Harry Webber

Since childhood, Harry Webber has been a creative person for hire. At the young age of 12, he created safety posters for the once mighty Pennsylvania Railroad. At 18, he moved to Detroit to become the first Art Director for the legendary Motown Record Corp., winning 23 gold records.

Five years later, Harry Webber returned to New York to join Young & Rubicam, where he was responsible for creating such memorable television campaigns as A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste, I'm Stuck on Band-Aid Brand, and Dr. Pepper, America's Most Misunderstood Soft Drink.

For the next 25 years on Madison Avenue, Harry Webber has been credited with creative responsibility for Chow, Chow, Chow, Thanks, I Needed That, Quality is Job 1, and many other mass marketed television and print efforts for such well known advertising agencies as Leo Burnett, SSC&B, McCann-Ericsson, and Wells, Rich, Greene.

In 1985, Mr. Webber saw the writing on the wall for the practice of Mass Marketing.

Moving West to Los Angeles, he founded Smart Communications, Inc. the first marketing firm to devote itself to the development of Selective or Segmented Marketing in America.

Since then, his clients have included McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Hardee's, Denny's, The Coca-Cola Company, The Walt Disney Co., Columbia/TriStar, United Paramount Network, Turner Home Entertainment, FX Networks, The California Lottery, Athearn Trains in Miniature, L'Ermitage Hotels, California Department of Health Services, OrNda Healthcorp, and Tenent Healthcare Corp, Sun Microsystems, and DirecTV.

His landmark book, Divide & Conquer, is the first book to be published on the practice of Selective Marketing in America. Harry Webber's work is in the Clio Hall of Fame, The Museum of Advertising, Madison Avenue's advertising Walk of Fame, the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Smithsonian. He has been featured in the books Mirror Makers and Positioning as well as the Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, CBS, NBC, CNN, AdWeek, Adrants, Adbumb, and Advertising Age. The New York Times credited his "Coke Classic. A Cool American" campaign with pioneering the hot trend of user-generated content over the web. Some 10,000 advertising and marketing professionals worldwide read Harry Webber's online column, MadisonAveNew.com, each week.

In 2002 Mr. Webber, along with partners Dan Cracchiolo (Producer, The Matrix) and John Feist (Producer, Survivor) began developing Branded Entertainment content for BrandedFilm.com. This work lead to the forming of The Gasp Company with noted Design Director Angela Glenn in 2005. At Gasp, Harry Webber and his team are stretching the boundaries of traditional advertising and new media to create a more meaningful way of engaging consumers. By pioneering the use of Dynamic Access Marketing Networks, Gasp surrounds their targeted audience with media-based spheres of influence that follow consumers throughout their day. Mr. Webber is also on the board of the Institute For Advanced Practices In Advertising ( IAPIA.org) an ad industry public policy think tank.