The Conscience of Direct Marketing
Nat Ross never wavered in his support of DM education and social justice It’s funny, but I’ve never really thought of Nat Ross – who died at age 96 on Aug. 25 – as a direct marketer. He was a brilliant and ethical man, and knew a great deal about many things. But a direct marketer? No.
Granted, he ran New York University’s direct marketing program for over 30 years, and he founded the Direct Marketing Idea Exchange (DMIX). But his main goal in life was the pursuit of social justice, and he did not exempt DMers from criticism when they failed to live up to his standards.
Nat felt, for example, that the industry was far too willing to put up with crooks and privacy violators. He also argued that marketers gave short shrift to minorities, both as customers and as executive talent. He explored these themes in a 1985 DM News article titled, “What’s Wrong with Direct Marketing,” in which he quoted Justice Louis Brandeis and John Dewey to make his points. The article still rings true today.
In addition to his support of women and minorities, Nat gave hope to another beleaguered group: seniors. This he did by sheer power of example, for he remained in the saddle well into his 90s.
Like many people in this industry, Nat did not set out to have a career in direct marketing. The son of garment workers, he won a scholarship to Columbia University, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1927. He then threw himself into civil rights work, and worked for the Scottsboro Boys defense during the early 1930s. (They won their freedom.)
Leftists from that era were forged in an iron crucible, and Nat never gave up his core beliefs. Nevertheless, he had a living to make and so he accepted when a friend offered him a job as a print salesman at Lincoln Graphic Arts when he was over 50. Nat Ross a salesman? It’s hard to picture, given his penchant for uttering the unvarnished truth. But he did a good job by all accounts, and prospered in his second career. (I always wondered if Lincoln Graphic Arts was named directly after Abraham Lincoln or after the Lincoln Brigade.)
Just as it looked like he was destined for permanent retirement in 1967, he was asked to teach direct marketing at New York University, and thus started his third career at age 62.
Given the state of DM education in those days, this was no easy task. But Nat brought in expert guest lecturers and eventually turned the course into the world’s leading direct marketing program. Along the way, he also originated the Nat Ross Roundtables at Direct Marketing Association conferences, which smart reporters always got up early to attend. He finally stepped down from NYU in 1998.
Lunch With Nat I met Nat in 1985 when I was managing editor of DM News, and had to deal with his many last-minute changes to “What’s Wrong with Direct Marketing.” After that, we had lunch every few months or so until 1999.
As Drew Pearson wrote about Harry Truman, Nat could swear like a Missouri mule driver, especially when commenting on malefactors in the industry. He ran DMIX with an iron hand, excluding people he thought didn’t belong there. And he once rearranged the seating at a luncheon when he didn’t like the way things were going. He was especially hard on Harold Schwartz, former head of the Montgomery Ward catalog, and other members of what he called the Gang of Four. (I vaguely recall that their offense was they were rude to a speaker from American Express.)
Nat was hardly a flatterer. When I was at DM News, he told me time and again that DIRECT was the best publication. After I moved to DIRECT, he assured me that DM News was tops.
But I always enjoyed the lunches, which mostly took place at a Chinese restaurant around the corner from his apartment in Greenwich Village. Usually after some palaver about NYU and what certain scoundrels were doing to direct marketing, we discussed past and present politics. I always savored the story of how he heard Franklin Roosevelt’s 1936 Democratic Convention speech on the radio while riding in an open car in Iowa. (Most people remember that speech for the line, “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny,” but Nat recalled FDR’s swipes against “economic royalists.”) Then he would advise me on the magazine and on life. I was touched by the fact that he never failed to mention his late wife, reporter Johnnie West. They met in 1932 in Alabama during the Scottsboro Boys case, and went on to enjoy a 55-year love affair.
His accomplishments? On paper, they are the program he developed at NYU, and his creation of the Roundtables and DMIX (where the menu still consists of cold salmon and hot talk).
But he also had a hidden influence on DMA presidents, trade press editors and many, many direct marketers. As Iris Shokoff, president of Iris Shokoff Associates, recently said: “Nat was the heart and soul and conscience of direct marketing. He never strayed from his mission or his values or his desire to give back to the industry.”
Nat was elected to the DMA Hall of Fame in 1984, and honored on many other occasions, including his 85th and 95th birthdays. There will be one more tribute: a memorial service on Tuesday, Oct. 3, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at The Yale Club in New York. Nat’s friends will be there to celebrate his life and rededicate themselves to the things he taught them.
