Lois Wyse | Ad executive, author, 80

Advertising executive, author and columnist Lois Wyse, 80, who coined the memorable catchphrase "With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good," died in her Manhattan home Friday after a long struggle with stomach cancer, her family said.

During her long career in advertising, Ms. Wyse raised the glass ceiling for other working women while counseling clients, including American Express Co., Revlon Inc., and onetime Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes.

She created the advertising slogan that propelled Smucker's from a small Orrville, Ohio, jam and jelly business into an international brand. Her suggestion that a small chain of stores try a new name - Bed, Bath & Beyond - helped that business expand into a retail heavyweight.

Ms. Wyse launched her career as a teenage reporter with the Cleveland News and the Cleveland Press, becoming a columnist at 17. She worked with photographer Alfred Eisenstadt for a Life magazine piece when she was just 18, and she later wrote for Vogue and Cosmopolitan.

After founding Wyse Advertising in Cleveland with her first husband in 1951, Ms. Wyse came up with the Smucker's campaign while working as her company's creative director. She advised Stokes during his run in 1967, when he became the first black mayor elected in a major American city.

Ms. Wyse opened her advertising company's New York office in 1966.

For 13 years, she wrote "The Way We Are," a column on the last page of Good Housekeeping magazine, in which she recounted tales of her life and family. She also wrote more than 60 books, including the 1989 best-seller Funny, You Don't Look Like a Grandmother.

She is survived by a son, Robert; a daughter, Katherine Goldman; a stepson, Zev Guber; and eight grandchildren.

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