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People and Pop Culture

The Sit-Down: Shelly Lazarus, Ogilvy & Mather

W hen I started in business, there were no role models because there were no women. I just had to kind of make it up.

What I have come to know all these years later is that just being yourself, comfortable in your own skin, being authentic and true to who you are, is all you need to be successful.

I came into advertising in the ’70s. I can tell you that every single woman that was working at Ogilvy, in a professional capacity — and there were not many of them — each one of them started as a secretary. That was the only way you could get in.

There was always a story along the way of a man who believed in them, saw their talent, knew they could do more, gave them a shot and they made it. So anyone who has watched “Mad Men” knows that is a good part of the story line.

The only way a woman could enter the commercial world was to type. You could pick where you wanted to type. You could type in a law firm, newspaper, ad agency or manufacturer. But you were going to type.

Photo by: MARC BRYAN-BROWN
That is why I got an MBA. I am the only person that went to Columbia Business School to get an MBA because I did not want to type.

I will tell you something that someone told me very early on which gave me enormous confidence, that turned out to be the truth. The person told me if you couldn’t be brilliant, at least be memorable.

If you are the only woman in the room, you are memorable. It is your moment.

I am sitting there wide-eyed, at Kimberly-Clark in Neenah, Wis. I am the only woman in the room, literally. All of the people in the room that were selling Kotex were all men. Inevitably someone would turn to me 20 to 25 minutes in and ask, “So, Shelly, what do women think?”

Don’t say that you can’t say or it is just your opinion. Don’t say that, just answer.

The number of women in advertising has grown exponentially. The number of women in senior positions has grown strongly. The number of women clients has grown enormously.  

You would have thought that there would be more women in most senior positions by now. Having said that, if when I was back as one of four women at Columbia Business School and someone had told me that the CEOs of IBM, DuPont, Xerox, GM ­— and the list could go on — were going to be women by the year 2015, I would have said that it was crazy talk.

 [David Ogilvy] started the company with a very strong point of view.

David really believed every organization would be a meritocracy. … That is what he built because he had no preconceived notion who would be successful.

The organizations that I sometimes go into, and they are talking to me about the mentoring programs and special sessions to women, we really do not need that. All we need is opportunity.

I used to have a client who said, “The crazier you are and more difficult, the more talent you need to have.” We will put up with a lot if you are really talented. If you are a pain in the ass and you do not have that much talent, watch out.

To me, there is only one measure. … At the end of the day, someone has to buy something.

You get unique audiences for sports. We can’t find these people other places.

As long as you keep delivering that audience, we will keep finding your audiences. The real question to you is, Does your audience keep continuing to watch in the 1958 way?

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