Lois attended only one year at Pratt, then left to work for Reba Sochis until he was drafted six months later by the Army to fight in the Korean War.

After the Korean War, Lois went to work for the advertising and promotions department at CBS where he designed print and media projects.

[7] He claimed to have created the "I Want My MTV" campaign, and was quoted in the book MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video: I said, “Do you guys remember a campaign I did, where famous baseball players, like Mickey Mantle, say, ‘I want my Maypo!

Why can’t I do a campaign that talks to older kids, so that you can do it from a baby cereal up to twelve or thirteen-year-olds?” So they’re all looking at me and going, “Yeah, I loved that commercial.” I said, “OK, now, all you sons of a bitches around the country are going to be saying, ‘I want my MTV.’ Here’s what we’ll do.

And at the end of the commercial, I’ll say, "If you don’t get MTV where you live, call your local cable operator and say"...I’ll cut to somebody like Mick Jagger, who will pick up the phone, look into the phone, and say, “I want my MTV!”[8]Additionally, Lois helped create and introduce VH1; named Stouffer's Lean Cuisine frozen food line; and developed marketing and messaging for Jiffy Lube stations.

His other clients purportedly included; Xerox, Aunt Jemima, USA Today, Mug Root Beer for Pepsi-Cola, ESPN,[9] and four U.S.

Senators: Jacob Javits (R-NY), Warren Magnuson (D-WA), Hugh Scott (R-PA), and Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY).

"[10][11] In comments about Mad Men, a television drama that aspires to depict the advertising industry he worked in, Lois summarized his experiences of the times: Mad Men misrepresents the advertising industry of my time by ignoring the dynamics of the Creative Revolution that changed the world of communications forever ... That dynamic period of counterculture in the 1960s found expression on Madison Avenue through a new creative generation—a rebellious coterie of art directors and copywriters who understood that visual and verbal expression were indivisible, who bridled under the old rules that consigned them to secondary roles in the ad-making process dominated by non-creative hacks and technocrats ...

And, unlike the TV Mad Men, we worked full, exhausting, joyous days: pitching new business, creating ideas, "comping" them up, storyboarding them, selling them, photographing them, and directing commercials.

[13] Arguably the most shocking Esquire cover by Lois was the November 1970 issue, which had convicted murderer William Calley on the cover (with the caption "The Confessions of Lt. Calley", referring to his actions in the My Lai Massacre), in which he was depicted smiling in uniform while Vietnamese children were sitting on his lap.

It ran and, I’m telling you, people went crazy in America.”[14] Lois was accused multiple times of taking credit for others' ideas and for exaggerating his participation.

"[20] Sheldon Zalaznick, the first editor of New York, has written that the new magazine "involved the following people: Jim Bellows, Dick Wald, Buddy Weiss, Clay Felker, Peter Palazzo and me.