Obituary: Ad man Bill Powell led campaigns at Pillsbury, other firms

With his dapper bow tie and Aussie accent, Bill Powell used his smarts and charisma to promote some of the world's best-known brands, including the Pillsbury Doughboy, Burger King and the first generation of microwave ovens.

Powell's long career as a public relations and advertising man began in 1950, after then Star and Tribune publisher John Cowles Sr. put in a good word for him at Pillsbury Flour Mills. Over the next 20 years at Pillsbury, Powell had a front-row seat to seismic changes in the American family meal and the booming growth of convenience foods.

Powell, of Minneapolis, died at home on Oct. 28, a day after his 89th birthday.

At Pillsbury, Powell bridged the world between the promotional wordsmiths and food technicians who were developing the newfangled refrigerated doughs and dry food mixes that busy mothers demanded.

In the mid-1960s he led a team of Pillsbury insiders and advertising reps from Chicago's Leo Burnett agency to develop a marketing campaign for the Pillsbury Doughboy, whose pliable belly and high-pitched giggle became a corporate icon.

He spent 15 years promoting the Pillsbury Bake-Off, a high-stakes cooking prize, through which he became friends with Julia Child and hosted First Lady Mamie Eisenhower, among other dignitaries.

In 1961, he was honored by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders for recognizing the buying power of African-Americans and using black actors in advertisements, at a time when some record companies avoided showing black artists' faces on album covers for fear of losing sales from white consumers.

"He was part Don Draper and part Austin Powers," said his son Bruce Powell, comparing his dad to the well-dressed ad exec in the "Mad Men" TV show and the cheeky British spy character in the Hollywood film series. "He definitely had that silliness and joie de vivre, but he had the ability to see disparate and various points of view as well."

After being part of other such notable campaigns as Burger King's "Have It Your Way" blitz at Pillsbury, Powell struck out on his own in 1970, and focused his firm's marketing efforts on what he called "emerging lifestyles."

He always liked a good media show. To promote an early client, Litton Microwave Ovens, Powell cooked a live 2-pound lobster for writer and TV chef James Beard, who described it as "one of the best boiled lobsters" he'd ever had, Powell claimed.

During a 25-year run, he and his business partner, Richard Johnson, landed such blue-chip clients as General Mills, Quaker Oats, Kraft, RJR Tobacco and Home Depot.

"I categorized him as a cynical optimist," said Bill Dunlap, former CEO of Minneapolis-based ad agency Campbell Mithun, who hired Powell in 1995 in the sunset of his career. "He was very good at understanding people's motives — what was behind what they were saying."

Powell was born in the central-west region of New South Wales, Australia, and encouraged Dunlap to expand Campbell Mithun's international business, which he did. At one time, the agency was operating in 12 countries, Dunlap said. "He was a little bit futuristic, always seeing down the road and thinking of new angles," Dunlap said. "He helped me think beyond the same old ideas. And he was fun to work with. That's why I hired him."

Powell is survived by his wife, Barbara C. Bencini, daughters Beth Parkhill and Julie Ann Mackenzi, and two other sons, Robert Arthur Powell and John William Powell, all of Minneapolis. Services have been held.