Weisberg
Weisberg steps down,
will return to N.Y. advertising
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Weisberg
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Associate Professor Larry Weisberg, a New York City ad agency president who left Madison Avenue in 1993 to invigorate the School's advertising program, has decided it's time to move forward.
By moving back.
The director of the School's Integrated Marketing Communications master's program, Weisberg resigned to return to New York, where ad industry challenges and family ties await him.
"Someday you have to go home, and home to me is the industry and my two sons and my new grandson," he said.
"The six years I spent here were fascinating, when you realize the only times I'd been on a college campus since I got my MBA from Columbia in '67 was to take my kids to and from college," he said.
Weisberg went from Columbia to the giant ampersands of the marketing world: Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. By 1973 he was an ad agency exec, first as a vice president with BBDO Advertising and Waring & LaRosa Advertising in New York City. He was vice president of advertising for the Arrow Shirt Co. and senior vice president of BrainReserve, a marketing consulting firm, before being named president of Waring & LaRosa.
"Larry is the consummate professional," said Phil Karsh ('57), co-founder of the Karsh & Hagan ad agency in Denver and chairman of the School's Advisory Board. "He has an incredible background. He brought all of that to his job plus a real excitement in working with the students. "He really gave the program life. He's going to be really hard to replace."
Associate Professor Brett Robbs said CU students benefited tremendously from Weisberg's industry experience and his willingness to use professional connections to create internship and career opportunities for them
"We listened a lot to the students," Weisberg said. That resulted in two fundamental changes at the School:
-More connection with the professional world of advertising, provided through internships, class speakers and jobs nationwide.
-More creative courses, provided by increasing the number of offerings from one to four.
"We tried to be more sensitive to, and in touch with, the professional world," he said. Weisberg said participation on the part of advertising professionals, when asked to contribute time, has been "phenomenal."
In turn, his time at CU has given him something to give back to the advertising industry.
"I now have an appreciation for taking the time to think about and getting to the depth of issues," he said. "The advertising world is so fast-paced, you just don't have the time.
"There were two areas in particular I was able to research. First, studies of teamwork and how agency personnel work together, and second, women in advertising and the challenges they face."
He said that two of three advertising undergraduates are female.
"When I was interviewed for the job in 1993 and I went through the gauntlet (of CU interviewers), many of those people don't know anything about my field. Someone asked me, 'As president of an advertising agency, what did you do to promote diversity.'
"I sort of resented the question, and I said, 'Nothing.' My focus had been working hard to run my company and keep people employed.
"In the future when someone asks me that question, I will have something to say. I will do something; I will make conscious decisions about diversity."
Weisberg said universities are stereotyped as institutions obsessed with political correctness, and that's OK. "
It represents a good thing," he said. "It balances out industries where these things aren't being considered at all."
Weisberg donated his marketing expertise to several community programs, including the Standing Committee on Substance Abuse and a University campaign to recruit out-of-state students.