Centro de Documentación Publicitaria

PROTAGONISTAS

Stanley Resor y Helen Lansdowne Resor

Stanley Resor (1879 - 1962) y Helen Lansdowne Resor (1886 - 1964)

Primer líder importante de una agencia en tener grado universitario (Yale), diseña campañas y marcas basadas en estilos de vida de la gente bien. Tras contratar a Helen Lansdowne en una pequeña agencia de Cincinnati, abre junto a ella JWT en la misma ciudad. Cuando JWT se convierte en la primera agencia externa de P&G, Lansdowne es la primera mujer en presentar anuncios a la junta. En 1936, y al trasladarse a New York, Resor y sus asociados compran Commodore Thompson por U$500.000 y se encargan de la agencia. Tras casarse en 1917, los Resors manejan la agencia hasta 1924. Él se encarga de los clientes y la administración y ella, considerada el mejor copy de su generación, supervisa creatividad y recluta mujeres para la publicidad. Su campaña para jabón cosmético Woodbury, The skin you love to touch, introduce el sex appeal en el oficio. Fundador de la AAAA, Resor lleva a JWT al Nº1 en 1927, siendo la primera en superar los U$100 millones en facturación.

Este ex profesor de Yale piensa que lo más importante para la agencia es el equipo y la forma de trabajar de sus miembros. Captar a los profesionales más capacitados y mantenerlos unidos es su estrategia de negocio. La prueba de que esta ambición puede llevase a cabo son aquellos años en los que comparten despacho Samm Meek, James Webb Young, Henry Stanton, Ken Hinks y Gilbert Kinney. Resor defiende la investigación, la creación de equipos de distinta formación y procedencia y el destacado papel de los ejecutivos. Con esta filosofía se mantiene en su puesto durante 45 años.

Stanley Resor

Former Vice President & General Manager, J. Walter Thompson Company.

A student, innovator, patrician and educator, Stanley Resor made numerous contributions to the standards of advertising excellence in the United States and around the world.

Resor entered advertising in 1904 with the Proctor and Collier Advertising Agency in Cincinnatiand in 1908 opened the Cincinnati office of the J. Walter Thompson Agency. In 1912 he moved to New York as the vice president and general manager of J. Walter Thompson. and in 1916 he purchased the company with a few associates. Before his death in 1962 the agency had grown to be the largest in the world.

Resor was one of the founders of the American Association of Advertising Agencies and served as its president from 1923 to 1924. He was a leader in establishing the Audit Bureau of Circulations and the National Outdoor Advertising Bureau. In 1949 Resor received the Gold Medal as "Advertising Man of the Year."

The scientific market research he inaugurated during World War I was perhaps the first of its kind done by an advertising agency. In the late 1920s, at great risk, he established a worldwide network of J. Walter Thompson offices to handle General Motors and other international accounts with American standards of excellence. He surrounded himself with people of the highest caliber and showed them how to do better than their best.

In an editorial at the time of his death, Advertising Age wrote, " Resor, more perhaps than any other man, gave advertising direction, cohesion and stability."

Helen Lansdowne Resor

Former Vice President, J. Walter Thompson Company.

Helen Lansdowne Resor will be remembered particularly in two capacities, for her work as a copywriter (she was described by the New York Herald Tribune as the greatest copywriter of her generation) and for her work as vice president of the J. Walter Thompson Company.

Her major achievements were accomplished during her years at the J. Walter Thompson Company, where she produced such famed ads as the Woodbury Soap campaign, "A Skin You Love to Touch," which is often referenced as the first ad to use sex appeal in an advertisement. She revolutionized endorsement advertising by persuading society leaders and even royalty to appear in her Pond's Cold Cream ads, changing the tone of the medium. She was also the first woman to be successful in writing and planning national, as opposed to retail, advertising, making sure that her advertising reflected the feminine point of view.

Her creative, dynamic mind was constantly suggesting new approaches to advertising. Peggy King commented on her genius saying, "She had a dozen ideas to the minute." Ever committed to her work and the success of J. Walter Thompson, she was at one point the supervisor for two-thirds of the business handled by her firm's New York and Boston offices.

She was also instrumental in the advancement of women in the field, employing talented young writers and using her influence in paving the way for those to come. Heavily involved in the New York suffragist movement, she and her female employees marched in the celebration parade after President Wilson signed into law a woman's right to vote.

Resor had a long history of public service. She was a president of the Traveler's Aid Society, through which gave shelter to homeless women during the Depression, and supported such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Radcliffe College and Planned Parenthood