Schwartz, Tony

Biographical Note

Tony Schwartz, 1923-2008, was a media consultant, radio host and producer, educator, author, folk music documentarian and collector, and sound designer whose work has influenced many different aspects of the audiovisual landscape of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He is most commonly associated with the “Daisy ad” he helped develop for Lyndon Baines Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign against Barry Goldwater, a spot that aired only once but that nevertheless had a game-changing effect on political advertising. In the promotion of public health and civic issues, too, Schwartz applied innovative advertising and marketing techniques, most notably with a sustained series of campaigns against smoking and tobacco companies. So powerful was his first anti-smoking ad -- the first such ad ever produced -- that the tobacco industry voluntarily stopped advertising on radio and television.

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