Bernard “Bud” Frankel helped other companies sell their products for 40 years as a co-founder in 1962 of what became marketing services business Frankel and Co., whose promotions included McDonald’s Happy Meal.
“He was a pioneer in the industry,” said Jim Mack, who was president of Frankel for 10 years and continued as president and CEO after the 2001 sale of the company to French advertising company Publicis Groupe. “He was really looked at as one of the founders of the sales promotion business. He took an industry that was primarily focused on displays and turned it into a marketing, branding and strategy agency.”
Paul Schrage, former executive vice president and chief marketing officer at McDonald’s, said Frankel’s company was one of several that had a role in the Happy Meal program. “They were very much involved in putting the package together,” he said. “You have to give them a lot of credit.”
Frankel, 89, died of lung cancer on May 14 in his Gold Coast home, according to his wife, Mimi. The couple moved to Chicago from Evanston about 20 years ago.
Frankel was born in Cleveland and grew up in Buffalo, New York. He attended the University of Buffalo for a time and was working in sales for a men’s sportswear company when he was transferred to Chicago.
He soon moved to Kling Studios, what his wife called an “old-time art studio,” which produced art for advertising agencies. “Marketing and economics were always his passion,” his wife said.
At Kling he met Marv Abelson. In 1962 the two started their own promotion agency, Abelson-Frankel. According to a company history, the growing business was an early promoter of “worthy cause” promotions with a campaign for Clark gum in which a small donation to charity was made for empty gum packages sent back to the company.
In 1973 the company began its relationship with McDonald’s.
“We had an advertising agency, but because of the retail nature of our business, we needed help in the areas of local promotions and in-store displays,” Schrage said.
Abelson-Frankel made a presentation and won the business. “We liked Bud very much and were very comfortable with him. That was the start,” Schrage said.
“He was a visionary, he was incredibly smart, but he was also incredibly humanistic,” said Dick Thomas, who joined Frankel in 1993 and succeeded Mack as CEO in the early 2000s. “He also knew he was only as good as the people that worked for him and the culture he created. Hiring the best-quality people … and treating them well once they’re in the door.”
In 1976, Abelson-Frankel helped put together a promotion tied in with the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Customers received scratch-off game pieces for various events in a campaign called “When the U.S. wins, you win.” If a U.S. athlete medaled in an event for which a customer had a game ticket, the ticket could be redeemed for food items — a Big Mac for gold, french fries for silver and a Coke for bronze.
“It woke people up to the idea that you could do more than hang a sign at a sporting event,” said Colleen Fahey, former executive vice president and executive creative director with Frankel.
Fahey, who joined the company in the 1970s as a freelance copywriter, said it took time to establish a relationship with Bud Frankel.
“I think Bud needed to see you had integrity, that you were good to other people, that you could have ideas that could work in the real world and that could be measured,” she said.
Fahey said Frankel’s vision for the agency included a new approach to the way clients were charged, in place of the traditional system of commission on promotional products. “He wanted to charge professional fees for ideas and the execution of the ideas,” Fahey said. “One thing that led to was always starting with a clean sheet of paper, a ‘could-be-anything’ idea.”
The Happy Meal promotion began in 1979.
In 1981, Abelson left the company, which then became Frankel and Co. The company was recognized in 1989 by Advertising Age, now Ad Age, as sales promotion Agency of the Year.
In addition to McDonald’s, clients over the years included Citibank, Target, Microsoft, Nestle and UPS.
Thomas said Frankel had a rare ability to create a vision, galvanize people behind that vision and get them moving together to realize it.
“Fearless, inventive and humanistic. Three words to describe Bud Frankel,” Thomas said. “Once he was at the top of the mountain, he wasn’t celebrating. … He was looking for the next mountain.”
In addition to his wife, Frankel is survived by sons Peter and Matthew, and 11 grandchildren. His daughter, Andrea Frankel Allen, died in 1995.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. May 31 in Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, 303 Dodge Ave., Evanston.
Graydon Megan is a freelance reporter.