Most people know Tim Kazurinsky as a former cast member of Saturday Night Live.
But what they might not know about the Chicago comedian and writer is that he is also a former advertising copywriter.
“I confess,” he said during a luncheon keynote at CADM’s DM Days Thursday. “I am an ad man.”
Before working at Chicago’s famed comedy theater Second City and later SNL, he started his career as a copywriter for a now defunct department store chain in St. Louis. “This was my closest link to direct marketing,” he said, because the ads were measurable. If an ad he wrote resulted in 37 TVs being sold, the store manager was happy.
He later moved on to McCann Erickson Chicago and then Leo Burnett. The founder of the latter agency knew the true meaning of brand loyalty, Kazurinsky said, noting that one time the hypoglycemic Burnett collapsed during a meeting and asked someone to quickly get him a candy bar. Before they could leave the room he gasped, “Make sure it
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