In 2023, the marketing industry said goodbye to several notable figures, including Jo Muse and Gerry Rubin. Here, we pay tribute to industry icons who died this year—and celebrate their impact on advertising.
Remembering industry icons who died in 2023
Edwin Artzt
Edwin Artzt, a former chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble Co., was best known in the marketing industry for his wake-up call speech given at the 1994 4A’s conference. He correctly foresaw the impending disruption of the marketing industry brought on by subscription-based and interactive media. His successor, former P&G Chairman-CEO John Pepper, credited Artzt with building the company’s global presence and nurturing its talent pool. Artzt died in April at age 92.
Michael Goldberg
Michael Goldberg made a name for himself by balancing new business acumen with a human touch. Goldberg got his start at Harris Drury Cohen in 1990, where he rose to CEO before leaving in 2003 for Zimmerman Advertising. After nearly a decade there, Goldberg spent a short time at Porter Novelli before joining Deutsch as partner and CMO in 2012. He was drawn back to Zimmerman in 2014 as CEO, where he spent six years before joining Rojek Consulting. Goldberg died from complications related to melanoma treatment in June at age 57.
Lisa Liebman
Lisa Liebman was a fierce defender of creative work for more than 30 years, first at D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles in the ’90s and then at TBWA\Chiat\Day New York in the ’00s. As an account executive, Liebman led the charge for absurdist comic advertising in the mid-2000s, convincing Mars Inc. to run a series of edgy campaigns for Starburst, Combos and Skittles, including its “Blank the Rainbow” campaign. She spent the last 10 years at Austin Williams, most recently as VP and managing director. Liebman died in June at age 61 after a two-year battle with cancer.
Ed Meyer
Ed Meyer will forever be known as the man who built Grey Advertising into one of the world’s biggest agencies. Meyer joined the agency’s account services division in 1956, when Grey had only one office in New York that billed $30 million. Almost half a century later, Meyer had constructed an independent leviathan that diversified its holdings to include direct, interactive, PR, media, sales promotion and more with offices around the world. Keystone clients included General Foods (later merged with Kraft Foods), Dannon, Nokia, Novartis, Glaxo and P&G, with which it held a decades-long relationship. Ending Grey’s indie era, Meyer sold it to WPP for a whopping $1.52 billion in cash and stock in 2005. Meyer died in April at age 96.
Jo Muse
A pioneer of multicultural advertising, Jo Muse died suddenly in April at age 72. Muse cofounded the first truly multicultural advertising agency, Muse Cordero Chen, in Los Angeles in 1987. The agency brought the total-market approach to advertising, using consumer insights to inform marketing strategy and reach diverse audiences. Clients included the California Department of Health Services, Cigna, PepsiCo, Miller Brewing Co. and the U.S. Census Bureau. But Muse’s most notable work came when the agency became Nike’s first multicultural ad agency, and the shop convinced Nike to run some of its multicultural campaigns for a broader audience.
Norma Orci
A multicultural innovator, Norma Orci was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1944. She moved to Los Angeles as a child and later started a career in journalism for CBS Radio affiliate Radio VIP. Orci jumped into advertising at Noble & Asociados before joining McCann-Erickson in 1982 and founding the agency’s Hispanic division with her husband, Hector. They both founded La Agencia de Orci in 1986. One of the first Hispanic-owned agencies in the U.S., the agency made a splash when it launched a government campaign in its first year that promoted citizenship applications for undocumented immigrants. Orci died following a battle with cancer in August at age 79.
Joseph Pedott
The man behind some of advertising’s catchiest jingles, Joseph Pedott was a master negotiator who relied on honest relationships to build successful brands. A self-described “Depression baby,” Pedott went from eating meals off a hot plate at a YMCA to writing the catchy tunes that made the Chia Pet and The Clapper household names. Pedott, who ran the San Francisco-based Joseph Pedott Advertising and Marketing with longtime business partner Michael Hirsch, also ardently supported charitable foundations to help underprivileged kids apply and pay for college. Pedott died in June at age 91.
Gerry Rubin
Gerry Rubin, co-founder of independent agency RPA, was a fixture in the advertising industry for more than half a century. Hailing from Evanston, Illinois, he got his start at Leo Burnett before joining Needham Harper & Steers in 1968. The opportunity was the start of the rest of his career, as he became account director of the agency’s Honda automotive business. Striking out on his own in 1986, Rubin took the Honda account and all his people with him to start Rubin Postaer and Associates with his creative director partner Larry Postaer. Thirty years later, through the dotcom boom and the new millennium, RPA still works on Honda’s advertising business. Rubin died in October at age 86.
Louis Slotkin
Highdive Co-Owner and Managing Partner Louis Slotkin was known to his colleagues and friends as the key link between the agency’s client relationships and its creative output. A Midwesterner by birth, Slotkin was a francophile at heart. He found his love of baguettes, cheese and advertising in Paris, beginning his career at Ogilvy in 1994. After stints at Young & Rubicam and Leo Burnett, Slotkin joined Highdive a year after its founding. He played an integral part in Highdive becoming a shop known for its Super Bowl ads for clients including Jeep, Ram, Rocket Mortgage and Lay’s. Slotkin died following a battle with colon cancer in March at age 51.
Alain Sylvain
The son of Haitian immigrants, Alain Sylvain got his start in the advertising world working as a strategist at Mother. He then joined brand consultancy Redscout as a managing director before founding his own New York-based consultancy, then known as Sylvain Labs, in 2010. Sylvain thrived outside the traditional agency operation model, and took home gold at Ad Age’s 2015 Small Agency Awards for the Northeast region, when it had only about 20 employees. It tripled in size in the years since and was acquired by the Kyu Collective in 2022. Sylvain was also an active philanthropist and speaker, traveling the world to give talks at business and creativity conferences. He died in November at age 47.