Burrell, Thomas J. 1939–

views updated

Thomas J. Burrell 1939–

Business executive

A major figure in American marketing and advertising, Thomas Burrell heads a leading marketing communications firm that provides advertising, public relations, consumer promotions, and direct marketing services for many top American companies. In 1996 Black Enterprise ranked Burrell Communications as sixteenth on its annual listing of the Top 100 Black Businesses in the United States, and as of 1998 his company was generating an estimated $ 168 million in annual billings and employing 162 people in offices in Chicago, New York, and Atlanta. Among the companies Burrell has provided, marketing campaigns for are Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Proctor & Gamble, Ford, Pillsbury, and many more. During his career he has also helped spark the growth of numerous start-up companies and played leadership roles in organizations such as the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA).

Burrell made his name in advertising by creating one of the first agencies to specialize in niche marketing—in his case, the targeting of ads and commercials to black audiences. As Laurence Minsky and Emily Thornton Calvo wrote in How to Succeed in Advertising When All You Have Is Talent, “Burrell was one of the first to bring big agency experience and sophisticated tactics to segmented marketing.” Soon after opening his own shop in 1971, Burrell initiated a virtual revolution in advertising for African Americans by casting them in roles that had previously been off limits to them. “We were accustomed to seeing ourselves in the mass media as either exaggerated, acceptable exceptions to the rule, or as welfare recipients, criminals, and the downtrodden,” said Burrell in How to Succeed.“The mass media was missing the whole group of blacks who lived normal lives and had emotional, poignant kinds of events happening to them.” His ability to reach black audiences has been heralded by many clients over the years. “Tom has an incredible sense of marketing, as well as incredible sensitivity to the African-American culture,” noted David Green, a marketing executive at McDonalds Corporation, in a 1996 issue of Advertising Age.

Since he opened his own business, Burrell has expanded his net to white markets with many critically acclaimed and award-winning print ads and television commercials. As a result he has built up his communications

At a Glance…

Born March 18, 1939 in Chicago, IL; son of Evelyn Burrell and Thomas Burrell; married to]oli Burrell; three children. Education : Roosevelt Univ., Chicago, S.A., English, 1961.

Career: Mailroom clerk, Wade Advertising Agency, Chicago, 1964, copywriter trainee, 1964; copywriter, Leo Burnett Co., Chicago, 1964-67; copywriter, Foote Cone & Belding, London, 1967-68; copy supervisor, Needham Harper & Steers, 1968-71; started own advertising agency with Emmert McBain (Burreli McBain Advertising), 1971; houghtout co-founder McBain and changed name of agency to Burrell Communications Group, 1974; has created print, TV, and other ad campaigns for Pillsbury, Coca-Cola, Proctor & Gamble, McDonalds, Ford, and many others.

Memberships: Sits on many boards, councils, and committees including: Chicago Urban League; Chicago United; Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind; Roosevelt Univ.; Howard Univ. School of Communications; Lyric Opera of Chicago; Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund; Amer. Advertising Fed.; Ad Council, Inc.; Commercial Club; Executive’s Club; Economic Club.

Awards and honors: Clio Award, (“Street Song” Coca-Cola), 1978; Gold Awd, U.S. TV Commercials Festival (“Double Dutch” McDonalds), 1982; Clio Awd, McDonalds; Advertising Person of the Year, Chicago Advertising Club, 1985, 1986; MO Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism, Univ. of MO School of Journalism, 1990; Grand Effie for Partnership Award, 1994; cited as one of “50 Who Made a Difference” in “50 Years of TV Advertising” issue, Advertising Age, Spring 1995; Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind’s Lifetime Achievement Awd,1998; O’Toole Award for Creative Excellence in Multicultural Advertising, Amer. Association of Advertising Agencies, 1998; Albert Lasker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Advertising; numerous other awards for TV & and radio commercials, and print ads.

Addresses: Business— Burrell Communications Group, 20 North Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60602, 312-443-8600.

organization into one of the largest advertising agencies in the United States. Currently, Burrell Communications is the 88th largest agency in the United States and the tenth largest in Chicago, which is home to many of the country’s most notable ad agencies.

Aptitude Test Triggered Career

The son of a tavern owner and a beautician, Burrell began plotting his future success while still a teenager attending Englewood High School in Chicago’s South Side in the 1950s. Recognizing that his school had limitations, he engineered his transfer to another school that he felt would provide a better learning environment. After switching to Parker High School he began associating with students who seemed to be on the success track—those aspiring to become doctors, lawyers, and engineers. He also enrolled in a course called Careers that was designed to help students determine what future vocations might be right for them. When Burrell scored high on the “artistic” and “persuasive” categories of the test, his teacher suggested that perhaps copywriting would be a good match for his skills. Although Burrell had never heard of the occupation before, he embraced the idea of this future career with passion and began studying ads in magazines to try and glean the keys to their effectiveness.

Roadblocks awaiting Burrell in his choice of career became apparent to him after he enrolled at Roosevelt College in Chicago as an English major and advertising minor. In How to Succeed Burrell recounted that one of his teachers told him he was crazy to pursue a career in advertising because there were virtually no blacks in the industry. “At this time (1960), there were no black people working in Chicago agencies in any capacity” said Burrell. “I mean, no secretaries, no mailroom people, no receptionists. Nobody,” he added.

Despite the potential resistance he faced, Burrell refused to be deterred from his quest to become a copywriter. He broke into advertising at the bottom of the food chain, managing to get a job in the mailroom at Wade Advertising in Chicago for fifty dollars a week in 1960 and thus becoming the agency’s only black employee. Burrell made it clear early on that he was destined for higher things. He did some research on his own for the then problem-plagued account of Alka-Seltzer and presented it to the creative director, who was impressed enough to make him a copywriter trainee. Soon Burrell was writing for the Alka-Seltzer, Robin Hood flour, and Toni Home Permanent accounts.

Attending an intensive one-year program in Advanced Advertising Studies at Northwestern University had a double benefit for Burrell. While honing his advertising skills, he also made connections with other agency professionals that helped him land a job at Chicago’s Leo Burnett Advertising. After a year there working on Pillsbury cake and frosting mix accounts, Burrell decided to literally broaden his horizons by traveling to Europe. He stayed for a while in Paris before moving to London to work on the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) account (which later became British Airways) for the London office of Foote Cone Belding.

A year later Burrell was back in Chicago with Needham Harper Speers, where he worked on the Betty Crocker accounts. “That was the best agency experience of my career,” noted Burrell in How to Succeed.“I learned about marketing strategy and strategy-based advertising, and I learned the importance of basing your advertising concepts on a unique set of ideas,” he continued. Burrell’s developing talent earned him a promotion to copy supervisor at Needham, and gave him the confidence to form his own agency with Emmett McBain in 1971. “I was a married with a baby,” noted Burrell in Advertising Age.“It wasn’t the time to do it, but I did it anyway,” he added. Burrell figured that the only way he could get business from big companies was to position himself as a provider of a unique type of advertising. He also stated in Advertising Age, “Since there was no need for them to fire their well-established, large agencies to come and be clients of this startup, two-man operation, I had to come up with an angle. That’s how I came to niche marketing.” Burrell and McBain decided that they could build their business by offering advertising that was customized for black audiences. “We were unique because we had the combination of the special insight that comes with being black, and the kind of experience in general market advertising that brought a high level of sophistication and expertise,” said Burrell in How to Succeed.

It was rough going for Burrell McBain Advertising in its first year, and the stress caused Burrell to lose fifty pounds as his fledgling agency struggled to get clients. “No one would loan us money; we had a staff of one, a girl-Friday named Caroline Boston, who wrote copy, typed, did everything,” he told Advertising Age. Burrell got his first piece of business after six months of hunting—a public relations account with a black nightclub that paid a $1000-a-month—but that was soon lost. He also dealt with some humiliation due to racism in the early days, such as when he was forced to eat in the kitchens of restaurants in Lynchburg, Tennessee, while working on Brown-Forman’s Jack Daniels liquor account.

Broke New Ground in Advertising

Burrell took a major step into the big time by winning an account with the McDonalds restaurant chain in 1972 with a $3000-a-month retainer. As he proved his ability to market to black audiences, Coca-Cola came on board for its African American advertising in 1973. When McBain decided to leave the agency the following year, Burrell became sole owner and changed its name to Burrell Advertising. Before long he was becoming known as a revolutionary in the world of advertising with his ads that offered much more realistic and upbeat scenes of black Americans than had ever been offered before, especially on television. Before the 1970s, most blacks in commercials had largely played menial roles. Following a philosophy that he coined “positive realism,” according to Advertising Age, Burrell’s television spots celebrated African American culture, lifestyle, and values. His big breakthrough came in 1976 when he created his “Street Song” commercial for Coca-Cola, which depicted urban black kids singing a cappella about the soft drink. “’Street Song’ was a turning point on many levels,” claimed Advertising Age.“It showed Burrell could do advertising that appealed to the total market; that advertising showing blacks could still appeal to the white market; and that black consumers were a significant market in and of themselves. Financially, it enabled Burrell to participate in a broader aspect of media,” the article continued. The “Street Song” spot won Burrell his first Clio Award, the most prestigious honor for television advertising in the industry.

In 1979 annual billings for Burrell Communications topped the $10-million mark for the first time, and two years later billings had doubled to $20 million. From 1974 to 1986 the agency experienced a growth of 15-20%, according to Advertising Age, while blossoming into a full-service marketing communications company. As his business continued to boom Burrell opened a new office in Atlanta in order to expand its service for Coca-Cola. Another high point for Burrell came in 1984 when corporate giant Proctor & Gamble put him in charge of its African American advertising for Crest toothpaste. Two years later he created the first public relations division in his company and his annual billings topped $50 million for the first time.

Creative high-water marks for Burrell during the 1980s, included his agency’s “I Assume You Drink Martell” campaign for Martell Cognac, as well as his “Double Dutch” television commercials for McDonalds that won a Gold award at the U.S. Television Commercials Festival in 1982. Then his agency experienced a downturn later in the 1980s that reflected industry-wide cutting back on advertising budgets and increased competition over target marketing accounts. These new pressures provided a learning experience for Burrell, forcing him to streamline his organization in order to become more cost effective.

In recent years Burrell has often voiced his regret that many companies continue to see his agency as a minority marketing specialist, and he has striven to diversify his operation and move away from marketing to only black audiences. He took a major step in this direction in the mid 1990s by acquiring DFA Communications, a New York-based general market and direct marketing agency whose clients included such giants as Citibank and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). This acquisition put his agency in the running to surpass Uniworld as the largest African American-owned advertising agency in the United States. By this time Burrell was also providing relationship marketing and consulting services for consumer and business-to-business clients with his Burrell Yagnik Relationship Marketing company in New York City. In the 1990s Burrell has been on the lookout to acquire other companies as well that could help him tap into Hispanic marketing, sales promotion, event marketing, and sports marketing.

In the mid 1960s Burrell was diagnosed with macular degeneration, a disorder of the eyes that impairs central vision. His indomitable will to forge ahead despite all obstacles has enabled him to lead a normal life with this affliction. Over the years Burrell has been actively involved with helping the plight of those with vision problems, especially as an active supporter of the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. His dedication to this cause earned him the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998.

Today Burrell’s organization provides advertising and marketing services to a wide range of companies, including Bell Atlantic, HBO, Mobil, and Nationwide Insurance. While Burrell rarely writes copy anymore, he remains actively involved in concept development and in engineering the expansion of his firm into new realms. It is unlikely he will be deterred in his efforts by whatever hurdles lay ahead. As he told Advertising Age about the advertising business today, “It’s harder, tougher’. Now, it’s more work-oriented. It’s not as much fun, but it’s more challenging. And for the few of us who get a kick out of challenges that’s a good thing.”