Len Sirowitz, an award-winning advertising art director whose creative output in the 1960s included memorable print ads for the Volkswagen Beetle – such as one that declared, “Ugly is only skin deep” – and a campaign for Mobil that featured a car drop-off built a ten-story building to raise awareness of the dangers of speeding, died March 4 at his home in Manhattan. He was 91.
His daughter Laura Sirowitz confirmed the death.
Mr. Sirowitz joined the influential Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency, known as DDB, in 1959 at the age of 27 and spent the next 11 years at the firm, where he designed the look and feel of advertisements for numerous clients with wit and passion.
“I realized quite early in my career that my message not only had to be bold and daring, but it also had to come from the truth… and touch people’s emotions,” he told Dave Dye, who runs the advertising blog From that Loft, in 2015.
Volkswagen was perhaps Mr. Sirowitz’s most important account, and the homely Beetle, nicknamed “Bug,” was his automotive muse and copywriter Robert Levenson. One of their collaborations for the German automaker included the commercial “Will We Ever Kill the Bug?”, in which they positioned a beetle shot on its roof like a dead beetle. The answer to the question: “Never.” (However, after taking a few shots of the car, the roof collapsed.)
The pair also designed an ad that featured a colorful Beetle made up of green and beige fenders, a blue hood and a turquoise door, pieced together from 1958 to 1964 models. The ad highlighted how easy it was for owners to find parts.
For Sara Lee, Mr. Sirowitz and Mr. Levenson created a TV commercial in which people dealt with annoyances like haircuts and traffic jams, then consoled themselves with a slice of the company’s cake and introduced a soon-to-be-permanent jingle: “Everyone doesn’t like something / But.” no one doesn’t like Sara Lee.
For Mobil’s public newspaper and television commercials on traffic safety, Mr. Sirowitz illustrated that an accident at 60 miles per hour would have the same impact as a car falling 10 stories. “And it will take you to exactly the same place – the morgue,” the narrator said.
Another TV spot for Mobil featured a couple making out in a car while the man drove into the blinding lights of oncoming traffic, which ultimately led to an accident. A narrator says: “At Mobil we sell petrol and oil. We are for driving and love, but not at the same time.”
And for the Better Vision Institute, an association of lens and frame manufacturers, Mr. Sirowitz produced dozens of promotions that appeared in Life magazine to persuade people to get their eyes checked more often. One particularly dramatic ad ran in all black with text by Leon Meadows that read, “For many Americans, this is what yellow daisies look like in a green pasture against a blue sky.”
Another ad by Mr. Sirowitz for the Better Vision Institute, many of which ran in Life magazine. He has been praised for his creativity and innovation in such campaigns.Credit…Doyle Dane Bernbach for the Better Vision Institute
Bob Isherwood, a former global creative director for Saatchi & Saatchi, called Mr. Sirowitz a “hero art director” for his fresh ideas and different approaches.
“It was just an idea that he put on the site,” he said in a telephone interview. “When you see ads like that, you think, ‘Oh God, I wish I had done that.'”
Leonard Sirowitz was born on June 25, 1932 in Brooklyn. His father, Abraham Sirowitz, emigrated from Ukraine in 1905 and held various jobs, including taxi driver and jewelry polisher. His mother, Sadie (Schoenwetter) Sirowitz, ran the home.
Len Sirowitz in 1985. That same year, he was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, with his work described as “intelligent and humane.”Credit…about the Sirowitz family
Mr. Sirowitz’s passion for drawing led to his studies at the Art Students League of New York in Manhattan at age 12 and his acceptance into the High School of Music and Art (now Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School) two years later of Music & Art and Performing Arts). There he met his future wife Myrna Florman, a music student named Mickey, when he was 17 and she was 14.
Mr. Sirowitz graduated from Pratt Institute in 1953, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in advertising. He spent the next two years in the Army, primarily at Fort Dix in New Jersey, and married Miss Florman in January 1955 while serving. She survives him along with his daughter; a son, Michael; and a grandson.
After his discharge from the Army, Mr. Sirowitz worked at the pharmaceutical advertising agency LW Fröhlich as well as at Gray Advertising, CBS and Channel 13, the New York public television station.
In addition to his work for DDB’s commercial clients such as Sony, where Mr. Sirowitz created a quirky campaign based on the portability of his four-inch-wide television, he also volunteered for political causes.
A full-page newspaper ad for the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy in 1965 showed a cockroach against a white background with the headline: “The Winner of World War III.”
Another 1968 ad for the Coalition for a Democratic Alternative bore the headline “For What?” written in giant letters, written by Dave Reider, a copywriter, describing the hopelessness of the Vietnam War, calling for the resignation of President Lyndon B. Johnson, and advocated for Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota to be the Democratic nominee for president.
Mr. Sirowitz was senior vice president and associate creative director of DDB when he left the company in 1970 to form his own agency, Harper Rosenfeld Sirowitz, as co-chairman and co-creative director. (It was renamed several times over the years.) By then, he had been named Art Director of the Year in Ad Weekly’s national polls in 1968 and 1970. He was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1985.
His agency’s clients included Swissair, McDonald’s, Smith Corona and Royal Caribbean Cruises. Nevertheless, the firm closed in 1995 after losing several clients and Mr. Sirowitz moved to the agency Ryan Drossman & Partners as vice chairman.
He soon retired and returned to the Art Students League, where he made large-scale nude portraits in charcoal four days a week.
“I strive for bold, dramatic interpretations of the model’s pose, drawn with spontaneous, curved lines, and most importantly, they should be part of a strong, well-designed composition,” he told the institution’s magazine, Lines from the League, in 2012 -13 edition.
His compositional style was clearly evident in his advertising campaigns, including one in 1991 for America West Airlines in which he cast improv comedian Jonathan Winters – looking tough and wearing camouflage – in a parody of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who had recently done so has commanded US troops in the Gulf War.
The ad said: “Announcing air superiority for civilians” and offered discounted airfares of up to 40 percent.
However, the campaign was criticized for poor taste by the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization, and America West filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection shortly thereafter.
“To me, great advertising should make your palms sweat,” Mr. Sirowitz told The Associated Press. “America West is the smallest of the major airlines. We wanted to do the kind of advertising that would put them on the map in one fell swoop.”
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2024-03-14 00:41:34
www.nytimes.com
