Burnett, 79, Led Ad Agency". The New York Times. June 9, 1971. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
  7. ↑ "Leo Burnett creates Indonesian alliance". Advertising Age. AdAge. February 22, 2000. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
  8. ↑ "Leo Burnett Worldwide, Inc.: Private Company Information - Businessweek". Businessweek.com. Archived from the original on April 17, 2008.
  9. ↑ "Publicis Groupe buys into Brazilian agency to bolster Leo Burnett". www.campaignlive.co.uk. Retrieved May 30, 2019.
  10. ↑ "Leo Burnett Worldwide names new CEO". Crain's Chicago Business. January 27, 2016. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  11. ↑ Sam Roberts (April 3, 2010). "Rudolph Perz, Creator of Pillsbury's Doughboy, Dies at 89". The New York Times. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  12. ↑ McCarthy, Michael (November 17, 1997). "Charlie the Tuna Returns to Ads And More Corporate Rejection". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  13. ↑ Holley, Joe (July 8, 2005). "Charlie the Tuna Creator Tom Rogers Dies". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
  14. 1 2 "A Parting of Ways for Heinz And Morris the Cat's Creator". The New York Times. November 24, 1994. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  15. ↑ "Character of the Week: Jolly Green Giant". Retro Planet. February 28, 2009. Archived from the original on May 1, 2018. Retrieved April 30, 2018.
  16. ↑ Taylor, Heather (August 28, 2017). "The Story of Green Giant's Sprout". AW360. Retrieved April 30, 2018.
  17. ↑ William M. O'Barr, "Advertising in India." Advertising & Society Review 9#3 (2008): 1-33.
  18. ↑ "Still Lonely After All These Years (8/1)". Archived from the original on October 3, 2018. Retrieved May 18, 2018.
  19. ↑ Navid Hafez, and P. M. Ling. "How Philip Morris built Marlboro into a global brand for young adults: implications for international tobacco control." Tobacco control 14.4 (2005): 262-271.
  20. ↑ John G. Blair, "Cowboys, Europe and smoke: Marlboro in the saddle." in Rob Kroes and Michael P. Malone, eds., The American West: As seen by Europeans and Americans (1989): 360-83.
  21. ↑ Hilary Cooperman and Relli Shechter. "Branding the Riders: 'Marlboro Country' and the Formation of a New Middle Class in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey." New global studies 2#3 (2008).
  22. ↑ "Burnett repositioned Marlboro cigarettes from a feminine brand to one that shouted masculinity."
  23. ↑ Yui-senpai (August 21, 2011). Eric Stuart answers a long-wondered question about Pokémon. Youtube. Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  24. ↑ "Egg on North Face: Wikipedia furious after glamp-wear giant swaps article pics for sneaky ad shots – and even brags about it in a video • The Register Forums". forums.theregister.co.uk. Retrieved May 30, 2019.
  25. ↑ Hern, Alex (May 30, 2019). "North Face criticised for replacing Wikipedia pics with branded shots". The Guardian. Retrieved May 30, 2019.
  26. ↑ McCarthy, John (May 30, 2019). "The North Face axes 'unethical' Wikipedia product placement campaign by Leo Burnett". The Drum. Retrieved May 30, 2019.
  27. ↑ "The North Face Breaches Wikipedia Terms Of Service To Reach Top Of Google Search Results". www.mediapost.com. Retrieved May 30, 2019.
  28. ↑ Fernando H Patucci (May 24, 2019), The North Face / Top Of Images, retrieved May 30, 2019
  29. ↑ Lee, Dami (May 29, 2019). "North Face tried to scam Wikipedia to get its products to the top of Google search". The Verge. Retrieved May 30, 2019.
  30. ↑ "Let's talk about The North Face defacing Wikipedia". Wikimedia Foundation. May 29, 2019. Retrieved May 30, 2019.
  31. ↑ @thenorthface (May 30, 2019). "@Wikipedia @LeoBurnett We believe deeply in @Wikipedia's mission and apologize for engaging in activity inconsistent with those principles. Effective immediately, we have ended the campaign and moving forward, we'll commit to ensuring that our teams and vendors are better trained on the site policies" (Tweet). Retrieved May 29, 2019 – via Twitter.
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