11 Facts About Lester Wunderman

Lester Wunderman was an American advertising executive widely considered the creator of modern-day direct marketing.

Lester Wunderman identified, named, and defined the term "direct marketing" in a 1967 speech at MIT, and was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1998.

Lester Wunderman introduced a "direct marketing" approach to service them, using the medium of clients' mailboxes as a way to develop a more personal connection with potential customers than general advertising had previously found possible.

Lester Wunderman was elected to the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1998.

Lester Wunderman received an honorary doctorate from Brooklyn College, City University of New York in 1984.

Lester Wunderman's book Being Direct: Making Advertising Pay was published in January 1997 and republished with new material in 2004.

An avid art collector, Lester Wunderman donated nearly 300 works of Dogon artifacts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the balance of his Dogon collection to the Musee de l'Homme in Paris, France.

Lester Wunderman studied photography at the New School for Social Research and then with private instructors.

Lester Wunderman's work has been represented by galleries in New York and the village of Mougins, France.

Lester Wunderman had three stepsons, and was a congregant at the Eldridge Street Synagogue.

Lester Wunderman died on January 9,2019, at the age of 98 in New York.