100 Days of Leo Burnett, the Midwestern Master of Mascots DAY 23

Here’s today’s Leo:

It is apparent that the company can’t be any better or bigger than the growth of the people in it.” — Leo Burnett

In The Art of Writing Advertising | Conversations with Masters of the Craft, AdAge Interviewer Denis Higgins talks to Leo Burnett:

Q: And from there … you got in on … ?

A: Then I went to Detroit, editing this house magazine. As things developed, I got into the advertising end of it and finally was put in charge of advertising at Cadillac. In the course of that, I got quite well acquainted with Theodore MacManus, who wrote the famous “The Penalty of Leadership” ad, which had been written just before I went to Cadillac.

T. F. MacManus was one of the great advertising men of all time. I was fortunate to be able to spend quite a lot of time with him, and I became fascinated with his thinking and his quality-mindedness and his great power of assumptiveness that he employed in his copy. He really put Cadillac on the map. It was a fine car, but Packard was tops…

Cadillac -- The Penalty of Leadership Original

Continue to Day 24