From the August 4th Chicago Tribune "Leo Burnett, the Marlboro Man of ad agencies, turns 75" by Phil Rosenthal.
Nearly 40 years after he was last on TV and more than a decade after he was last on a billboard, the Marlboro Man stills stands big in our memories. No one thinks of Marlboro as a woman's cigarette, but that's how it started back in the 1920s.
That is, until Leo Burnett's agency got ahold of it. Now "he still stands tall in the mind's eye as a macho icon of virility." No woman stuff here.
Even when he came to be, the Marlboro Man was there to steer us away from the growing health concerns of cigarettes.
Who, in the agency, exactly "created what arguably is the most indelibly etched, well-defined advertising character of all time" has been up for debate for years.
In a 2002 NPR report had Leo Burnett recalling the moment of creation, "I said, 'What's the most masculine symbol you can think of" And right off the top of his head one of the writers spoke up and said a cowboy. And I said, 'That's for sure.'"
A man by the name of Draper Daniels was one of the creative forces at Burnett and has been credited as the Father of the Marlboro Man by some. Of course, the fact that there is a character on AMC's "Mad Men" TV show about a New York City ad agency might lead someone to think that he was also the model for Don Draper.
Of course, Don Draper is also the show's creative force and they did have a problem in an earlier season of coming up with an ad campaign for a cigarette company.
It's a Mad, Mad World. --Cooter
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