Frederick D. Sulcer
Encyclopedia
Frederick Durham Sulcer, known as Sandy Sulcer, was an American
advertising agency
copywriter and executive notable for creating the 1960s Put a Tiger in Your Tank advertising theme for Esso gasoline, now known as ExxonMobil
.
which lasted through the 1930s. His father lost his Chicago-based advertising agency during the downturn. Sulcer had an egg delivery service and slept underneath the dining room table to allow his parents to rent out his bedroom for much–needed funds. He attended the University of Chicago
on a scholarship and edited the student newspaper The Chicago Maroon
and graduated in 1947. He was an amateur actor
in the Quadrangle Players theater group. He was drafted and fought in the Korean War
and was promoted to Captain in the United States Army Corps of Engineers
. After returning from Korea
, he married an artist
for the Chicago Tribune
named Dorothy Wright. He attended night school at the University of Chicago Business School
and earned an MBA degree in 1963.
. He wrote jingles for Household Finance Corporation
including Never borrow money needlessly, but when you must, trust HFC. He became a creative director. He was promoted to account executive
in 1961.
To pitch Oklahoma gasoline (which became "Esso", then "Exxon", then "ExxonMobil"), he collaborated with psychologist Ernest Dichter
and learned from research that drivers wanted both power
and play
for their automobiles. The pair, working with other agency creative people, selected the tiger
as a visual symbol to express this desire. The agency borrowed a live tiger from the zoo
which remained behind a large curtain while they presented the campaign idea to gasoline executives; at the end of the presentation, they opened the curtain to reveal the tiger. They won the account with the theme Put a Tiger in Your Tank.
Sulcer became assistant to the agency president Paul Harper. In addition, he helped persuade the agency to abandon cigarette advertising after reading the 1964 landmark Smoking and Health
report by the Surgeon General
linking tobacco use with lung cancer
; he quit smoking as well.
Sulcer moved to Bronxville, New York
in 1966 and managed the agency's New York office. He helped persuade clients to support public service initiatives including a seat-belt public service campaign
called Buckle Up for Safety as well as a traffic safety campaign entitled Watch Out For The Other Guy for the Advertising Council
. Sulcer described the other guy theme and how it tried to improve awareness that other drivers were usually "nice, well-meaning people":
Sulcer helped persuade the Xerox
corporation to support a TV series entitled Of Black America which was later recognized by then-president
Gerald Ford
as a positive effort to bring awareness to minority issues. The agency used data from a longitudinal survey of 3,000 consumers nationwide to help clients understand marketing issues as well as help interpret election results and political leanings. He held executive positions at Needham, Harper & Steers
(now owned by Omnicom
) including president of the New York Division, vice chairman of its international operations, and director of business development for the agency. He spoke publicly about the advertising business to professional associations. Working with chairman Paul C. Harper, Jr., he helped the agency develop a reputation as a "hot creative shop" after it won awards for advertising during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was known for being a capable rainmaker
who helped agencies pitch new business. By chance, he sat next to a New York Times reporter on an airplane who was also en route to the Andover–Exeter football game, and the reporter noted that Sulcer had two teenagers, one attending each school.
In 1978, he became director of new business development for DMB&B
(now part of Publicis
) and pitched numerous accounts. In 1990, he moved back to his previous agency, now called DDB Needham Worldwide
to head up new business development, for clients such as Anheuser-Busch
. He retired from the agency business in 1994.
Sulcer continued to teach and write about advertising in his later years. At Fairleigh Dickinson University
, he led along with Cleve Langton and Michael Goodman the Schering-Plough
executive lecture series entitled While You Were Looking The Other Way. The lecture series described annual changes in the marketing environment during the previous year which suggested cultural shifts and used marketing research
to spot emerging trends. He died in 2004 at the age of 77.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
copywriter and executive notable for creating the 1960s Put a Tiger in Your Tank advertising theme for Esso gasoline, now known as ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil
Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...
.
Early years
Sulcer was born in Chicago in 1926 and drew up during the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
which lasted through the 1930s. His father lost his Chicago-based advertising agency during the downturn. Sulcer had an egg delivery service and slept underneath the dining room table to allow his parents to rent out his bedroom for much–needed funds. He attended the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
on a scholarship and edited the student newspaper The Chicago Maroon
The Chicago Maroon
The Chicago Maroon, the independent student newspaper of the University of Chicago, is a twice-weekly publication that traces its founding to 1892. During autumn, winter, and spring quarters of the academic year, the Maroon publishes every Tuesday and Friday. The paper consists of four sections:...
and graduated in 1947. He was an amateur actor
Acting
Acting is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....
in the Quadrangle Players theater group. He was drafted and fought in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
and was promoted to Captain in the United States Army Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
. After returning from Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
, he married an artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
for the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
named Dorothy Wright. He attended night school at the University of Chicago Business School
Booth School of Business
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business is a graduate business school located in Chicago, Illinois, at the University of Chicago. Formerly known as the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Chicago Booth is the second oldest business school in the U.S., the first such school...
and earned an MBA degree in 1963.
Career
Sulcer began his career in late 1940s at Needham Louis & Brorby in Chicago, which later became Needham Harper & Steers, as an advertising copywriterCopywriting
Copywriting is the use of words and ideas to promote a person, business, opinion or idea. Although the word copy may be applied to any content intended for printing , the term copywriter is generally limited to promotional situations, regardless of the medium...
. He wrote jingles for Household Finance Corporation
HSBC Finance
HSBC Finance Corporation is a financial services company and a member of the British HSBC Group. It is the sixth-largest issuer of MasterCard and Visa credit cards in the United States...
including Never borrow money needlessly, but when you must, trust HFC. He became a creative director. He was promoted to account executive
Account executive
The job role executive admin. covers various descriptions depending on the specific industry covering mainly marketing role.In IT organizations, an account executives is a senior management role, responsible for executing large contracts. Control of the Profit & Loss is one of the main...
in 1961.
To pitch Oklahoma gasoline (which became "Esso", then "Exxon", then "ExxonMobil"), he collaborated with psychologist Ernest Dichter
Ernest Dichter
Ernest Dichter was an American-based psychologist and marketing expert who is often considered to be the "father of motivational research."...
and learned from research that drivers wanted both power
Motive power
In thermodynamics, motive power is an agency, as water or steam, used to impart motion. Generally, motive power is defined as a natural agent, as water, steam, wind, electricity, etc., used to impart motion to machinery; a motor; a mover. The term may also define something, as a locomotive or a...
and play
Play (activity)
Play is a term employed in ethology and psychology to describe to a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment...
for their automobiles. The pair, working with other agency creative people, selected the tiger
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
as a visual symbol to express this desire. The agency borrowed a live tiger from the zoo
Zoo
A zoological garden, zoological park, menagerie, or zoo is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures, displayed to the public, and in which they may also be bred....
which remained behind a large curtain while they presented the campaign idea to gasoline executives; at the end of the presentation, they opened the curtain to reveal the tiger. They won the account with the theme Put a Tiger in Your Tank.
Sulcer became assistant to the agency president Paul Harper. In addition, he helped persuade the agency to abandon cigarette advertising after reading the 1964 landmark Smoking and Health
Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States
Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States was a landmark report published on January 11, 1964 by the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health, chaired by then-Surgeon General of the United States Luther Terry regarding the...
report by the Surgeon General
Surgeon General of the United States
The Surgeon General of the United States is the operational head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government...
linking tobacco use with lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
; he quit smoking as well.
Sulcer moved to Bronxville, New York
Bronxville, New York
Bronxville is an affluent village within the town of Eastchester, New York, in the United States. It is a suburb of New York City, located approximately north of midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County. At the 2010 census, Bronxville had a population of 6,323...
in 1966 and managed the agency's New York office. He helped persuade clients to support public service initiatives including a seat-belt public service campaign
Public service announcement
A public service announcement or public service ad is a type of advertisement featured on television, radio, print or other media...
called Buckle Up for Safety as well as a traffic safety campaign entitled Watch Out For The Other Guy for the Advertising Council
Ad Council
The Advertising Council, commonly known as the Ad Council, is an American non-profit organization that distributes public service announcements on behalf of various sponsors, including non-profit organizations and agencies of the United States government....
. Sulcer described the other guy theme and how it tried to improve awareness that other drivers were usually "nice, well-meaning people":
Sulcer helped persuade the Xerox
Xerox
Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
corporation to support a TV series entitled Of Black America which was later recognized by then-president
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
as a positive effort to bring awareness to minority issues. The agency used data from a longitudinal survey of 3,000 consumers nationwide to help clients understand marketing issues as well as help interpret election results and political leanings. He held executive positions at Needham, Harper & Steers
DDB Worldwide
DDB Worldwide Communications Group Inc., known internationally as DDB, is a worldwide marketing communications network. It is owned by Omnicom Group Inc, one of the world's largest advertising holding companies...
(now owned by Omnicom
Omnicom Group
Omnicom Group is a holding company whose agencies provide marketing and communications services in the disciplines of advertising, customer relationship management , strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and...
) including president of the New York Division, vice chairman of its international operations, and director of business development for the agency. He spoke publicly about the advertising business to professional associations. Working with chairman Paul C. Harper, Jr., he helped the agency develop a reputation as a "hot creative shop" after it won awards for advertising during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was known for being a capable rainmaker
Business Rainmaking
Business rainmaking refers to generating new business or additional cash flow from sources outside the established or normal business channels. In general, rainmaking is a mindset of delivering value to your customer...
who helped agencies pitch new business. By chance, he sat next to a New York Times reporter on an airplane who was also en route to the Andover–Exeter football game, and the reporter noted that Sulcer had two teenagers, one attending each school.
In 1978, he became director of new business development for DMB&B
D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles
D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles was an advertising agency in the United States with worldwide subsidiaries.DMB&B was established in November 1985 by the merger of the Benton & Bowles and D'Arcy-MacManus Masius advertising agencies...
(now part of Publicis
Publicis
Publicis Groupe is a French multinational advertising and communications company, headquartered in Paris, France. It is one of the world's three largest advertising holding companies . Its current president is Maurice Lévy. Publicis Groupe S.A...
) and pitched numerous accounts. In 1990, he moved back to his previous agency, now called DDB Needham Worldwide
DDB Worldwide
DDB Worldwide Communications Group Inc., known internationally as DDB, is a worldwide marketing communications network. It is owned by Omnicom Group Inc, one of the world's largest advertising holding companies...
to head up new business development, for clients such as Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...
. He retired from the agency business in 1994.
Sulcer continued to teach and write about advertising in his later years. At Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University is a private university founded as a junior college in 1942. It now has several campuses located in New Jersey, Canada, and the United Kingdom.-Description:...
, he led along with Cleve Langton and Michael Goodman the Schering-Plough
Schering-Plough
Schering-Plough Corporation was a United States-based pharmaceutical company. It was founded in 1851 by Ernst Christian Friedrich Schering as Schering AG in Germany. In 1971, the Schering Corporation merged with Plough to form Schering-Plough. On November 4, 2009 Merck & Co...
executive lecture series entitled While You Were Looking The Other Way. The lecture series described annual changes in the marketing environment during the previous year which suggested cultural shifts and used marketing research
Marketing research
Marketing research is "the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information — information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve...
to spot emerging trends. He died in 2004 at the age of 77.