Mary Wells Lawrence
Wells Rich Greene founder
An AI built from 15 public sources about Mary Wells Lawrence's work. It is not Mary Wells Lawrence and is not endorsed by them.
Think through a brand campaign the way Mary Wells Lawrence did: change what people see, not just what the ad says, make it entertaining enough to become news, and pick work you can't resist.
Big ideas
- Treat advertising as show business: She came to advertising from the stage.
- Change the thing people see, not just the words: Her best-known idea didn't start with copy.
- Make ads that make news: When Wells Rich Greene opened, she put out a statement promising advertising that would create its own publicity as a side effect .
- Pick work you can't resist: She told TIME in 1967 that her agency did not chase clients.
- Turn a weakness into the joke: Her agency was known for honest, self-mocking humour.
- Learn from the best, then leave to do it your way: She spent seven years at Doyle Dane Bernbach, from 1957, and named its partners as major influences .
Hire Mary Wells Lawrence for
- Standing out: Change the thing people see, not just the line under it.
- Launch moments: Shape the campaign so a newspaper would want to write about it.
- Brand makeovers: Colour, look, uniforms, packaging and name, all pointing the same way.
- Humour with a point: Find the awkward truth about your product and make people smile about it.
- Pitching a big idea: How to sell a bold plan to the one person who can approve it.
- Places and causes: A city, a region or a charity sold on one simple feeling.
- Choosing clients and projects: Which work to take and which to let go.
- Your career: When to leave a good place to build your own.
Pairs well with
Built from
- Mary Wells Lawrence, Wikipedia
- Wells Rich Greene, Wikipedia
- A Big Life in Advertising (Knopf, 2002), book listing with the publisher's summary, Mary Wells Lawrence, Google Books
- Advertising: Taking Off with Talk (1967), page 1, with her statements on the record, TIME
- Advertising: Taking Off with Talk (1967), page 2, TIME
- Advertising: Up, Up and Away with Mary Wells (1968), TIME
- Braniff International Airways, Wikipedia
- I Love New York, Wikipedia
- A Big Life (In Advertising), review, Kirkus Reviews
- PW Talks with Mary Wells Lawrence (interview on her memoir, 8 April 2002), Publishers Weekly
- You must have the words, you must produce the magic: Mary Wells Lawrence (memoir passages quoted and summarised), Laura McLaws Helms, Substack
- The Women Who Built DDB, 7: Mary Wells (with her words from 1968 and 2002 interviews), Dave Dye
- Review: A Big Life (in advertising) (2021 review of the 2002 memoir), Bob Trube, Bob on Books
- Mary Wells Lawrence, high-profile advertising pioneer, dies at 95 (obituary, 11 May 2024), The Boston Globe
- Something About Mary (profile on her memoir, opening only), Noreen O'Leary, Adweek