Judy Protas, 1922-2014

Judy Protas may have been famous only within the insular world of New York advertising. But some of the ads she wrote, including the 20th-century classic “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye,” have been been famous across the country for more than half a century.

Ms. Protas, a retired executive at New York agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, died January 7 at 91. Margalit Fox wrote the obituary for the New York Times, which I commend to you.

Here’s Fox on the Levy’s campaign:

Though its evocative tagline is often credited to William Bernbach, a founder of DDB, or to Phyllis Robinson, the agency’s chief copywriter, period newspaper accounts and contemporary archival sources make clear that the actual writing fell to Ms. Protas, who, working quietly and out of the limelight, set down those dozen durable words.

We didn’t have Levy’s in California, so this may have been the first Judy Protas ad I ever saw:

The walls of the mezzanine of the Ohrbach’s store on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles were decorated with ads like this one, which was far from current by the time I laid eyes on it. (The store, part of a New York-based chain, closed in 1987.) I remember my bemusement—a talking cat? in a fancy hat? with a cigarette holder?—and my delightthat this discount retailer valued advertisements highly enough to treat them as art. (Yes, I was an ad nerd even as a child.)

“Ohrbach’s … wanted to disabuse consumers of the notion that discount equaled déclassé,” writes Fox:

Beneath the headline — “I Found Out About Joan” — Ms. Protas’s copy went on, cattily, to describe the impecunious Joan’s pretensions to wealth before conceding, “She does dress divinely,” and concluding, “I just happened to be going her way and I saw Joan come out of Ohrbach’s!”

Protas also wrote the lyrics to the Cracker Jack jingle, “which in full (‘lip-smackin’, whip-crackin’, paddy-whackin’, knickin’-knackin’, silver-rackin’, scoundrel-whackin’, cracker-jackin’ Cracker Jack’) has the trochaic rush of a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song,” writes the inimitable Fox.

The career of Judy Protas serves as a reminder that not all Mad Men from advertising’s golden age were men. For further proof, see my post about Lois Wyse, who coined the Smucker’s slogan; and my Visual Thesaurus column about “you deserve it” slogans, which includes the story of how Ilon Specht came up with the long-lasting L’Oreal slogan “Because I’m Worth It.”

Read more about the Levy’s Rye Bread ad campaign at Barry Popik’s Big Apple blog.

Comments

[john burke]

Another admirer of Margalit Fox here. The main Times obituary writer in my youth was Alden Whitman, whose stuff was good enough to be published in an anthology after he retired. I think Fox is every bit as good a writer and specifically obituarist--she foregrounds the most noteworthy features or events in the subject's life rather than simply reciting it as though everything were of equal importance. I hadn't known of Protas before I read this the other day, though I was living in New York during much of the Levy's campaign.

Not all men indeed: remember Mary Tinker's brilliant TV ads for Alka-Seltzer? (A lively period in advertising--the DDB Volkswagen print ads, Stan Freberg doing radio for the California Prune board--"Today the pits--tomorrow the wrinkles!" And Jerry della Femina's very funny book about it all, "From Those Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Pearl Harbor," and Philip Daugherty's column in the Times Business section... good stuff.)

[Nancy Friedman]

John: Have you read Margalit Fox's excellent "The Riddle of the Labyrinth," published last year? It's about the long and obstacle-ridden attempt to decipher Linear B. Reads like a good mystery novel.

[Richard Ferrante]

I first became aware of "Advertising" as 19 year old while commuting to work from The Bronx to NYC by bus and subway. I couldn't help but notice the Levy's Real Jewish Rye posters with a Native American, then an African American, a Chinese American and others— and I got it. I knew what they were trying to do and it worked so simply and clearly. I happen to be Italian. I was ironically working at an Ad agency as a clerk, in an obscure department with absolutely no understanding of what my company did. As a clerk, I began asking everyone what they did—the creative department— that was it for me. I began to go to the School of Visual Arts at night and with encouragement from my instructors, who were Art Directors in the day, I put together a portfolio. I applied for a job at another agency. I got it. It was at Doyle Dane & Bernbach, as an assistant art director. It was the agency that created "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's Real Jewish Rye". How incredibly lucky I was. And I did meet Judy Protas. And I will go to her tribute at the Yale Club. Richard Ferrante