Advertising

Leo Burnett

Leo Burnett was born on October 21st, 1891 in the United States of America. Growing up, he
was the oldest child, he worked in the family’s dry goods store alongside his father whom he
watched create advertisements to promote their business. Leo Burnett got a job as a
reporter for the Peoria Journal Star in Illinois after college. In 1917, he moved to Detroit and
was hired to edit an in-house publication for Cadillac Clearing House and later became an
advertising director for that institution. In 1935, Burnett founded the Leo Burnett Company,
Inc. The agency now has over 9,000 employees in over 85 offices globally.

Leo Burnett’s most famous idea about how to make advertisements successful was to create
an image around the product to make it instantly recognisable. Burnett used dramatic
realism in his advertising, he also believed in finding the ‘inherent drama’ of the products
and presenting it in advertisements through warmth, shared emotions and experiences. He
was well-known for his ‘cultural archetypes’ in which he created mythical creatures that
represented American Values, this is evident on campaigns such as Tony the Tiger, Jolly
Green Giant and the Marlboro Man. These were very efficient in getting the audience’s
attention and it gets the attention of mainly kids who are the main target audience for Tony
the Tiger. His research into target audiences was very specific so that he could create the
animation for the audience.

The Marlboro Man was first invented due to the company wanting to expand their business
to men instead of just women as the image of Marlboro cigarettes was mainly seen as a
woman’s brand. Leo Burnett created the image of a very manly men smoking the Marlboro
brand which increased sales of Marlboro which resulted in the brand going from less than
one percent of the cigarette market to the fourth-biggest brand in the world in less than a
year. This cowboy image then became the main selling point as they would learn to
resonate the brand with it.

Leo Burnett used this technique very well as he understood what men thought to be a
‘masculine’ brand. By using the image of the manly cowboy it gave the audience the effect
of it being a masculine filter cigarette brand. Leo Burnett used sports players and guys with
tattoos to imply that people in the sporting industry and in the military also smoke this
brand of cigarettes which brought in a certain type of buyer.
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Tony the Tiger was used to advertise Frosted Flakes which is a product by Kellogg’s, the tiger
is a very good ideal of how a child should be such as being sporty, tough, brave, good
performance and is loves frosted flakes. This meant when introducing the tiger to kids it
promoted the brand and the tiger was very rememberable for children.

In conclusion, Leo Burnett changed the way the advertisement industry works and his ideas
are still relevant today as Tony the Tiger and the Jolly Green Giant are still used in
advertisements today. Leo Burnetts company was names ‘2016 Network of the year’ at the
2016 Epica awards. “The Epica Awards are judged by the connoisseurs of our industry,
opinion makers with a keen eye for brilliantly told stories that impact messages”
https://leoburnett.com/articles/news/leo-burnett-is-network-of-the-year-at-2016-epica-
awards/
This shows that messages that Leo Burnett made with his company are still impactful and
still resonate with audiences for decades after with very little change. His ideas for Tony the
Tiger were brilliant and iconic in the advertising industry.

https://biography.yourdictionary.com/leo-burnett
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Burnett
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/an-unfiltered-oral-history-of-the-marlboro-man
https://leoburnett.com/articles/news/leo-burnett-is-network-of-the-year-at-2016-epica-
awards/