F. William Free (August 28, 1928 – January 1, 2003) was an American

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

executive. He is best remembered for the controversial 1971 advertising slogan for National Airlines, "I'm Cheryl – Fly Me."

Career

Early career and Marschalk years

He began his advertising career in 1950 as a junior art director at N. W. Ayer & Son in Philadelphia. After working as an art director for

J. Walter Thompson J. Walter Thompson (JWT) was an advertisement holding company incorporated in 1896 by American advertising pioneer James Walter Thompson. The company was acquired in 1987 by multinational holding company WPP plc, and in November 2018, WPP merge ...

in London and

Foote, Cone & Belding Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB), is one of the largest global advertising agency networks. It is owned by Interpublic Group and was merged in 2006 with Draft Worldwide, adopting the name Draftfcb. In 2014 the company rebranded itself as FCB. Parent ...

in New York, he became creative director of the Marschalk Company in 1959. During his time at Marschalk, Free introduced New York to the first soda brands to be added by the

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

company; Sprite, Tab and

Fresca Fresca is a grapefruit-flavored citrus soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company. Borrowing the word ''Fresca'' (meaning "fresh") from Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, it was introduced in the United States in 1966. Originally a bottled sugar- ...

. His Fresca campaign featured a memorable exploit. Commercials for the citrus-flavored drink labeled it as having the "frosty taste of a blizzard", and were first published in winter 1967. The day after the ad was first shown, a foot of snow fell in New York. Free marched out into the blizzard and was photographed with a bottle of Fresca in his hand. He took a full-page newspaper advertisement out in ''

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 ...

'' the next day, announcing "New York. I'm sorry." He later became president of Marschalk. He opened his agency, F. William Free & Company, in 1969 with his wife, Marcella.

Controversial advertisements

Free is best remembered for the controversial 1971 advertising slogan for National Airlines, "I'm Cheryl – Fly Me." The slogan caused women's rights groups to protest outside his office in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

carrying signs reading "I'm Bill-Fire Me." The campaign's notoriety paid off for National, and they saw an increase in revenue per passenger mile. The next year he created another ad, "I'm Eileen – Fly Me", this time featuring an 8-year-old girl who aspires to be a flight attendant. He also reprised the original ad, saying: "Millions of people flew me last year." Another well known ad campaign of his was for the Silva Thins cigarettes of the

American Tobacco Company The American Tobacco Company was a tobacco company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke through a merger between a number of U.S. tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter and Goodwin & Company. The company was one of the original 12 members of ...

. Some of Free's ads for Silva Thins were almost as notorious as the Cheryl ads. One, in 1970, went, "Cigarettes are like women. The best ones are thin and rich", which prompted the

National Organization for Women The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...

to demand a boycott of the brand.

Later career

He sold F. William Free & Company to Daniel & Charles after his divorce in 1981. The agency changed its name to Laurence, Charles & Free after the acquisition. At the new agency of Laurence, Charles & Free he was a key player in popularization of the tequila sunrise with his ads for

José Cuervo Jose Cuervo is the best-selling brand of tequila,Dana Cimilluca, Paul Sonne and Simon Zekaria“Diageo Ends Its Attempt to Buy Jose Cuervo Tequila,”''Wall Street Journal'', December 11, 2012. selling a fifth of the tequila consumed worldwide. ...

Personal life

Free was born in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, in 1928. He was also a champion horse breeder. One of the horses he bred, Packett's Landing, accumulated earnings of $799,769. He married twice, first to

Marcella Free Marcella Jones Free (September 17, 1920 – November 23, 2007) was respected as one of the advertising industry's leading copywriters. She was a pioneering woman in the business and was the first female Creative Director at N. W. Ayer in Philadelph ...

(née Jones), and then to Mary Anne Free (née Murry). Free had four children, Abagail, Adam and Molly with Jones, and Samantha with Murry. He was a longtime prominent resident of Millbrook, New York. He died in 2003, from complications of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

Sources

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Free, F. William 1928 births 2003 deaths Deaths from lung cancer Advertising directors