The Original Influencers: Women Who Shaped Advertising, PR & Branding

During Women’s History Month, it’s worth recognizing some of the pioneers whose ideas continue to influence the communications industry today. One of the earliest was Helen Lansdowne Resor.

Helen Lansdowne Resor was the first female copywriter at J. Walter Thompson and later became a vice president of the company. At a time when most advertisements focused strictly on product features, Resor helped pioneer emotional storytelling in national advertising campaigns. Her work on the famous “A Skin You Love to Touch” campaign for Woodbury Soap helped shift advertising away from simple product descriptions and toward emotional connection with the consumer. Resor understood that when people buy products, they are often buying more than the product itself. They are buying aspirations, identity, and the life they hope to live.

More than a century later, that insight still drives effective marketing. The most powerful messages don’t just explain what a product does. They shape how an audience feels. Emotion captures attention, builds connection, and ultimately inspires action.

Decades later, another woman would bring bold creativity and fearless strategy to the advertising world. Mary Wells Lawrence built on the power of bold, emotionally resonant advertising to redefine the industry. She became the first woman to serve as creative director at Doyle Dane Bernbach and later founded her own agency, Wells Rich Greene. When the firm went public in 1971, Lawrence became the first woman to serve as CEO of a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Her campaigns for brands like Alka-Seltzer and Braniff Airways weren’t subtle. They were theatrical, colorful, and culturally resonant because Lawrence believed brands should be impossible to ignore. Her agency also helped launch the iconic “I ❤ NY” tourism campaign, a simple but powerful message that helped reshape New York’s image during the late 1970s and remains one of the most recognizable branding campaigns in history.

That philosophy remains just as relevant today. In a crowded digital marketplace, differentiation requires courage. The brands that stand out are the ones willing to think bigger, move faster, and communicate with confidence.

While advertising was evolving, the field of public relations was also taking shape, thanks in part to pioneers like Doris Fleishman. A pioneering public relations practitioner, business partner and wife to Edward Bernays, who was considered one of the founders of PR, she helped professionalize the field. She applied research, psychology, and media strategy to shape public opinion and influence social norms. Her work demonstrated how carefully framing messages and understanding audiences could meaningfully shift public attitudes.

Even earlier, another woman demonstrated the power of communication to challenge injustice and influence society. Ida B. Wells, a journalist and civil rights leader, demonstrated how strategic communication could influence society. Through investigative journalism and data-driven advocacy, she exposed the realities of racial injustice and forcefully advanced the causes of civil rights and women’s suffrage. Her reporting combined evidence, credibility, and disciplined messaging to challenge deeply rooted injustices. Even before formal communications theory existed, she modeled its core principles: research matters, framing matters, and truth matters.

Together, these women didn’t just break barriers. They reshaped entire industries. Their leadership expanded opportunities for women in marketing, communications, and public relations, while helping establish many of the strategic principles that guide brand building, reputation management, and public discourse today.

For the team at ADELE, their legacy is more than history. It reflects the kind of work we strive to deliver every day. From developing meaningful brand stories to helping organizations communicate clearly and strategically, the principles these women championed continue to guide the way we approach our work and serve our clients.