Posted: 3:17 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012

Frank Lewis Lane Jr., 68: He helped people, companies, develop brands

Frank Lane worked in the marketing industry for more than 40 years.

By Michelle E. Shaw

If it was college football season, Frank Lane kept a visual reminder of the Georgia Bulldogs’ weekly progress at his marketing firm.

“He had this stone bulldog that sat outside his office,” said R. Elizabeth Houlihan Seabaugh, who used to intern with Lane. “When they lost, he’d turn it around so its head was in the corner. When they won, it would face forward, and everybody could be happy.”

Lane’s love and devotion to the University of Georgia, his alma mater, was indicative of his approach to life, Seabaugh said.

“I’ve never known anybody who is so passionate about everything they’re involved in,” she said. “It just seemed to be his nature.”

Frank Lewis Lane Jr., of Atlanta, died suddenly Nov. 7, at his residence in Celebration, Fla., from complications of heart disease. He was 68. His body was cremated by Baldwin Brothers Cremation Society in Florida, and a memorial service is being planned for a future date.

A native of Atlanta, and product of Southwest High School, Lane graduated from UGA with a degree in marketing in the mid-‘60s, said his son Joshua P. Lane, of Woodstock. His first job was as a copywriter, but it wasn’t long before he was off to bigger and better things, according to his resume.

Frank Lane started working in brand development in the late-‘60s, for companies like Procter & Gamble and SC Johnson Wax. At the ripe young age of 34, he was named president and chief operating officer of Neutrogena Products. In the early-‘80s, he left the company and returned to Atlanta, where he launched his marketing consulting firm, FrankLane Ltd.

“My dad had an uncanny ability to, when faced with complex business scenarios, cut through all of the clutter and distill it all down to what mattered,” Josh Lane said. “He was greatest at simplification of an idea, and that is what so much of marketing is.”

At the time of his death, Frank Lane was working at his firm in Atlanta and at Channel Intelligence, with his son, in Celebration.

“He was our chief marketing officer,” said Doug Alexander, the company’s chief executive. “I’ve worked with a number of very talented marketing people, but I’ve never met anybody the was better at getting to the core essence of a product or brand, and doing in a way where the consumer makes an emotional connection, than Frank.”

Although Lane spent more than 40 years building his marketing career, he used the same skill set in the lives of his family and friends.

“His personal mission statement was to help other people realize their highest potential,” Josh Lane said of his father. “Not just companies, but individuals, and not just while they were at work, but in their personal lives as well.”

In addition to his son, Lane is also survived by his daughter, Jessica S. Lane of Marietta.