Neil Drossman, 83

Advertising copywriter and executive

NEW YORK — Neil Drossman, who brought a cheeky wit and a tireless work ethic to the award-winning print advertisements and television commercials he wrote for clients including Meow Mix cat food, Teacher’s Scotch whisky and 1-800-Flowers, died Nov. 25 in the Bronx. He was 83.

His daughter, Jill Drossman, said he died of sepsis in a hospital.

From the late 1960s until this year, Drossman was a copywriter and an executive at several agencies, some run by advertising guru Jerry Della Femina and some he helped run himself.

“He was one of the smartest people I know, very low key, and he had a passion,” Della Femina, who hired Drossman at Della Femina, Travisano & Partners in the early 1970s, said in a phone interview. “He really wanted to win.”

One of the most enduring lines Drossman wrote was for Meow Mix: “Tastes so good, cats ask for it by name.” That came at the end of commercials in which cats appeared to sing (“Meow meow meow meow/Meow meow meow meow”) for their chicken and seafood.

For Stick Ups, small deodorizing disks made by Air Wick that could be glued anywhere in the house, he wrote commercials that had the punchline “This is a good place for a Stick Up.”

For a 1-800-Flowers print ad, Drossman wrote: “There are 800 reasons for sending flowers. Guilt is 700 of them.”

And for Chemical Bank, to send the message that each of its branches served its neighborhood differently, he wrote, “Flatbush ain’t Flushing.” The line that followed — “Flatbush is the ghost of Ebbets Field and Jackie Robinson stealing home” — was personal: It harked back to his upbringing in Brooklyn, his love for the Dodgers and his anger at their move to Los Angeles when he was a teenager.

Paul Kruger, a creative director and partner at Della Femina Advertising, where Drossman worked until recently, described him as indefatigable.

“He was an idea machine,” Kruger said. “He would spit out line after line after line and come up with new stuff. He’d say, ‘One more thought, one more thought.’”

In 1973 and 1974, Drossman ghostwrote full-page testimonials for Teacher’s Scotch in the voices of celebrities including Groucho Marx, George Burns and Mel Brooks. The Brooks ad was written as an interview with Brooks’ character the 2,000 Year Old Man.

“Sir, when was Scotch discovered?”

“It was during the Ice Age. We had so many tons of ice, we didn’t know what to do. So we made drinks, all kinds of drinks.”

The Teacher’s campaign won Della Femina, Travisano a Clio Award for creative excellence in advertising. It also earned Drossman a writing award from what is now the One Club for Creativity.

Drossman and his colleagues earned Clio Awards in 1980 for three campaigns — for Air Wick Stick Ups, Meow Mix and the carpet store Einstein Moomjy. His Emery Air Freight ads (“It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your package is?”) won an award from the One Club in 1978.

Neil Arthur Drossman was born on Feb. 26, 1940, in Brooklyn. His father, Edward, owned a jewelry store. His mother, Anne (Rosenberg) Drossman, took over the store after her husband died in 1971.

After graduating from Alfred University in upstate New York with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1961, Drossman worked at CBS News before beginning his advertising career. Among the agencies he worked for were Daniel & Charles, Delehanty Kurnit & Geller and Kurtz, Kambanis & Symon.

Della Femina recalled his reaction to seeing ads Drossman had written for other agencies. “You look at an ad and you say, ‘I wish I had done that,’” he said. “His portfolio was full of ads like that.”

After working at Della Femina, Travisano and a subsidiary, Drossman Yustein Clowes, for about a dozen years, Drossman formed Drossman Lehmann Marino Reveley in 1983.

In 1994, he joined Ryan & Partners as an equity partner, and the agency became Ryan Drossman & Partners. In 2002, he and art director Bob Needleman started Needleman Drossman & Partners, which became a division of Della Femina Advertising.

— The New York Times