You have no doubt heard of the Jolly Green Giant, the Keebler Elf and the Pillsbury Doughboy, but you might not know that they are all related. All of them, plus Charlie Tuna, Morris the Cat, the Marlboro Man and other iconic advertising characters all come from the Leo Burnett public relations company.
One Burnett executive in Chicago was Chuck Werle, who had more than 34 years in public relations, and about 18 CEOs.
The best CEOs, Werle said, asked employees what they thought and then listened. Werle believes in listening and rephrases the famous real estate mantra from "Location, location, location." to "Listen, listen listen." He says, "The key to PR is telling management what they need to know, not what they wa\nt to hear." Management won't get that kind of honesty without encouraging it.
Werle recalls being in creative meetings in Chicago when Burnett was developing a slogan or logo to recognize its 50th anniversary. The creative team deadlocked on two ideas. They were so close that top management decided to use both.
Werle thought this went against Burnett's philosophy of presenting its clients with one, strong idea rather than two or three. So, he wrote a memo to Chairman and President John Kinsella. Werle used to call his notes "Nobody asked me, but ..." memos. Werle challenged the no-call on the two campaigns. Kinsella reconvened the group and told them they would try again and settle on ONE idea.
They chose a Burnett classic, a round, black, soft-lead copy pencil. Old man Burnett had favored the pencils and said that "big ideas come out of big pencils." The 50th anniversary campaign featured a black pencil that bore the legend, "Celebrating 50 years of one great idea."
If you go to the Leo Burnett Web site, you'll find a big, black pencil.

