Mimi Levin Lieber
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March 22, 1928
Mimi Levin Lieber | |
|---|---|
 Lieber in 1991 | |
| Born | Miriam Leah Levin March 22, 1928 |
| Died | October 16, 2021 (aged 93) |
| Burial place | Chatham, New York |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago (BA, MA) |
| Occupation | Sociologist |
| Board member of | New York State Board of Regents, New York City Community Planning Board 7, Literacy, Inc., Outward Bound |
| Spouse | Charles D. Lieber |
| Children | Janno Lieber, James E. Lieber, Theo Lieber, Angie Lieber |
| Parent(s) | Theodore Levin, Rhoda Katzin |
| Relatives | Carl Levin, Sander Levin, Andy Levin, Stephen Levin |
| Family | Siblings: Charles Levin, Daniel Levin, Joseph Levin |
Mimi Levin Lieber (March 22, 1928 – October 16, 2021), born Miriam Leah Levin, was a sociologist who developed new techniques in consumer attitude research. As a member of the New York State Board of Regents, she became a significant figure in shaping elementary education policy in New York.[1][2][3] Much of her early professional career focused on targeted forms of behavioral economic research.[4][5] Analysis and interview methods developed by Lieber and her contemporaries helped lay the groundwork for modern integrated marketing tools, such as focus groups and opinion polling. Later in life, Lieber turned her efforts toward children's literacy advocacy, most notably in her founding of Literacy Inc.[6][7][8]
Lieber was born in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Rhoda (Katzin) and Theodore Levin, a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.[9][10][11] The family lived on LaSalle Boulevard in Detroit, a predominantly Jewish neighborhood where her father, before becoming a judge, worked in private practice as an attorney. Her father helped Jewish immigrants obtain entry and citizenship after the Immigration Act of 1924 dramatically increased barriers to entry into the United States.[12] She graduated from Central High School in Detroit in 1945, and received her BA in 1948 and MA in 1951, both from the University of Chicago. Her Master's dissertation, “Women in Local Community Activities: A Participation Study”, focused on the role of community newspapers in community development.[3] She credits her interview experiences with people in South Side Chicago for this dissertation as inspiration for her later work. She also earned a teaching certificate from the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago during this period.[13]
Career
Lieber's professional career coincided with the increasing influence of women, both as consumers and as advertising professionals. While this rise is often portrayed in broad strokes on shows like Mad Men, specialized consumer attitude research such as hers, is rarely depicted for its evaluative rigor, breadth, and the resulting impact it had on the culture at large. She and her contemporaries made pivotal contributions to advertising and marketing culture and helped evolve generally accepted methods within public opinion and consumer research.[14][15]
Firms like Dancer Fitzgerald Sample drew from Lieber's usage and attitude studies (U&As) to roll out advertising pushes in the 1960s and 70s, such as the L'eggs pantyhose campaign, in which Lieber played a key role.[1][13] These attempts to qualitatively understand consumers and their role within the marketing sector being targeted, were innovative at the time.
Lieber gained formative experience as a social science researcher for the Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research in the early 1950s. She continued this work in London for Dr. Mark Abrams, another seminal figure in attitude research, at Research Services Ltd. and London Press Exchange from 1953 to 1955.[3]
In the late 1950s, at Tatham-Laird (now part of Havas Creative)[16] in Chicago, she began to collaborate with advertising firms, drawing on her previous experience in social science. She left in 1959, after accepting an educational sociology research fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
In 1960, she founded Lieber Attitude Research, a consumer and public opinion research organization in New York. The company provided opinion research to clients such as Citibank, Bristol-Meyers, Clairol, Hanes, Procter & Gamble, and several advertising agencies up until 1987, when it was acquired by Temple, Barker & Sloane (now part of Oliver Wyman) [13]