The cultural artifact that I found for advertising happens to be a person. This person is arguably the most influential person in advertising history and was named as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century. This person is Leo Burnett. Burnett was an advertising executive and a Michigan native. He was one of the most creative people to have ever lived. He created cultural icons such as the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Jolly Green Giant, the Marlboro Man, and Tony the Tiger. He was a main contributor to the creative revolution of the 1960's.
If anyone's accomplishments could teach you about advertising, it would be Leo Burnett's. He revolutionized advertising with his memorable yet simple advertising. He showed how advertising is an every day occurrence and he created countless household names. He also founded his own advertising firm which was extremely successful and had respectable core values such as employee longevity. His main focus was creating ads that represented American values and that goes a long way.
I enjoyed reading this post because although I've never heard of Leo Burnett, I've obviously heard of his work with the Pillsbury Doughboy and Tony the Tiger. Coming from a graphic design perspective, which correlates pretty closely with advertsing, those are images that have been engrained into our culture, and I'm definitely going to read up on this guy!
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