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A Big Life In Advertising
The first woman president of an advertising agency and the first woman CEO of a company on the New York Stock Exchange tells her "riveting How she shattered every glass ceiling and became a Madison Avenue legend."*
From her role as fledgling copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach -- the agency that made big-car-obsessed America fall in love with the funny little Volkswagen -- to her brilliant campaign for Braniff Airways that had the flying public scrambling for seats on wild-colored planes to founding the fastest-growing ad agency in history, Mary Wells Lawrence's life in advertising couldn't be any bigger. As The New York Observer put it, her agency, Wells Rich Greene, created ads that "etched indelible phrases into the public 'Flick your Bic' and 'I Love New York!' and 'Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is.'"
For those thinking about a life in advertising for themselves and for anyone who enjoys being transported by a great storyteller's art, Mary Wells Lawrence is the most energetic, passionate guide to the world of American advertising in all its brilliance, excitement, fun and crazines
From her role as fledgling copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach -- the agency that made big-car-obsessed America fall in love with the funny little Volkswagen -- to her brilliant campaign for Braniff Airways that had the flying public scrambling for seats on wild-colored planes to founding the fastest-growing ad agency in history, Mary Wells Lawrence's life in advertising couldn't be any bigger. As The New York Observer put it, her agency, Wells Rich Greene, created ads that "etched indelible phrases into the public 'Flick your Bic' and 'I Love New York!' and 'Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is.'"
For those thinking about a life in advertising for themselves and for anyone who enjoys being transported by a great storyteller's art, Mary Wells Lawrence is the most energetic, passionate guide to the world of American advertising in all its brilliance, excitement, fun and crazines
320 pages, Paperback
First published May 7, 2002
27 people are currently reading
748 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
May 18, 2013
If you love watching Mad Men, you will LOVE reading this book. I am convinced Matthew Weiner read it. Seemed like every chapter had some scene or situation that had me thinking, this reminds me of a scene from Mad Men (I've seen every episode, most more than once. Please don't judge me, LOL.)
And I also think Peggy Olsen might be based partially on Wells Lawrence. Also, a little of Don as well. This woman was the first female agency owner on the NYSE. She was a pioneer in every sense.
This is such a delicious read. Well-written and refreshingly candid, with more than a bit of name-dropping of Hollyweirders and Broadway Brats, jet setters, and various celebrities, the reader who can remember tv advertising in the 60's on will get inside dirt on how many of the famous ad campaigns came about. You know the folklore that Good Wife actress Julianna Margulies; dad created Plop plop fizz fizz oh what a relief it is? Well, her dad was working for Wells Lawrence.
Throughout, Wells Lawrence offers tons of great professional advice and models her talented skill set in example after example of how she succeeded in getting accounts, winning the business, keeping the client happy...and even the times she failed. I was just delightfully surprised at how interesting and enjoyable this book was. Highly recommended, especially if you love watching Mad Men.
And I also think Peggy Olsen might be based partially on Wells Lawrence. Also, a little of Don as well. This woman was the first female agency owner on the NYSE. She was a pioneer in every sense.
This is such a delicious read. Well-written and refreshingly candid, with more than a bit of name-dropping of Hollyweirders and Broadway Brats, jet setters, and various celebrities, the reader who can remember tv advertising in the 60's on will get inside dirt on how many of the famous ad campaigns came about. You know the folklore that Good Wife actress Julianna Margulies; dad created Plop plop fizz fizz oh what a relief it is? Well, her dad was working for Wells Lawrence.
Throughout, Wells Lawrence offers tons of great professional advice and models her talented skill set in example after example of how she succeeded in getting accounts, winning the business, keeping the client happy...and even the times she failed. I was just delightfully surprised at how interesting and enjoyable this book was. Highly recommended, especially if you love watching Mad Men.
July 19, 2007
A hero for all women in the advertising industry.
December 4, 2011
Honestly I didn't even finish this. It's just not very well written. Cool though to get a woman's perspective on 1960s advertising. It's probably a great book if you're in the mood for it.
January 27, 2023
it was... okay! read it for a prompt for a bookstore's reading challenge. the stories about strategy and research and the ups and downs of advertising were super insightful, and i loved hearing the backstories of some iconic campaigns. however, didn't love the constant sea of names (could hardly keep anyone straight and eventually gave up on trying) and some of the winding, lengthy personal tales. got real easy to skip pages in the last half of the book. solid three star overall?
Read
November 28, 2011This breezy memoir of life as a Mad Woman charts the industry's move from boutique "creative" shops to global distribution houses, and has good insights for fading brands. Mary Wells and her team really did help furnish our minds in the '70s with among others Plop Plop Fizz Fizz, Quality is Job One, Midasize, and I -heart- New York.
Want to read
August 20, 2021I want to read this book to find out what happens to Peggy Olsen and Joan Harris (and I heard Lawrence is the basis for Peggy), but it's too much whole also binging.
July 13, 2007
Mary Wells Lawrence's self-aggrandizing memoir is probably of interest to anyone who works in Advertising/Marketing and wonders about "the good old days".
January 5, 2008
I read this on my honeymoon as I laid by the pool. It seemed like a great book, but I may have been influenced by the Hawaiian scenery. :)
January 26, 2008
I would like to be her, although maybe a tad less pompous. But nevertheless it was a good read about a woman making things happen in a man's (ad) world.
May 20, 2009
A truly inspiring memoir.
August 30, 2010
not the most beautifully written, but a compelling and totally amazing story of a woman's journey to success in advertising. Mary is incredible. nothing like this could ever happen today.
July 28, 2008
Awesome book.
December 23, 2012
I aspire to be this person.
May 14, 2021
Summary: A memoir of the first woman to head up a Madison Avenue advertising firm, producing some of the most memorable advertising campaigns of the 1960’s through the 1980’s.
From childhood on, she loved drama and story and envisioned her own life as one. At the end of this memoir she writes:
“I believe that whether you are a woman or a man you are supposed to stretch everything that you are, you are supposed to love with all your might, you are supposed to have a big life, so that when all is said and done you can say to yourself, with feeling, ‘I loved my life so much.’ “
MARY WELLS LAWRENCE, P. 290.
This memoir tells the story of how she rose from a copywriter for advertising in the bargain basement of McKelvey’s department store in Youngstown, Ohio to become the first woman to lead a Madison Avenue advertising firm, and eventually the highest paid CEO in the business. Within a couple years of McKelvey’s, she was the fashion advertising manager at Macy’s. During this time she divorced and remarried her first husband, Bert Wells, only to divorce him again in 1965. What was apparent in the memoir is that he did not want the big life Mary did.
She moved over to working with advertising agencies, eventually going to Doyle Dane Bernbach, a major formative influence in her career. After a brief stint with Jack Tinker, during which she developed a campaign for Braniff Airlines featuring brightly pastel painted planes (“the end of the plain plane”), she left to form her own agency. Tinker reneged on a promotion he’d promised, and with two people on her team, Richard Rich and Stewart Greene she formed Wells Rich Greene.
The memoir tells the behind the scenes stories of ad campaigns from Benson & Hedges “cigarette breaks,” American Motors Javelin vs. Mustang comparisons, Alka Seltzer’s “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” and “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” and the “I love New York” campaign. Her agency taught us to “trust the Midas touch,” that at Ford “Quality is Job One,” and to “Flick your Bic.” She describes the lengths she went to to understand the interests of the mostly male clients she dealt with. She kept marginal products like Gleem toothpaste and Pringles alive for P & G.
Harding Lawrence, the CEO of Braniff was really the husband she should have married all along. He understood her world because he lived in one like it. One senses in reading the memoir that while she was a genius at understanding the needs of clients and creating television ads that told a story that engaged consumers, while he understood the ins and outs of business and organizational life. They made a great team.
Lawrence recounts numerous stretches of night and day creative efforts to meet deadlines and create these iconic ads. She describes the lengths she went to to understand the interests of the mostly male clients she dealt with, how difficult clients could be, and the day she resigned the lucrative account her firm had with TWA. As we read on, we sense the increasing exhaustion over years of chasing, catering to, and having clients drop her. Then came two cancer surgeries and the realization of neglected dimensions, including the spiritual in her life. In 1990, she sold her interest as the agency merged with a French firm BDDP. Sadly, by 1998, the combined agency was out of business. She accepts it philosophically with a sense that creative endeavors have their season.
One thing about the organization of the book is that it begins with her time in New York and the early efforts to build the agency. Then it reverts to her childhood in Poland, Ohio, her introduction to drama at the Youngstown Playhouse, and her initial entry into the advertising world working for Vera Friedman at McKelvey’s, learning to tell stories about clothing with a few words for the working people who purchased in the bargain basement. Then she returns to Wells Rich Green and the challenges of leading the big agency she built.
This is a fast-paced read, as fast-paced as one can imagine her life (she is still living at this writing). It does leave me wondering what the idea of a big life has come to mean in the intervening years. On May 25, Mary Wells Lawrence will be 92 years old. She has lived both a big and long life. Not bad for a woman who grew up in Poland, Ohio.
From childhood on, she loved drama and story and envisioned her own life as one. At the end of this memoir she writes:
“I believe that whether you are a woman or a man you are supposed to stretch everything that you are, you are supposed to love with all your might, you are supposed to have a big life, so that when all is said and done you can say to yourself, with feeling, ‘I loved my life so much.’ “
MARY WELLS LAWRENCE, P. 290.
This memoir tells the story of how she rose from a copywriter for advertising in the bargain basement of McKelvey’s department store in Youngstown, Ohio to become the first woman to lead a Madison Avenue advertising firm, and eventually the highest paid CEO in the business. Within a couple years of McKelvey’s, she was the fashion advertising manager at Macy’s. During this time she divorced and remarried her first husband, Bert Wells, only to divorce him again in 1965. What was apparent in the memoir is that he did not want the big life Mary did.
She moved over to working with advertising agencies, eventually going to Doyle Dane Bernbach, a major formative influence in her career. After a brief stint with Jack Tinker, during which she developed a campaign for Braniff Airlines featuring brightly pastel painted planes (“the end of the plain plane”), she left to form her own agency. Tinker reneged on a promotion he’d promised, and with two people on her team, Richard Rich and Stewart Greene she formed Wells Rich Greene.
The memoir tells the behind the scenes stories of ad campaigns from Benson & Hedges “cigarette breaks,” American Motors Javelin vs. Mustang comparisons, Alka Seltzer’s “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” and “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” and the “I love New York” campaign. Her agency taught us to “trust the Midas touch,” that at Ford “Quality is Job One,” and to “Flick your Bic.” She describes the lengths she went to to understand the interests of the mostly male clients she dealt with. She kept marginal products like Gleem toothpaste and Pringles alive for P & G.
Harding Lawrence, the CEO of Braniff was really the husband she should have married all along. He understood her world because he lived in one like it. One senses in reading the memoir that while she was a genius at understanding the needs of clients and creating television ads that told a story that engaged consumers, while he understood the ins and outs of business and organizational life. They made a great team.
Lawrence recounts numerous stretches of night and day creative efforts to meet deadlines and create these iconic ads. She describes the lengths she went to to understand the interests of the mostly male clients she dealt with, how difficult clients could be, and the day she resigned the lucrative account her firm had with TWA. As we read on, we sense the increasing exhaustion over years of chasing, catering to, and having clients drop her. Then came two cancer surgeries and the realization of neglected dimensions, including the spiritual in her life. In 1990, she sold her interest as the agency merged with a French firm BDDP. Sadly, by 1998, the combined agency was out of business. She accepts it philosophically with a sense that creative endeavors have their season.
One thing about the organization of the book is that it begins with her time in New York and the early efforts to build the agency. Then it reverts to her childhood in Poland, Ohio, her introduction to drama at the Youngstown Playhouse, and her initial entry into the advertising world working for Vera Friedman at McKelvey’s, learning to tell stories about clothing with a few words for the working people who purchased in the bargain basement. Then she returns to Wells Rich Green and the challenges of leading the big agency she built.
This is a fast-paced read, as fast-paced as one can imagine her life (she is still living at this writing). It does leave me wondering what the idea of a big life has come to mean in the intervening years. On May 25, Mary Wells Lawrence will be 92 years old. She has lived both a big and long life. Not bad for a woman who grew up in Poland, Ohio.
June 22, 2024
I did enjoy this book. It was not my favorite read, but it definitely taught me a lot about advertising, that’s for damn sure. Mary’s ability to perfectly describe her perspective on how to capture the customer and cater to their desires is so captivating. She is so passionate about catering to the right customer; after all, that is the essence of advertising.
That being said, Mary taught me about true passion through this book. I have never read or spoken to someone who loved something as much as she did. She loved advertising so much, and you can really feel that in her writing. I find it so admirable that someone can love something so much and make such an amazing impact. If anyone reading this review is going into the business world, this book is a must read. She does a phenomenal job about how to think about selling, advertising that communicates clear messages, and how to push through conflict. This might not have been my favorite read, but it was definitely very worthwhile.
That being said, Mary taught me about true passion through this book. I have never read or spoken to someone who loved something as much as she did. She loved advertising so much, and you can really feel that in her writing. I find it so admirable that someone can love something so much and make such an amazing impact. If anyone reading this review is going into the business world, this book is a must read. She does a phenomenal job about how to think about selling, advertising that communicates clear messages, and how to push through conflict. This might not have been my favorite read, but it was definitely very worthwhile.
January 4, 2022
It was fascinating to read the story of a female leader in advertising so early on in the industry. I enjoyed hearing all of her war stories and it also served as a good reminder of what it takes to forge longstanding client relationships. That said, it felt like it dragged on in parts and she certainly thought highly of herself which got a little annoying at times.
July 24, 2018
A really funny, entertaining, and for the most part still relevant look at advertising. She's a pretty inspiring lady even if some of her hot tips include "sit clients next to the princess grace of Monaco" and "have a diverse agency, hire jews". Still, makes me want to be more creative.
July 27, 2022
My ad agency had us read this for our women’s book club and I tried really hard to enjoy it but realized I don’t care at all about this white woman’s life. Also the last chapter with her romanticizing India is so weird.
June 5, 2024
Great book! So glad she wrote a book, nice to hear her perspective on advertising business in 1950s. She should be better known, first woman to lead an ad agency, inducted in copywriters hall of fame, etc. She knew a lot of people-many familiar names from the business world.
July 1, 2019
I wish I would have read this when I started working in advertisement. Not only she inspires with her work battles, but also tells a compelling story about herself.
May 5, 2020
Loved this.
August 16, 2023
I had high hopes. If I were more into the history of advertising in America I think I'd be more thrilled here. But, interesting all the same.
November 4, 2023
Great read especially if you are or have been in advertising
August 25, 2024
Surprisingly boring and not well written.
October 23, 2025
Matthew Weiner: can I borrow your homework?
September 5, 2013
Mary Wells certainly doesn't need a champion, but I feel strongly about recommending this memoir after reading several reviews that had nothing to do with the book itself. One of my pet peeves are reviews that critique the book or movie that the reviewer wanted or expected to read or see, rather than the one that they did.
Mary Wells Lawrence was one of the pioneers of advertising-as-we-know-it, and even if you abhor every single ad you've ever seen, read or heard, you should be glad that she and her compatriots, like Bill Bernbach and David Ogilvy, were the pioneers, or you would abhor ads even more.
During the *golden age of advertising,* roughly the late 1950s through the 1970s, agencies and agency personnel were considered the ultra-chic, witty, sophisticated and (INCREDIBLY) well-financed denizens of the business world. Wells became a celebrity and fashion icon, but most significantly, was the first female copywriter inducted into the Copywriters Hall of Fame, the first woman to be CEO of an advertising agency, and the first woman CEO of a company traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
Don't read this expecting a manual on how to juggle a Fortune 10 CEO job and still spend quality time with your children; how to maintain a loving, long-lasting bicoastal marriage with and without the Concorde; or even how to dress while having dinner with the President, attending the Oscars or dining and dancing at every jet set restaurant or club in New York. In summary, she loves her daughters, is devoted to her (now late) husband and has had an incredibly exciting social life.
She even glosses over the beginnings of her relationship with her future husband, Braniff CEO Harding Lawrence, as much as possible. It must have been a huge scandal at the time. He was her client at Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) while serving as VP of Continental Airlines, and was one of her first clients when she started Wells Rich Greene and he was Chairman and President of Braniff. They were , of course, both married to other people at the time. This is her life in advertising and the names she drops are virtually all business related.
By the 2/3rd point, you can tell that huge chunks of the original manuscript must have been edited out and not very thoughtfully. Wells does give an in-depth look at the beginning of her career and her rise through the agency ranks, and recounts the behind-the-scene tales of a few of her agency's most well-known accounts, including Braniff, Benson and Hedges and American Motors.
Other sections of the narrative aren't chronological, jumping from account to account and year to year quite rapidly. Whether this was intentional or the result of poor editing, the effect produced a disorientation not unlike the breathless pace of an advertising *creative shop.* Overall, it's a good read and a very rare woman's perspective on the advertising industry at a pivotal time in its history.
You can probably ignore detractors who accuse Wells of anti-feminism for not actively advocating employment equality. It's doubtful that she could have acted differently at the time and been as successful. Some women held influential administrative positions at agencies during this period, but only one other well-known female creative comes to mind, Edie Vaughn Stevenson, the legendary copywriter and executive at DDB. Vaughn actually interviewed Wells for the copywritng job that launched her career.
Other reviewers criticize Wells for neglecting her daughters in order to pursue her own ambitions. Again, this presupposes that she could have approached her career differently at the time and been as successful. Critics with both perspectives are quick to judge the book -- and Wells' choices -- based on parts of her life that aren't included, and were never intended to be included, in this particular memoir.
I highly recommend the book despite the poor editing. It's still a fascinating story for anyone interested in Wells, the experiences of powerful businesswomen or the history of modern advertising.
One note: Uncharacteristically, Wells includes a surprisingly long, detailed account of her radiation treatments for breast cancer late in her career. I have a couple of friends who've gone through cancer treatments, and they like the psychological accuracy and matter-of-fact description of her reaction to her diagnosis and subsequent treatment. Although she paints a bleak emotional picture of the experience, she has nothing but praise and admiration for the medical professionals that she encountered. Her treatment was successful and has given her time with her daughters and grandchildren during her retirement.
February 9, 2022
I wanted so badly to like this - I've admired the author's work since I first learned about it in design school, and was hoping for anecdotes of working with artists like Salvador Dali and Alexander Girard. There's a little of that, but mostly this is an exhaustive accounting of when the author had lunch with whom, so many trees and not enough forest. She flits from one business account to another like she's channel surfing, which could be forgiven if she were at least a pleasant person. Instead, she crows about how "magnificent" she is after an incident where she screams and throws things at her employees, and moans about unfair restrictions in the air travel industry.
February 9, 2014
I love advertising, so I enjoyed Mary Wells Lawrence's account of some of the best TV ads were created. YouTube proved great way to see some of the classics I had missed or wanted to see again.
Nevertheless, this book is so messy it's hard to believe it came from a major publisher. It seems not to have had an editor's hand at all. Wells starts the book with her first major job in advertising, which is fine, but then suddenly jumps back to her childhood on page 166. We then get her early life until page 193, when we leap back into the advertising world we left on page 165. What?
And the book is an absolute torrent of names: at some points, it feels like Wells has dumped the Manhattan phone book into her text. Most of these people you never get to know and they are never referred to again. Others just disappear: Wells' famous agency is called Wells Rich Greene, but I'm unable to find any mention of Rich or Greene after page 124 (the book is 300 pages long) and I'm not sure what happened to either one of them. Did they die? quit? change their names? In fact, after slogging through all those other people I met just once in this book, I had to check the index to remind myself what Rich and Greene's first names were. (Dick and Stew, for the record.)
All in all, I enjoyed this book, but it reads like something from a vanity press. Wells needed an editor with a strong hand. Doesn't Simon and Schuster employ those people anymore?
Nevertheless, this book is so messy it's hard to believe it came from a major publisher. It seems not to have had an editor's hand at all. Wells starts the book with her first major job in advertising, which is fine, but then suddenly jumps back to her childhood on page 166. We then get her early life until page 193, when we leap back into the advertising world we left on page 165. What?
And the book is an absolute torrent of names: at some points, it feels like Wells has dumped the Manhattan phone book into her text. Most of these people you never get to know and they are never referred to again. Others just disappear: Wells' famous agency is called Wells Rich Greene, but I'm unable to find any mention of Rich or Greene after page 124 (the book is 300 pages long) and I'm not sure what happened to either one of them. Did they die? quit? change their names? In fact, after slogging through all those other people I met just once in this book, I had to check the index to remind myself what Rich and Greene's first names were. (Dick and Stew, for the record.)
All in all, I enjoyed this book, but it reads like something from a vanity press. Wells needed an editor with a strong hand. Doesn't Simon and Schuster employ those people anymore?
September 1, 2016
As many other reviewers have noted, the structure of the book is desultory and the tone is proud. Although Mary Wells could have reordered some of the chapters, she did a fine job of telling her story and advertising Wells Rich Greene.
The most powerful message I got from the book, however, is that love makes everything better: love your clients, love their products, having the word 'love' in the copy, elicit love from your customers, spread love, love your job, love your agency, and love yourself.
The most powerful message I got from the book, however, is that love makes everything better: love your clients, love their products, having the word 'love' in the copy, elicit love from your customers, spread love, love your job, love your agency, and love yourself.
April 21, 2015
Great book! Terrific look at the work ethic and the life of one legendary Mary Wells Lawrence. Learned that in order to be successful you simply need to be good ENOUGH at your job and then play the people and your connections. She's and admirable woman with a ferocious attitude towards what she does, and it really shows through in her book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews