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EARLY JOURNALISM INFLUENCES ON THE CREATIVE STYLE OF LEO BURNETT By ZHAOHUI SU A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ADVERTISING UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2012 1 © 2012 Zhaohui Su 2 To my Mom and Dr. Bernell Tripp, thank you for your guidance, tolerance, and patience. I’m eternally grateful for your help. To my Dad, I carry you in my heart, and I long for your hug To the orange highs and blue yikes, and the messy tunes stick in my head; rhymed with joys and tears weaved with my accented sighs. What are sorrows to bear? What are memories to share? 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Bernell Tripp, Dr. John Sutherland, and Dr. Cynthia Morton for your encouragement, support, and being a part of this thesis. I’m grateful for having you on my committee. I’ve learned a lot through my years as a master’s student at the College of Journalism and Communications from you. Knowledge is empowering; it is the real towering juggernaut one can rely upon and survive on. You sent me the empowering gift of knowledge, and I am thankful for that. I’m eternally grateful for my mom and dad—they gave me birth, life, love, and everything beyond. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 9 Purpose of Study .................................................................................................... 10 Significance of the Study ........................................................................................ 14 Structure of the Thesis ..................................................................................... 15 Intended Contributions of the Study ................................................................. 16 Literature Review .................................................................................................... 17 Method .................................................................................................................... 31 2 LEO BURNETT AS A JOURNALIST ...................................................................... 35 Leo Burnett’s Journalistic Background .................................................................... 35 A Family of Journalists ............................................................................................ 40 Verne Burnett .......................................................................................................... 41 Mary Burnett and Alvah Bessie ............................................................................... 44 Naomi Burnett and George Geddes ....................................................................... 46 Journalism at Work ................................................................................................. 47 Earle C. Howard ............................................................................................... 48 Arthur Kudner ................................................................................................... 50 Homer McKee .................................................................................................. 52 Theodore F. MacManus ................................................................................... 56 3 FEATURE WRITING AND INHERENT DRAMA ..................................................... 64 4 FEATURE WRITING ANALYSIS ............................................................................ 78 Analysis of the Dramatization in Burnett’s Ads ....................................................... 78 Detailed Description and Dramatization .................................................................. 82 Narrative Storytelling............................................................................................... 92 Engaging Quotes and Dialogue ............................................................................ 101 Characterization/Exposition .................................................................................. 106 5 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 118 Discussion and Conclusion ................................................................................... 118 Family Influences ........................................................................................... 119 5 Work Influences .............................................................................................. 120 “Inherent Drama” and Feature Writing Style in Burnett’s Ads ......................... 121 Limitations and Implications .................................................................................. 122 LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 126 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................... 133 6 Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Advertising EARLY JOURNALISM INFLUENCES ON THE CREATIVE STYLE OF LEO BURNETT By Su Zhaohui December 2012 Chair: Bernell Tripp Major: Advertising This study addresses the early influences of journalism on Leo Burnett’s career as an advertising man. Multiple factors shaped Burnett’s view on advertising, yet journalism is one of the least known and most deeply-rooted factors. The last decades of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century marked a crucial turning point for professional practices in journalism and advertising. This study examines Burnett’s familial and professional connections to journalism at a period when both journalism and advertising were undergoing critical transitions in their operating practices, and each profession was redefining its role in the lives of the American public. Burnett’s early experiences as a reporter and a 12-year-old printer’s devil, as well as his brother’s background as a neighborhood publisher/editor and the journalistic roots of Theodore MacManus, one of Leo Burnett’s most respected mentors, during the Yellow Journalism period, provide insight into the shaping of Burnett’s personal advertising strategies. These and other factors, such as the journalism practices of the period, will serve as the variables in this study’s contextual analysis of Burnett’s writings and advertising campaigns, which will offer insight not only into Leo Burnett’s advertising 7 techniques, principles and ethics as an ad man, but also into the rapidly changing relationship between journalism and advertising in the early 20th century. 8 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the purpose as well as the intended contribution of this study. The reasoning behind the method used in this study in order to answer the research questions is also included in this chapter. The selling of things seldom thrives without the help from advertising, and the journalism industry is no exception. Long before the newspaper boys of the 19th century, the attention-seeking action of hollering can be traced back to medieval times, when town criers lured people to come near in order to listen to a proclamation or to read a posted publication (Sampson, 1875, p.44). What can be traced back even earlier was the act of advertising, as well as the already developed relationship between the advertising business and the journalism trade. Yet the development of advertising as a profession may not have one traceable root, but a combination of multiple roots developed from the points-of-view of many committed advertising professionals whose advertising philosophies and trusted techniques differed and adapted as overall mass media evolved. Among all the points- of-view of what constitutes advertising, Leo Burnett was one of the individuals most influential in structuring the fundamental parts of modern advertising. During his years as an advertising practitioner, Burnett tried his best to instill the idea that advertising could be of assistance to the business industry, in a role that transcended the 15-percent commission fee. To the world at large, he introduced the Chicago school of advertising, along with his belief that advertising agencies had a “business obligation,” and a reputation to secure (Burnett, 1961, p.137& 142). Rather than goad his employees to focus on the “share of market”, even though he once said 9 that advertisers were “salesman first and foremost”, he made his agency employees understand the importance of the “share of mind”, which he defined as having “a pleasing personality, widely accepted—an instinctive, emotional and spontaneous expression of a predisposition to buy a certain brand” (Burnett, 1961, p.104 & 111& 135). Burnett was one of the founding fathers of the advertising principles and philosophies that helped erect the standard of good advertising. He developed his advertising principles during a time when American journalism was adapting yet again to stay abreast of a rapidly changing audience. Fresh off the rollercoaster ride of the Yellow Journalism period, readers retained a thirst for news that was not just informative, but also engaging, and that allowed those affected to formulate educated opinions based