Mary Wells Lawrence, trailblazing copywriter and agency founder, dies at 95

“I am profoundly interested in everything,” Mary Wells Lawrence said in an interview with Ad Age in 2002. “I do not want to die without having tried everything.” It seems that Wells Lawrence, who died Saturday at age 95, as reported by The New York Times, tried and accomplished just about everything, particularly in the advertising sphere, where she reigns as one of the industry’s most legendary figures. See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Agency A-List winners here ‘I just wanted my own agency’ Born Mary Georgene Berg in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1928, Wells Lawrence grew up to become one of the most recognized—and highest-paid—women in advertising. Wells Lawrence began her ad career as a copywriter at McKelvey’s department store in Ohio before moving to New York, where she entered the agency world in 1953 as a writer at McCann Erickson. From there, she was unstoppable: Joining what was then Doyle Dane Bernbach, she rose to VP and associate copy chief before moving on to Jack Tinker & Partners. In 1966, she became the first woman to open and run her own ad agency, Wells Rich Greene, along with Dick Rich and Stewart Greene, after being refused the president title at Jack Tinker by Marion Harper Jr., then-president of Interpublic Group of Cos. “At that point, I just walked out the door,” she told the Times in 2012. “It wasn’t as though I wanted to be Betty Friedan. I just wanted my own agency.” That agency notched $39 million in billings and hit 100 employees in its first year—a woman-owned shop that became the toast of the Mad Men era. As founder, chairman and CEO of one of Madison Avenue’s hottest agencies, Wells Lawrence was earning $300,000 a year by 1976, and WRG was riding high as the 15th largest agency in the U.S., counting among its clients Procter & Gamble, Trans World Airlines, Miles Laboratories, Philip Morris, Bic Pen Corp., Ralston Purina Co., Midas Inc., White-Westinghouse Electric Co. and Sun Oil Co. The work Wells Lawrence spearheaded for clients—at all the agencies where she worked—was funny, intelligent and creatively groundbreaking. For Alka-Seltzer, she developed the “Plop plop, fizz fizz” campaign based on the sound that immediately brought to mind the brand’s fast-acting relief. Humorous campaigns such as “Try it, you’ll like it” followed. For Braniff Airways—Wells Lawrence would eventually marry the airline’s chairman and president, Harding Lawrence, which became a storied union of 40 years—she took the carrier from bland to bold, bringing high fashion to the largely gray and utilitarian industry. Under her direction, Braniff hired Emilio Pucci to design employee uniforms and painted its planes in vibrant hues (“You can fly our planes seven times and never fly the same color twice,” says the announcer in one spot). The commercials, declaring “The end of the plain plane,” ended with the line, “We won’t get you there any faster, but it will seem that way.” Wells Lawrence cleverly highlighted the extra-long Benson & Hedges 100-millimeter cigarettes for Philip Morris by showcasing the foibles smokers would experience due to their unusual length. The “Disadvantages” campaign humorously showed vignettes such as an elevator door closing on the smoke and snipping off its tip. Asked in the 2002 Ad Age interview whether she regretted working for a tobacco company, Wells Lawrence—a two-time cancer survivor—said she did. “At the time that we were advertising them, we all felt quite indignant because we believed this was a kind of an attack on the cigarette industry that wasn’t fair, that wasn’t right,” she said then. “Of course, today we know so much more.” Wells Rich Greene’s best-known campaign was “I ♥ New York,” which began in 1977 and featured graphic designer Milton Glaser’s famous heart logo. In 1968, at age 40, Wells Lawrence was the youngest person ever inducted into the Copywriters’ Hall of Fame. In 1999, she was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame by the American Advertising Federation. In 2020, at age 91, she was honored with the Lion of St. Mark by the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity—the first female recipient of the honor. Despite all her success, Wells Lawrence still had to battle attitudes in a male-dominated industry. In her book, “A Big Life in Advertising,” published in 2002, she wrote: “There were no other women creating agencies as I was with large, big-budget accounts. Women in business was just becoming a big issue. A few talented men resigned from the agency because they found the idea of working for a woman intolerable.” Wells Lawrence herself was “above everything else an extremely disciplined person,” said Jane Maas, a former creative director at Ogilvy & Mather, in a video interview in 2015, three years before her death. “Every day of the business week, she has raw vegetables and a glass of ice water for lunch.” Match made in heaven? Wells Lawrence retired in 1990 at age 62, selling the agency to BDDP International, Paris. In 1997, Wells BDDP ceased operations. “In finding this combination of the French agency [BDDP] and ours it seemed perfect. It just seemed made in heaven,” Wells Lawrence told Ad Age. “They were young and aggressive and did very good work and in our first love affair got along sublimely. And I thought it was going to be a crackling, new younger version of Wells Rich Greene ... so I left feeling very smug and very, very happy.” “But I also left having sold my stock, and I think if you sell your stock and you’ve done a good job of investigating everything that you really should shut up and I don’t think you ought to hang around. ... I did think when they started having various problems that they might have come to me and asked ‘What do you think we’re doing wrong here?’ and I would have loved to have had that opportunity. But they didn't.” In addition to having a big life in advertising, Wells Lawrence had a rich one outside it. During the Ad Age interview in 2002, she talked, among other things, about being friends and neighbors with U2’s Bono. “I haven’t retired,” she said, at the time aged 73. “The advertising business is one aspect of my life. There are all kinds of things in my life I am doing. ...I’m not going to get on a leash for anybody. But then I have a couple of other ideas. I’ve just started.” Wells Lawrence was preceded in death by her husband, Harding Lawrence, the former chairman and president of Braniff Airlines, who died in 2002. She is survived by two daughters, Katy Bryan and Pamela Lombard; stepson State Lawrence and stepdaughter, Deborah Lawrence; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Sign up for Ad Age newsletters From influencer marketing to agencies, get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox Click here

Mary Wells Lawrence, trailblazing copywriter and agency founder, dies at 95

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