Leo Greenland

Leo Greenland, Unconventional Adman Who Valued Truth-Telling, Dies at 91 By MARGALIT FOX Published: June 12, 2011 TWITTER LINKEDIN PRINT REPRINTS SHARE

Leo Greenland, an advertising executive known for a string of evocative campaigns of the late 20th century and for public advocacy of truthfulness in his profession, a faintly subversive stance on Madison Avenue at midcentury, died on June 4 in Manhattan. He was 91. Enlarge This Image

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times Leo Greenland co-founded the agency Smith/Greenland in 1958. Enlarge This Image

Smith/Greenland Leo Greenland created campaigns for brands like Johnnie Walker. Mr. Greenland, who had homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., died of complications of pneumonia, his family said.

With Martin L. Smith, Mr. Greenland founded Smith/Greenland, a well-known New York agency, in 1958; Mr. Greenland was its chief executive until 1994, when it ceased operations.

The agency’s accounts over the years included the edible (Tootsie Rolls); the bet-able (Roosevelt Raceway); and the potable — Tanqueray, Johnnie Walker (the Red and the Black) and Ovaltine.

Smith/Greenland was not one of the biggest players on the block — that distinction went to agencies like Ogilvy & Mather and Doyle Dane Bernbach — but its work was considered feisty and cheerfully unorthodox.

One of its memorable print ads from the 1970s shows two side-by-side mansions, with the owner of one paying a call on the other. “I was wondering,” the caption says, “if I could possibly borrow a cup of Johnnie Walker Black Label?”

In a follow-up ad, the borrowee calls on the borrower, requesting his Scotch back.

Smith/Greenland’s work could also be provocative. In the late 1980s, the agency began a campaign that sought to position the Scotch at the heart of modern mating rituals. In one print advertisement, two scantily clad women are seen from behind, jogging along a beach. One says to the other: “He loves my mind. And he drinks Johnnie Walker.”

The ad drew the ire of some feminists, who condemned its focus on women as sex objects.

Another ad in the series showed two men, sweaty after a racquetball game. One says to the other, describing an unseen third party: “He works as hard as he plays. And he drinks Johnnie Walker.”

Some gay-rights advocates took Smith/Greenland to task for not having placed the ad in gay-interest publications, despite its obvious gay subtext.

“It did not occur to me it would get the reaction it got,” Mr. Greenland said in an interview with The New York Times in 1990. “We did not target gay people, but we are delighted they could relate to it.”

Ever the savvy businessman, Mr. Greenland also noted that the ad had garnered so much publicity in gay publications that there was no need to pay for space in any of them.

Mr. Greenland first came to the attention of the general public amid the fledgling consumer movement of early 1970s, when he began speaking out on what he saw as entrenched, less-than-truthful practices in advertising.

In an Op-Ed article he wrote in The New York Times in 1972, for instance, he said that consumer advocates like Ralph Nader were “probably the best thing that’s happened to advertising in the last 20 years,” because their work was forcing the profession “to make ourselves more responsible, both to the consumer and the advertiser.”

Some clients, however, would prove difficult to portray warts and all. A formidable assignment for Smith/Greenland came in the form of Helmsley Hotels, an account the agency landed in 1990. The company’s president, Leona Helmsley, had long starred in ads by her previous agency, Beber Silverstein & Partners, portrayed as an imperious queen who demanded white-glove service for her guests.

By the time Smith/Greenland acquired the account, Ms. Helmsley had been convicted of income tax fraud and was widely viewed as a symbol of hubris and greed. Mr. Greenland decided that she would no longer appear in the ads.

Leo Greenland was born in the Bronx on March 4, 1920. With Chester Gore and Mr. Smith, he was a partner in Gore Smith Greenland in the 1950s before decamping with Mr. Smith to start Smith/Greenland.

Mr. Greenland’s first wife, the former Rita Levine, died in 1991. He is survived by his second wife, the former Eileen Ludwig; two sons from his first marriage, Seth and Andrew; a sister, Claire Baer; four stepdaughters, Susan, Robin, Leslee and Penni; two grandchildren; and many step-grandchildren.

His agency’s other accounts included Citicorp and I. Rokeach & Sons, the kosher food manufacturer, for whom Smith/Greenland created a hugely successful TV campaign in the early 1960s that featured the Yiddish film and theater star Molly Picon.

One of Smith/Greenland’s most challenging campaigns was Penthouse magazine. In a bid to persuade skittish advertisers that people really did buy Penthouse for the articles, the agency prepared a series of ads, to appear in trade journals, that focused on the magazine’s investigative journalism.

One ad, which invoked an article in the magazine about the workings of the Ku Klux Klan, pictured two white-hooded figures.

The caption read, “Not everyone under a sheet in Penthouse is in the mood for love.”