Women Who Revolutionized the Industry

By Danicka Joseph

How familiar are you with the phrase “A Diamond is Forever?” What about merchandise that reads “I Heart NY?” Though many people may find these advertisements familiar, most don’t know that they were both created by women. As we near the end of Women’s History Month and the start of Black Women’s History Month, it’s a great time to commemorate/remember some of the many contributions women have made to the advertising industry. 

Mary Wells Lawrence and Jane Maas: The Women Who Loved NY

The “I Love New York” campaign began when the New York Department of Commerce, designed to repair New York City’s reputation as a city riddled with crime and filth. Featuring television commercials, celebrity appearances, branded merchandise, and an original song, this timeless campaign was shepherded by none other than Jane Maas and Mary Wells Lawrence. 

Mary Wells Lawrence started out writing department store ad copy then served as ad manager for Macy’s before joining an advertising agency. She joined Jack Tinker & Partners as a senior partner in 1964. Despite her success with several high-profile campaigns, her boss refused to fully promote her to president—she could have the responsibility, but not the title. She quit her job and started her own agency, Wells Rich Greene, in 1966. 

Jane Maas began her advertising career in 1964 as a junior copywriter at Ogilvy & Mather. Though she eventually became a creative director and the agency’s second female vice president, her work was confined to handling household brands—as was the reality for women at the time. In 1976, Maas co-wrote How to Advertise. It was also during this year that she began working for Wells Rich Greene as senior vice president. 

It is at Wells Rich Green that the “I Love New York” campaign was born. By promoting New York as a product instead of a destination, Maas and Wells Lawrence created an iconic campaign that lives to promote New York tourism to this day. 

Mary Frances Gerety: A Gem in Ad Industry

In the late 1930s, diamonds were nowhere near as popular as they are today. Mary Frances Gerety worked as a copywriter at N.W. Ayer when De Beers jewelry company asked the agency to help them sell more rings. Frances Gerety happened to get placed on the account because she was a woman and selling rings made this campaign a so-called “female account.” With a single line—a diamond is forever— she helped De Beers sell millions of diamonds and significantly shaped engagement ring culture. Fun bonus: her famous line later inspired 

Barbara Gardner Proctor: Barrier-Breaker and Self-Starter

Barbara Gardner Proctor entered the advertising industry when black people generally couldn’t get hired in advertising firms. She started out writing the copy on the back of Pinseol bottles. In 1969, Gardner Proctor was asked to work on an ad campaign that mocked the ongoing social justice marches. When she refused, her agency fired her. By the next year, she became the first black woman in the United States to found her own advertising agency. Formed from a combination of her married and maiden names (to give the impression of a male associate), she created Proctor & Gardner. Though she started without any capital or chief executive experience, she built her agency into a multimillion-dollar company and succeeded despite the advertising industry’s exclusionary culture. 

Tarana Burke: Campaign-Leader and Conversation-Starter

Tarana Burke is most known as the founder of the “me too” Movement. Passionate about issues like housing inequality, racial discrimination, and economic injustice, Burke is a longtime activist and community organizer who started leading campaigns as a teenager. In her adult years, Burke shifted her focus to supporting women of color and the “me too Movement” was born to meet sexual abuse survivors with empathy when they share their stories. Burke’s movement became popularized in 2017 amidst the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal, with “#metoo” being used over 19 million times in one year—on just Twitter alone. 

Helen Lansdowne Resor: The Woman Who Understood Women

Helen Lansdowne Resor worked as a head copywriter in the New York City J. Walter Thompson agency. There, she came up with the line, “A skin you love to touch,” to positional Woodbury Soap and its female consumer as sensual. In 1911, this line was both sensual and scandalous, and yet, the campaign led to a one-thousand-percent increase in Woodbury sales over the span of eight years. Lansdowne Resor also owned other advertising firsts like the popularizing the use of celebrity testimonials and being the first woman to plan and execute a national ad campaign. She and her husband also created the a women’s editorial department at J. Walter Thompson because they believed campaign success depended on women consumers and understood that there was no better than women to understand those consumers. By the next year, the women’s department was responsible for more than half of the agency’s earnings. 

Beyond the Spotlight

The women featured in this piece are pioneers who showed the world what’s possible in a  male-dominated field. They’ve also shown that advertising has the power to shape culture. It’s the reason we might see someone sporting an “I Heart NY” shirt even if they’re in Oregon—and have never been to New York. It’s the reason engagement rings have become synonymous with diamond rings. Advertising has the power to break barriers and start conversations. And with that power, comes… you know the rest. 

It is our responsibility as advertisers to recognize the power we hold whether or not we intend to. 

If you take one thing away from this piece, let it be that advertising can never truly speak to the masses if the industry itself does not reflect the very people it seeks to understand. And a true reflection is only possible when representation exists at all levels of organizational structure and beyond the seasonal spotlight.