Jay William Schulberg (July 17, 1939 – January 12, 2005) was an American advertising executive who had chief creative positions at both
Ogilvy & Mather and
Bozell Worldwide
Bozell is an American full-service public relations and advertising agency in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, North America.
History
Bozell traces its roots to the company founded in 1921 in Omaha, Nebraska by Leo Bozell and Morris Jacobs a ...
, with an approach to developing concise ads with memorable
taglines. He was responsible for creating many notable
advertising campaigns including the
Got Milk? milk mustache campaign, the "
Excedrin Headache" that could only be cured by the "extra-strength pain reliever", and the
American Express
American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...
"
Don't Leave Home Without It" campaign with
Karl Malden as spokesman.
Biography
Born in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
Schulberg attended
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
from which he graduated in 1961. He had originally planned to pursue a career as a screenwriter, following in the path of his cousin
Budd Schulberg who had written the
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-winning screenplay for ''
On the Waterfront
''On the Waterfront'' is a 1954 American crime drama film, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and Eva Marie Saint in her film debut. ...
''.
[Bayot, Jennifer]
"Jay Schulberg Dies at 65; Creator of Milk Campaign"
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', January 14, 2005. Accessed April 25, 2009.
Advertising
He was hired by
Ogilvy & Mather in 1961 as a junior
copywriter
Copywriting is the act or occupation of writing text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing. The product, called copy or sales copy, is written content that aims to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade a person or ...
. In the 1970s, he used Karl Malden then starring in the police drama ''
The Streets of San Francisco'', to deliver the line "Don't Leave Home Without It" to emphasize the safety of
American Express
American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...
traveler's checks
A traveller's cheque is a medium of exchange that can be used in place of hard currency. They can be denominated in one of a number of major world currencies and are preprinted, fixed-amount cheques designed to allow the person signing it to ma ...
. "A dry baby is a happy baby" was a line developed for
Huggies
Huggies is an American company that sells disposable diapers and baby wipes that is marketed by Kimberly-Clark. Huggies were first test marketed in 1968, then introduced to the public in 1978 to replace the Kimbies brand.
Products
Huggies carr ...
diapers, used in ads with happy infants.
[
Other campaigns pitched the "extra-strength pain reliever" as the cure for an "Excedrin headache" and used an older actor to introduce consumers to the "good old-fashioned lemonade" flavor of ]Country Time
Country Time is a brand of non-carbonated lemon-flavored drink mix and soft drink. The powdered mix is produced by Kraft Foods.
History
Country Time lemonade flavor drink mix was introduced in 1975 by General Foods. Over the years various ot ...
lemonade. Other clients at Ogilvy & Mather included AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...
, Duracell
Duracell Inc. is an American manufacturer of alkaline batteries, specialty cells, rechargeables and smart power systems, owned by Berkshire Hathaway. The company has its origins in the 1920s, through the work of Samuel Ruben and Philip Mallory, ...
, Hershey's, Maxwell House
Maxwell House is an American brand of coffee manufactured by a like-named division of Kraft Heinz in North America and JDE Peet's in the rest of the world. Introduced in 1892 by wholesale grocer Joel Owsley Cheek, it was named in honor of the Ma ...
, and ''Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...
''.[
He was hired by Bozell in November 1987 as executive vice president, creative director. He developed a campaign for the National Milk Processors Board in 1994, featuring celebrities drinking milk, as part of an effort to increase milk consumption. The campaign, created by art director Bernie Hogya] and copywriter Jennifer Gold, featured celebrity photographs by Annie Leibovitz of notables such as Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall (; born Betty Joan Perske; September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014) was an American actress. She was named the 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute and received an Academy Honorary Aw ...
and Naomi Campbell with a milk mustache and the tagline "Milk. What a surprise!" The program next included men as well as women with milk above their lips, and the slogan "Where's your mustache?" and later, " Got milk?". Schulberg recounted his experiences in the 1998 ''New York Times'' best-seller ''The Milk Mustache Book'', co-written with Bernie Hogya and Sal Taibi.[
After retiring in 1999, he worked as creative director of a $10 million public service campaign initiated in 2001 that promoted values such as determination, perseverance and selflessness, featuring everyday people as "the heroes all around us, whose stories are rarely told".
]
Personal
A longtime resident of Solebury Township, Pennsylvania
Solebury Township is a township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 8,709 at the 2020 census.
History
Migrating English Quakers began to settle down in an area of Buckingham Township. Around 1702, this area was in ...
, Schulberg died at age 65 in Doylestown, Pennsylvania on January 12, 2005 due to pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of t ...
. He was survived by his wife, Kathryn.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schulberg, Jay
American advertising executives
Deaths from cancer in Pennsylvania
Deaths from pancreatic cancer
People from Bucks County, Pennsylvania
People from Manhattan
1939 births
2005 deaths