The Creative Force Behind Iconic Ads

She started in the finance department of an ad agency and went from running adding machines to running creative, copywriting and producing iconic television commercials for McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, and more. Her bookkeeping memos caught the eye of the creative director at Burrell Communications, who brought her onto a project for Carnation evaporated milk and tomato paste.

Suddenly her background as a homemaker was an asset. “I went home, I looked at my family, I wrote scripts for those products, and Tom Burrell loved them,” Morris says. “He said, I can get a bookkeeper anytime; I think you’re a copywriter.”

Within two years she was a vice president.

In September, Morris was inducted into the One Club’s Creative Hall of Fame for her lifetime of work, including iconic ads such as Coca Cola’s “Street Song” and “Double Dutch” as well as “Calvin Got a Job” for McDonald’s. She even coined the term “Mickey D’s.”

Not only did Morris make commercials for Black people, “I also tried very hard to stick my foot in the door and push it open for Black professionals,” she says, putting Black creatives behind the camera as well as in front.

One of her favorite spots was “Joey,” for McDonald’s, which shows a working mother picking up her son from daycare. “It spoke to me,” she says, “raising my sons while I worked. The whole thing just resonated with me.”

When she taught copywriting at Columbia College in Chicago, she was surprised to learn that her students still remembered her commercials. “They also,” she adds, “introduced me to Dave Chappelle’s wicked, wicked takedown of my ‘Calvin’ with his WacArnold’s satire.”

Being a mom and homemaker gave her an edge in the industry, she says. “When I was teaching at Columbia, I told those kids you have to go out and get some life experience … Get on the bus, listen to people, eavesdrop, observe, and do whatever you can to live. Without that, you can’t relate to the consumers.”

Although Morris left college after her sophomore year, she still wears a Bryn Mawr baseball cap every day, she says, and “I’m there for every reunion with the class of ’62 because those are my sisters.”

Classmate Jane Furth joined her at the ceremony, while Barbara Morrison, Gail Fischer Hubbard, and Louise Weingarten Wiener cheered from afar.

“I’m pleased to be getting roses while I can still smell them above ground,” she said on a call from her Chicago home, where she was polishing her speech the week before the awards.

“Never did I dream that I would be included in a roster with these giants. It’s overwhelming for me. It’s breathtaking, it’s wow.”