Albert Lasker

Albert Davis Lasker (May 1, 1880 - May 30, 1952) was an American businessman who is often considered to be the founder of modern advertising.

Born in Freiburg, Germany when his American parents were visiting their homeland, Albert Lasker was raised in Galveston, Texas. He started out as a newspaper reporter while a teenager, but moved to Chicago and started working at Lord & Thomas advertising agency which he purchased in 1912 at the age of 32. He remained its chief executive for more than forty years before selling out to three staff members, Foote, Cone & Belding.

Lasker started out as an office boy at Lord & Thomas in 1898. A year later, one of the agency's salesmen left, and Lasker acquired his territory. It was during this time that Lasker created his first campaign. He hired a friend, Eugene Katz, to write the copy for a series of Wilson Ear Drum Company ads. They featured a photograph of a man cupping his ear. George Wilson, president of the Ear Drum company, adopted the ads and sales increased.

Lasker had an inquiring mind about what advertising was and how it worked. In 1904 he met John E. Kennedy who had been a Canadian mounted policemen and who now promised him to tell him what advertising was. Lasker believed that advertising was news, but Kennedy said to him that, "news is a technique of presentation, but advertising is a very simple thing. I can give it to you in three words, it is "salesmanship in print.""

The first client they put this principle to work on was The 1900 Washer Co. Such was the success of this, that within four months of running the first ad their advertising spend went from $15,000 a year to $30,000 a month and within six months were one of the three or four largest advertisers in the USA.

In 1908 he recruited Claude C. Hopkins to the firm specifically to work on The Van Camp Packaging Company (Van Camp's) account. The relationship lasted for 17 years.

Lasker is largely responsible for America's infatuation with orange juice. Lord & Thomas acquired the Sunkist Growers, Incorporated account in 1910, when Lasker was 30. The citrus industry was in a slump, and California growers were producing so many oranges that they were cutting down trees in order to limit supply. Lasker created campaigns that not only encouraged consumers to eat oranges, but also to drink orange juice. He was able to increase consumption enough that the growers stopped chopping down their groves.

Among Lasker's pioneering contributions were the introduction into schools of classes that would explain to young girls about menstruation (done to promote Kotex tampons). He is also credited as being the inventor of the soap opera, with being responsible for the fact that radio (and television after it) is an advertising-driven medium, and with having masterminded Warren G. Harding's election campaign.

Lasker is also known as a former owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. He acquired an interest in the team in 1916 then soon purchased majority control. Lasker was the original planner for the Lasker Plan, a report that recommended baseball's governing authority be reformed which led to the creation of the office of the Commissioner of Baseball. In 1925, he sold the team to William Wrigley Jr.

His son, Edward joined the Lord & Thomas advertising firm in 1933 and worked there until 1942 when he moved to Los Angeles and became a Hollywood film producer and practiced law.

Albert Lasker was voted to the American National Business Hall of Fame. He used his great wealth to create and fund the Lasker Foundation to support philanthropic causes, particularly in the area of medical research. The Lasker Awards are named for him.

Albert Lasker died in New York on May 30, 1952.

External links and references

* [http://www.laskerfoundation.org/about/albert.html Lasker Foundation]
* Ingham, John N. "Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders" (1983) Greenwood Press ISBN 978-0313239106
* Cappo, Joe "The Future of Advertising" (2003) McGraw-Hill ISBN 0-07-140315-9. See page 24.