Not to take away from Wunderman's achievements at all, it seems misleading to refer to him as the "Father of Direct Marketing" and not talk about his predecessors.
Specifically, Claude C. Hopkins is, to my knowledge, the person most responsible for the ideas and techniques behind Direct Marketing. His 1923 book, Scientific Advertising, laid out all the principles of Direct Marketing, and Wunderman would have been very aware of his work. This book predates Wunderman's first job as a copywriter by 24 years, when he was hired by Maxwell Sackheim & Co. in 1947[1].
From the Wikipedia page[2]:
> The book is cited as being the original description of the process of split testing and of coupon based customer tracking and loyalty schemes. In the book, Hopkins outlines an advertising approach based on testing and measuring. In this way losses from unsuccessful ads are kept to a safe level while gains from profitable ads are multiplied. Or, as Hopkins wrote, the advertiser is "playing on the safe side of a hundred to one shot".
> The book is widely considered the foundation of direct marketing.
Again, I'm not bashing Wunderman. He was a remarkably effective marketer and if you want to make the argument that he popularized Direct Marketing or did more to make it the juggernaut that it is today, I won't argue.
But it's just disingenuine for this article to give the impression that he's the "father" of it. It'd be like calling Ernest Hemingway the Father of Writing. Hemingway was an amazing writer, worthy of much praise, but it'd be patently ridiculous to claim he fathered the idea of writing good books. Wunderman didn't father Direct Marketing. He was just really, really, ridiculously good at it.
According to the article, Wunderman would half agree with you:
> “Direct marketing was out there,” Mr. Wunderman told Adweek, referring to his early days. “I didn’t invent it. But it had no definition and no strategy.”
BTW it doesn't change your argument at all but Maxwell wasn't his first job - he worked for two smaller agencies for a while before that. Not 24 years though :)
The advertising world's short-term memory is a pet peeve of mine. There's an obsession with "new" and building up individuals as heroes, when it's easy to see that these ideas have been evolving for a long time.
On a somewhat related note, it's also the industry that spends almost all of its money marketing to the demographic who have the least money to spend (debt-burdened youth) and ignoring those with money to burn (retirees).
His book, Being Direct, is amazing. It's decades of real marketing campaigns, often with detailed test results. It really guided and helped my marketing career.
To save others a search, here's the book on Amazon. I'm surprised I've never heard of it before, even though I have Ogilvy & Tested Advertising Methods:
For some reason this book misses most of the Best Marketing Books lists and not a lot of people know about it compared to Ogilvy stuff. But having read 100+ marketing books, this is the one I found the most useful.
Specifically, Claude C. Hopkins is, to my knowledge, the person most responsible for the ideas and techniques behind Direct Marketing. His 1923 book, Scientific Advertising, laid out all the principles of Direct Marketing, and Wunderman would have been very aware of his work. This book predates Wunderman's first job as a copywriter by 24 years, when he was hired by Maxwell Sackheim & Co. in 1947[1].
From the Wikipedia page[2]:
> The book is cited as being the original description of the process of split testing and of coupon based customer tracking and loyalty schemes. In the book, Hopkins outlines an advertising approach based on testing and measuring. In this way losses from unsuccessful ads are kept to a safe level while gains from profitable ads are multiplied. Or, as Hopkins wrote, the advertiser is "playing on the safe side of a hundred to one shot".
> The book is widely considered the foundation of direct marketing.
Again, I'm not bashing Wunderman. He was a remarkably effective marketer and if you want to make the argument that he popularized Direct Marketing or did more to make it the juggernaut that it is today, I won't argue.
But it's just disingenuine for this article to give the impression that he's the "father" of it. It'd be like calling Ernest Hemingway the Father of Writing. Hemingway was an amazing writer, worthy of much praise, but it'd be patently ridiculous to claim he fathered the idea of writing good books. Wunderman didn't father Direct Marketing. He was just really, really, ridiculously good at it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Wunderman [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Advertising
> “Direct marketing was out there,” Mr. Wunderman told Adweek, referring to his early days. “I didn’t invent it. But it had no definition and no strategy.”
BTW it doesn't change your argument at all but Maxwell wasn't his first job - he worked for two smaller agencies for a while before that. Not 24 years though :)
The advertising world's short-term memory is a pet peeve of mine. There's an obsession with "new" and building up individuals as heroes, when it's easy to see that these ideas have been evolving for a long time.
On a somewhat related note, it's also the industry that spends almost all of its money marketing to the demographic who have the least money to spend (debt-burdened youth) and ignoring those with money to burn (retirees).
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://smile.amazon.com/Being-Direct-Making-Advertising-Pay...