Hasta La Creative!

A creative force behind some of advertising’s greatest campaigns, Julian Koenig, has died at the age of 93.

Mr. Koenig is the sixth person to be inducted into the Copywriting Hall of Fame, in 1966 joining luminaries such as David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach and Leo Burnett. He is widely credited with creating Volkswagen’s “Lemon” and “Think Small” campaigns, the latter of which was named by Ad Age as the top ad of the 20th Century. Mr. Koenig “is a writer of friendly, free-from-bombast ads and declarative sentences,” wrote Ad Age’s former Editor Fred Danzig of Mr. Koenig at the time of his induction.

The copywriter might not have ended up in advertising had he not been thrown out of Columbia Law school following his graduation from Dartmouth in 1941. Five years later, Mr. Koenig joined the Freund Agency, where he was hired for $21.50 a week. He agitated for a raise to $35, and when it came through decided to up the ante to $60 a week, he told Ad Age in 1982. “Freund reviewed my work and said my radio wasn’t good, my print wasn’t and I had no future,” recalled Mr. Koenig in that story.

Continue reading at AdAge.com