Papert Koenig Lois, also known as PKL, was an

advertising agency An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generally ...

founded by Fred Papert,

Julian Koenig Julian Norman Koenig (; April 22, 1921 – June 12, 2014) was an American copywriter. He was inducted into The One Club Creative Hall of Fame in 1966. Early life and education Koenig was born to a Jewish family George Lois George Lois (June 26, 1931 – November 18, 2022) was an American art director, designer, and author. Lois was perhaps best known for over 92 covers he designed for ''Esquire'' magazine from 1962 to 1973. Background Lois was born in New Yor ...

in January 1960. Its first office was in the

Seagram Building The Seagram Building is a skyscraper at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with minor assistance from Philip Johnson, Ely Jacques Kahn, ...

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenu ...

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 ...

. Early clients included

Peugeot Peugeot (, , ) is a French brand of automobiles owned by Stellantis. The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was founded in 1810, with a steel foundry that soon started making hand tools and kitchen equipment, and the ...

and

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...

. Its campaigns were successful and it was the first such agency to go public.

History

The company was founded in 1959 as Papert & Free by two husband-and-wife teams: Frederic Papert and his wife Diane; William Free and his wife Marcella. A year later it was reorganized as Papert, Koenig, Lois after Free left to become the executive art director of

McCann Erickson McCann, formerly McCann Erickson, is an American global advertising agency network, with offices in 120 countries. McCann is part of McCann Worldgroup, along with several other agencies, including direct digital marketing agency MRM//McCann, expe ...

. The new partnership included Julian Koenig, a former Volkswagen copywriter, and

George Lois George Lois (June 26, 1931 – November 18, 2022) was an American art director, designer, and author. Lois was perhaps best known for over 92 covers he designed for ''Esquire'' magazine from 1962 to 1973. Background Lois was born in New Yor ...

, an art director. It became the first advertising agency in the United States to go public since 1929. PKL became known for specializing in the so-called "creative outrage", which contributed in changing the dynamics of advertising development in America. In an article, Lois described the agency as "unbefouled by mannerism", noting the creativity produced by their organizational openness.

Campaigns

Lois adopted the creative model of DDB, his previous employer by introducing informal working methods to PKL. It also covered the approach used by the agency's creative team. This translated to controversial series of advertisements that included the campaign for Wolfschmidt vodka. The produced ad entailed slick graphics, humor, and sexually suggestive copy. By 1962, the company was involved in political races, which included Robert Kennedy and Jacob Javits' Senate campaigns. Other examples of successful campaigns include

Maypo Maypo is an American brand of hot cereals. The original product was maple flavored oatmeal but there are now a variety of flavors sold under the Maypo brand name. It was originally manufactured by Maltex Co. and is now owned by Homestat Farm, L ...

porridge and Xerox. To reach older children, Lois, took the existing slogan "I want my Maypo" and put it in the mouth of famous sportsmen like

Mickey Mantle Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931 – August 13, 1995), nicknamed "the Commerce Comet" and "the Mick", was an American professional baseball player. Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career (1951–1968) with the New York ...

. To demonstrate the ease of use of a Xerox copier, it was shown being used by a little girl. Xerox's main competitor A.B. Dick complained to the

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...

that the advertising was fraudulent so PKL was ordered to cease the commercial's exhibition. It was re-shot but this time a chimpanzee was used instead to reinforce the point. FTC investigators were asked to observe and when the chimpanzee successfully in making a copy, the ban on both commercials was lifted. Lois claimed that it was the agency who convinced Xerox to change its name from the Haloid Company.

References

Advertising agencies of the United States Companies based in New York City Design companies established in 1960 {{advertising-stub