Walter Lürzer (1942 - 2011) –- A Tribute
By Michael Conrad President, Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Walter Lürzer and I have been friends for 50 years. After starting out with some passionate games of chess – with and without chess board – we teamed up professionally. From 1968 to 1982. For 14 years. First as colleagues, then as partners. I believe I can say that I know Walter well.
Photo: Walter Lürzer (left) & Michael Conrad (right).
Exaggeration, praise and flattery devoid of any base in reality, especially when directed at himself, were never his thing – unless, that is, they came “packaged,” concealed in irony, wit, and humor. It wasn’t easy to pay him a compliment.
But suddenly we can't hold them back: “A Hero,” “A Great,” “A Genius” are among the most frequently heard tributes since Walter’s passing. From friends and foes, and he did have foes, for he liked a good fight.
Walter and Uli Wiesendanger, founder and chief creative of the worldwide agency TBWA, had their fair share of quarrels. Yet on the day of Walter’s death, Uli wrote: “Dear Michael, I too miss Walter. Of course there were a few times he rubbed me the wrong way. But he did so with piercing (ouch!) clarity and always with a great deal of humor. And, thirdly, he was right most of the time. Which is why I enjoy thinking about him and am very sad. Let’s meet up a bit more often. I’ll be in touch.” Thank you, Uli.
“Let’s see more of each other,” is also what Sir John Hegarty, our former colleague at TBWA, said to me upon hearing of Walter’s death.
Walter was a hammer thrower. He studied engineering and advertising. Started out in client services at an agency called IWG in Vienna. Moved to Frankfurt and got a job as account executive at McCann Erickson and started writing his first ad copy for his client Opel. Switched to Y&R in Frankfurt and created famous campaigns for Cointreau and Haig. He became creative director at Ogilvy in Frankfurt. Again, he left after creating much-awarded campaigns such as those for Lufthansa, Becel, Wasa, and CD soap.
In 1972, he founded the German TBWA with a provocative concept: “creative service” instead of “full service.” This changed the advertising landscape completely, strengthening creative agencies. One of the first clients, Aral, called this form of co-operation “the Bochum model.” After being the subject of heated discussion, the idea took off. TBWA became Germany’s fastest-growing agency, surpassed only in 1975 when Lürzer, Conrad was founded. After a few months an advertising newsletter wrote: “Take down your laundry. Lürzer, Conrad are coming” (referring to an old racist saying warning people to take their laundry down when gypsies entered town). At the beginning of 1979, the journal "Kontakter" published a survey of 368 agencies where Lürzer, Conrad (often referred to as LüCo-Works), received first place for "extraordinary creative potential" as well as for "unusual advertising strategies" succeeding the place for "ideal agency".
At that point the agency had 95 employees. People who were among the best in the country. People who wanted to be doing something, rather than just being someone. People like Walter. He put them first, first before the clients. In the obituary from the ADC Germany, HP Albrecht wrote: “The client Fiat started picking on our chief creative on the account, Klaus Erich Küster, in response to which Walter made it clear to the client: “Now listen, I’d rather go looking for a new client than try to find another creative like him.” Küster and his colleagues subsequently created the legendary “tolle Kiste” (“neat little number”) campaign for the Fiat Panda. And today, 35 years later, Fiat is still one of the major names on the global client roster at Leo Burnett.
His idea to team up with the American agency Leo Burnett in 1980 proved to be a success. Even if Walter left Lürzer, Conrad & Leo Burnett just two years after the merger, the agency now had an extraordinary DNA and in subsequent years grew to employ more than 450 people.
In 1984, he turned publisher, founding Lürzer‘s Archive. During my travels to the most distant corners of our planet I have hardly ever come across creatives who didn’t have copies of Lürzer‘s Archive on their desks. When creatives apply for jobs, they like to point out, again and again, which and how many of their campaigns have been featured in the magazine.
It wasn’t long before Walter became restless without an agency. He bought 50% of Lowe Germany for 1 deutschmark and turned the agency - called Lowe, Lürzer - around to make it the next success story.
And then, 20 years ago, Walter was lured back to his native Austria. He became a professor, taking up the Chair of Graphic Design and Advertising department at Vienna’s Academy of Applied Arts and creating the famous “Lürzer Class,” the top address for creative talents.
Hammer thrower, engineer, adman, company founder, entrepreneur, turnaround expert, publisher, professor. A constant string of successes spanning almost five decades. So what were the qualities that made him so successful?
Walter remained down-to-earth in an industry that likes to get lost in its own hype. He was basically three people in one: The never-satisfied. The visionary. The doer and go-getter, the implementer. Three completely different characters, which he could unite. A larger-than-life man, as obsessed as he was persistent. “Giving up” was not part of his vocabulary.
He had patience, and actually loved to delve into complex problems. He was strong in analysis and strategy. He was always thinking in alternatives, focusing on the realizable and attainable, and persuasive when dealing with people both inside and outside his professional environments. He was firmly convinced of the validity of his thoughts, enabling him to inspire both trust and faith in his abilities.
He never stopped being the hammer thrower and engineer. He merely reached for loftier intellectual spheres, setting ever further, higher standards. And he insisted on quality down to the very last detail – and it is in the detail, they say, that God lies.
When in good form, he was creative lightness personified. For a Bosch ad I once labored over for days, staring at a visual showing a row of all the essential spark plugs Bosch had ever developed, including the very first for the Otto engine, I was desperately searching for a headline. Walter, passing by, glanced at the image with interest and said: “The history of the automobile.”
Through his qualities and his ambitious standards, he has deeply moved us, influenced us, helped us grow, and transformed us. I am proud that he is my friend, a friend of my family, and godfather to my son Philipp.
Our great, brilliant hero.
And the hero of many.
He is an honorary member of the Creative Club Austria and of the German ADC, and in 2009 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Advertising by the weekly business magazine Wirtschaftswoche.
During one of our last phone calls, he told me of new illness-related complications. “Chin up,” I told him. “How am I supposed to do that, Michael?” he laughed. “Chin up? By lifting my head up out of the casket?”
Your humor, dear Walter, was a true blessing. And, for the many who now embrace you, your head won’t, in any case, fit into any casket.
Michael Conrad