Twenty Ads That Shook the World: The Century's Most Groundbreaking Advertising and How It Changed Us All 0609605631, 9780609605639

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THE CENTURY'S MOST

GROUNDBREAKING ADVERTISING AND HOW IT CHANGED US ALL

I

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2013

http://archive.org/details/twentyadsthatshoOOtwit_0

20 ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

ALSO BY JAMES

B.

TWITCHELL

Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising

in

American Culture

Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste

For

Shame: The Loss

Lead Us

of

Common Decency

Into Temptation:

The Triumph

of

in

in

America

American Culture

American Materialism

THAT

SHOOK THE

WORLD THE CENTURY'S MOST GROUNDBREAKING ADVERTISING

AND HOW

JAMES

IT

B.

CHANGED US ALL

TWITCHELL

CROWN PUBLISHERS

/

NEW YORK

©

Copyright

All

2000

by

James

rights reserved. No part of this book

transmitted

B.

Twitchetl

may be reproduced

or

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

in

including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission

in

writing from the publisher.

Published by Crown Publishers,

201 East 50th Street, New York, New York 10022.

Member Random House,

Inc.

of the

New

Crown Publishing Group.

York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland

www.randomhouse.com

CROWN is

a

is

a

trademark and the Crown colophon

registered trademark of

Manufactured

Random House,

Inc.

the United States of America

in

DESIGN BY KAREN MINSTER Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Twitchell,

James

B.,

1943-

Twenty ads that shook the world: the century's most groundbreaking advertising

and how

it

changed us

all

James

/

B.

Twitchell.

Includes bibliographical references. 1.

Advertising.

I.

Title.

HF5811.T9 2000

99-42477

659.1-dc21 CIP

ISBN 0-609-60563-1

10

9

8

7

6

5

First Edition

4

3

2

1

For Mary

1

CONTENTS Introduction

P. T.

1

BARNUM: Prince

LYDIA

E.

of

Humbug

16

PINKHAM'S VEGETABLE COMPOUND: Personalizing the Corporate Face

PEARS' SOAP: John

E. Millais's

A

Child's World

PEPSODENT: Claude Hopkins and the Magic

LISTERINE: Gerard Lambert and Selling the

and the Powers

IN

UPPER

4:

The

Birth of

DE BEERS: A Good Campaign

Is

of Associated Value

38

Preemptive Claim

of the

48

Need

60

THE QUEENSBORO CORPORATION: Advertising on the

THE KID

26

First Electronic

Medium

70

Advocacy Advertising

80

88

Forever

COKE AND CHRISTMAS: The Claus That Refreshes

102

THE VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE: William Bernbach and the Fourth Wall

108

MISS CLAIROL'S "DOES SHE

...

OR DOESN'T SHE?": How

to Advertise a

Dangerous Product

118

THE MARLBORO MAN: The Perfect Campaign

THE HATHAWAY MAN: David

Ogilvy

126

and the Branding

of

Branding

ANACIN AND THE UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSAL: How Would You

LBJ VS.

BARRY GOLDWATER: Thirty-Second

Like a

136

Hammer

in

the

Head?

146

154

Politics

SHE'S VERY CHARLIE: The Politics of Scent

162

ABSOLUT: The Metaphysics of Wrap

174

APPLE'S 1984: The Ad as Artifact

184

THE RISE AND FALL AND RISE OF THE INFOMERCIAL:

NIKE AND MICHAEL JORDAN: The Hero as Product

"Call

Now! Operators Are Standing By

." .

.

194

204

Works Cited

217

Index

221

5

INTRODUCTION The Sponsored Art of Capitalism

Ads,

Commercial speech one

happy about

is

— advertising— makes up most of what we share

this,

not even the people

who make

Thev

it.

call

it

clutter,

rather like a doctor complaining about a frantic patient after he has shot adrenaline.

The

what you

will,

it

guage about

all

rest of us call the current glut of advertising;

other subjects.

As the language

become

ture has

We

all

know

of

And

it

seems

the funereal refrain:

vocabulary of

known

much

lines,

full

of

call

not going away.

it's

to

him

is

replaced lan-

commercialism has become louder, the language

quieter;

which

by worse names. But,

language about products and services has pretty

No

as a culture.

be ending not with

The canon

our cultural

of

of

high cul-

a bang, but with a

whimper.

recognized literary works, the shared

literacy,

the wink-wink of allusions to hun-

dreds of years of "the best that has been thought and said" has

all

but disappeared

thanks to "a few words from the sponsor."

Ask anyone under the age of famous

the

.

.

.

in

the sky."

same group

Moms

Few

can do

what's in a Big

lettuce, cheese, pickles,

know

fill

in the

blank

in

it

(its

Mac and

and onions on

a

"rainbow"

you'll hear,

heart leaps up

in case you're

"Two

when

I

wondering). But ask

all-beef patties, special sauce,

sesame-seed bun."

the cat than William Morris, and

what was arguably the most

"My

nineteenth-century poetry, Wordsworth's

line in

behold a

fifty to

It's

sad to say that

more

more about Mr. Whipple and Mr.

(

of us

aean

than about Mr. Kurtz and Mrs. Dalloway.

Commercial

culture, the putative

enemy

3.

ol

high culture,

is

currently

in a

period

INTRODUCTION

And

of rapid ascendancy. take to be

for

good reason. While we older people may laud w hat we

"monuments of imaging

affiliate,

w hile we may

concern

really

intellect."

while

we may

act distressed at the plight of the National

makes no difference. Commercialism

goods to those with the time and

X

Generation

is

the

first

small son while looking

up

money

to

at a

is

here to

know

in

Endowments, our delivering the

stav.

the world almost entirely through

cartoon of a few years ago has a father saxing to his rainbow:

advertising anything, dammit."

"It isn't

baby boomers have been profoundly affected. Remember the Saturday Night Fever

which

a character

telling

scene

in

mentions Laurence Olivier

heard of him." Travolta mumbles.

In 1915

When

I

"Oh

it

"Come

to

was growing up

The average voung

to go entire

The only

criticize

that has

something

halitosis,

knew where thev were. No

some 5.000 ads each dav

ad-free refuge

is

in

longer.

almost every minute,

sleep and prayer.

hard to understand a culture that has outposts

to

ad.

was entering the bloodstream,

commercialism while humming a mindless

hard to

about

weeks without observing an

in the 1950s, just as telexision

adult todav sees

almost every place. it's

"Never

yeah, him."

was perfectly possible

Put simply,

John

on." the friend savs. "the guv in the Polaroid

ads w ere confined to distinct "pods," and everyone

in

Even

the film

Travolta, who's never heard of him. "He's the great actor." the friend says.

commercials."

PBS

consume them.

generation to

A New Yorker

commercialism.

support our local

in

your mind.

jingle for

chewing

It's

gum

do with gleefullv happy twins doubling pleasure; while worrying

dandruff, and water spots; while trying to decide

among

the thirty-

seven different kinds of toothpaste: while buying outrageously overpriced sneakers with big check marks on them: while eating something called "Real Turkey Pastrami," "I

Can't Believe

This stuff

is

It s

Not

the water.

Butter." "This Can't

We

are the

fish.

2

Be Yogurt," and.

well,

you get the point.

INTRODUCTION

become

Advertising has

much about sion,

to

the dominant culture, yet what an irony that

specific advertisements, so

little

and almost nothing about the history

consumers. In

Ask someone

fact,

if

you

really

in advertising

Wanamakers department

want

about advertising

of selling.

to

which the copywriter

nished truth; about some over-the-top campaign

w hich surgery is the implied the genius

who

payouts-at-death

Now railroads

"life

is,

in a

not limited

is

like Scott Toilet

alternative to proper hygiene; about

John E. Powers and

on

telling the unvar-

Tissue in the 1930s, in

some

great insight, like

sales;

about some ad-based cultural transformation,

of

one

like calling

met with a blank

stare.

ask a doctor about the development of blood transfusions, ask a lawyer about

and

tort law, ask

To some degree At

like

insisted

insurance," and chances are you will be

the eighteenth century.

ing.

persua-

of

suggested that Alka-Seltzer drop two tablets into the glass instead

and hence doubled the

so

observe the paradox, ask an adman.

about some famous relationship

store, in

form

as a

phenomenon

This

we know

first

glance,

an English professor about

Why do

they have institutional memories while

this collective

it is

how Shakespeare was

amnesia stems from how

self-evidently disposable,

Let's face

or even ahead of the curve. So

Could our neglect

also

why

it,

be because people

what they do, and hence don't want

to

know

is

in

what's

don't?

us look at advertis-

ads they

of study.

It

seem hopelessly

about being current,

is all

behind the times? marketing are

come before?

ple practicing your trade have been regularly excoriated,

your

at

advertising todav

look at what

admen

and therefore not worthy

word, trash. And, as well, when one looks back

dated and often ineffectual.

all ol

rewritten in

maybe

Or do salesmen

slightly

Alter

ashamed

all,

you, too,

il

of

the peo-

would want

think that advertising

is

so

evolved that they only need to know what's happening right now so they can copy

it?

to stav blissfully ignorant of

history.

That certainly might explain why so much modern advertising tive

and uninspired. Or

is

it

because advertising

3

lias

become

is

so

unflaggingly deriva-

much

of

our culture

INTRODUCTION

we

that last

think that

it

has no history? Anthropologists

tell

us that

if fish

could think, the

thine they would think about was water.

Certainly part of the reason people in sales are so untethered to their history

is

I've

asked people

who

why

teach advertising

this

is,

they say

the accrediting process discourages everything but hands-on experience. tising faculty see

man

cultural

that advertising courses in universities cover almost everything except the

When

past.

own

it's

because

The

adver-

themselves as part of a technical school where they teach a journey-

trade, rather than as part of a professional school

history of persuasion. Advertising

is

where they teach the

art

and

taught in the schools of journalism and business,

not in liberal arts and sciences.

So

I

want

tioners, but for

not too far off art

and

problem of an incomplete education not

to address the all

students of popular culture. Like

when he

it

sical,

even

It

certainly merits

usually receives. Believe

enterprise. Little

is

or not, Marshall

rather grandly said that advertising has

form of the twentieth century " tsk-tsks

it

haphazard about

it,

it

it

McLuhan was

become

"the greatest

more than the arched eyebrows

or not, great advertising

although

just for practi-

is

also

an intellectual

often seems so casual, often

whim-

«/jf/-intellectual.

A There are many wavs

to

decode commercial speech;

of art-historical approach

What makes

it

Tradition of Advertising

in

w hich the

artifact

work? What s the story behind

in this

of the ad

it?

is

How did

it

book

I

wall

be using a kind

the basis of intei*pretation.

change the way we looked

not just at the advertised object, but at other things as well? It

would be comforting

if

the instances

understanding. But what one finds

is

I

have chosen led to some crescendo of

that great ads are not always congruent with

each other, nor do they progress to higher and higher sophistication.

4

Some

of the best

INTRODUCTION

are very crude, and

about

it,

some of the worst

isn't this also

F.

book

in this

These ads are

expanded and contracted, but not pushed cialism, the central passages of

we

like

what

These are the

aside.

words and images

only stay before our eyes for a few seconds. if

take the twenty ads

I

in

medieval times

those passages of theological matter that could be

as sententiae,

know them even

as sacrilegious,

analogous to those touchstone works of high culture that

as

R. Leavis called the Great Tradition.

were known

think-

true with works of literature, music, and painting?

Although some may regard the comparison

examined

when you

are veiy sophisticated. But

that

won t go

They often

cliches of

commer-

away, although they

are, in a sense, inspired.

We

haven't seen them, because our culture has been built

around them. As opposed

to literature

the-hip exegesis. Ads are another. Although they

music.

We

Newsweek

and theology, advertising

made

come

to

sets itself

up

for a shoot-from-

be consumed on the run, piled one on top of

to us in pictures

and

text,

thev are

like

background

hear them without listening. They have become, as Jack Kroll wrote

in

—

er,

a quarter of a century ago, "the most pervasive music in the history of

civilization" (Kroll 1975, 69).

While agencies may claim strike occasional chords,

advertising does

its

to clients that they can create desires, ads

and only then

work

in

long enough to get

The waste

in

day, only

purchase.

is

money from

"the science ol arresting the

it"

(Jackman 1982,

much

criticism.

still

is

huge and

is

While we may see and hear thousands

two or three ever get remembered, and only

Fewer

human

intelligence

1).

generating such short-lived ephemera

standable object of

change the sensation,

the wink of an eve. Stephen Leacock, the English

humorist, once said that advertising just

for an instant. Or, to

can only

a

few

of

the underol

ads each

those ever lead to a

ever work their w ay into our nervous systems. Video Storyboard

5

INTRODUCTION

Tests reports that a startling 40 percent of the 20. 000

cannot think or even it

of a single

remember an

consumers surveyed each year

"memorable" commercial. But we

ad. to

consume

advertising.

don't have to

That comes

to us,

buy a product,

w hether we

like

or not, "free of charge." If art struggles to create

now. Advertising

is

mav prove more

them we mav

sell it short.

when he wrote

certainly correct

of eternity ads settle for

of advertisements:

it

art in

"These humbler adjuncts

to liter-

valuable to the future historian than the editorial contents. In

trace our sociological history, the rise

of life as

modern cave

right

The legendary adman Earnest Elmo Calkins w as

and

fall

ing interests and changing tastes, in food and clothes,

panorama

w hat's happening

the big-print edition of the Rosetta Stone,

strobe lights. But don't

ature

images

was

lived,

more informing than old

of fads

and

crazes, chang-

amusements and

vices, a

and crumbling tomb-

diaries

stones" -Calkins 1946, 222-30).

A number

of lists of ads already exist,

and

I

have been helped by thinking about

them. Although even multinational agency has a reel of what work,

in

it

takes to be

1995 the Global Product Committee of the Leo Burnett

together a tape of what

Time," which

is

it

takes to be the "100 Best Television

the basis of Bernice Kanner's The 100 Best

have been books

of lists

TV

its

best

Company

Commercials of

put All

Commercials. There

compiled by practitioners: The 100 Greatest Advertisements

(1949: revised 1959), by Julian Lewis Watkins,

who had

spent his

life in

the business,

and 100 Top Copt/ Writers and Their Favorite Ads 1954), assembled bv the editors of (

Printer's

Ink.

a trade

journal.

For

its

Bicentennial Collection (April 19. 1976).

Advertising Age asked a distinguished panel of ninety-seven

adwomen

to

list

published the

admen and

three

"the best ads or ad campaigns that you've ever seen or heard" and

result.

And

for

its

special issue

Bob Garfield ranked the top one hundred

6

on "The Advertising Century" (1999). advertising campaigns. Entertainment

INTRODUCTION

Weekly, which loves fifty

dedicated an entire issue (March 28, 1997) to anointing "the

lists,

greatest commercials ol

industry, Advertising

my

found of

list is

being

like a

axiomatic.

different.

I

am

alter the

poem,

What were

the lingua franca?

in

true to

a lively

Which

site

(adage.com)

mecum

of the

listing the liitv

them by decades.

most profound ads ever produced. Not pro-

the sense of selling product, but in the sense

like a painting, like a series of

the ads that

vade

role as the

its

Web

dividing

last fiftv years,

sense of being clever, or

in the

And

Age now maintains

best commercials over the

But

time."

all

became

musical notes, deep and moving,

became

part of the nervous system,

part of

ads really had the beef?

Advertising of this sort

is

more

Renaissance

like

ait

modern

than

art.

In the

Renaissance, painters like Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Giotto did not paint what they

wanted

They were

to paint.

Then they were

told to paint

dicant orders of the in

Rome, the

we now

usually told exactly

Roman

it

little differently.

had some say

and even how

in

how

in part

of the greatest cre-

because they never forgot (or never were

Modern

art,

however,

similarities too

deepest needs.

is

different.

important to overlook.

Here the

artist is

breaking boundaries, for getting out

for

New, taking

liberties.

Think

of all the

Expressionism. Impressionism disturbing expectations.

My

its

I'm not saying that cathedrals are billboards, or that frescoes are thirty-

second spots, but there are

rewarded

it.

they chose their advertising (what

allowed to forget) the necessity ol drawing an audience by addressing

Now

to paint

Their clients were the men-

Competition among these orders produced sonic

Western imagination,

ations of the

to paint,

Catholic Church. Although the corporate headquarters was

individual orders

call art).

again, just a

what

list is

It

movements

— and you

will

being shocking w

of line, lor ol

what

of Renaissance ads, not modern ones.

and he

for himsell

modern

art

it

says, but for

W

hen

I

ith

is

die

— Cubism, Abstract

see that creativity often

gets attention not for

7

working

means how

it

violent!)

says

it.

hear the term "break-

INTRODUCTION

through" or "cutting edge" used to

happen. From

so

much

my

I

realize

something forgettable

clutter in advertising today

prizes as Clios, Effies,

"make

is

that copywriters

a point."

and Addies

is

Almost

modern

all

and

art directors struggle

Lord Leverhume)

that "half

which half" needs

to

my advertising

When

advertising of this sort.

dollars are

wasted

I

want

—

to treat these keystone print

way Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren

I

it

more

comes

to

Wanamaker and

just

can

figure out

t

the then-radical claim that certain

and

television adver-

treated individual

in the 1940s, as objects deserving of formal readings. In their

made

is

have the percent of waste increased.

Essentially, therefore,

the critics

about

advertising that wins such annual

kind of creativity, the famous quotation (attributed to both John

tisements the

is

vantage point as a cultural historian, part of the reason there

to "get through" than to

this

in advertising,

poems

Understanding Poetry,

poems were

especially rich in

meanings, that these poems were concentrated moments of human attention, and that

when thev "worked" they gave sense, they

The

were

ads

I

us lasting insight into the

exactly

condition. In this

truly creative.

have chosen

may

not

make you

gulp, but they did change the

swallowed information about the world around

Many of the

human

us.

They got

into our bloodstreams.

products are no longer produced, which raises the interesting question of

how important

advertising really

is.

Some

of the ads take totally different

approaches, w hich raises the intriguing question of the nature of

Maybe

way we

there

is

a lot

more going on

in

consumption than exploiting

human

anxiety,

desire.

"keeping

up with the Joneses," or consuming conspicuously. Maybe consumption can be ating, a

way

to us now, pletely

to construct the self.

of the ads I've chosen seem so pedestrian

sometimes downright embarrassing, which may only

we have

More

And some

liber-

testify to

how com-

assimilated their content.

telling,

I

think,

is

that the great creative ads always

8

seem

so easy to create.

INTRODUCTION

This

is

They only seem

deceptive.

simple. As Aldous Huxley said, almost anyone can

write a passable sonnet, but composing a

be what

And all

it

really

as Huxley's

propaganda

namely an attempt

is,

good ad

to get

tough.

is

A good ad never seems

under your radar and drop a

contemporary George Orwell observed, while

is

not necessarily

ing the condition of popular

art.

art

all

is

to

bomb.

little

propaganda,

To me, these twenty ads are propaganda achiev-

art.

The Power of Advertising In 1917 John

Reed wrote Ten

rience observing the Bolshevik Revolution.

A lew

intellectuals.

briel time.

future.

Reeds

The

years ago

stoiy

Warren

It

Beatty's

movie

was

all

stir,

his expe-

especially

Reels resuscitated Mr.

among

Reed

lor a

compelling because he was so certain that he had seen the

is

West would depend on bloody

future of the

It

book based on

a

created quite a

moving rapidly through the Eurasian marketplace the world.

World

Dai/s That Shook the

were

political events that

of ideas.

The workers would

rule

but inevitable, dialectical, done. Capitalism was to be history

Advertising would evaporate as "use" value would push "concocted" value aside. In the Utopian workers' paradise, nothing

would come between human beings and

their

necessary objects.

Reed was wrong. Of

all

than the one that underlies hav ing things, of trading things, that

all

political

systems

and hoarding,

makes modern

more

successful

our love

of stuff, ol

the -isms ol our century, none has proved

political

the aristocracy could traffic

in

of

— materialism.

buying and

It is

selling,

even

ol talking

systems possible. Until the nineteenth century, only

extraneous things.

The

special things they

consumed

even had a distinct category name. They were luxuries, things that shone, de

With the them. While

rise

of the Industrial Revolution, however, the

we might

about

rest ol us

not have been able to have the same brand

9

luxe.

had

a

go

ol object as

at

the

INTRODUCTION

nobilitv,

we

such

system became

a

could certainly have a version of it

exchange value.

We

most of

Thev became

often forget

beyond our means water, steam,

and

is

Ford

if

not a Cadillac. Use value in

that

life's

meanings

in

having and displaying

heraldic crests, coats of arms, badges, bloodlines.

Consumption became conspicuous because

What we

a

important than prestige value or what Marx called

less

started to find

these special things.

—

it

is

was how we differentiated ourselves.

that

our love of consuming things once considered

that caused the great

machine

electricity to the engines of

age, that

rewarded us

production to make them

efficient and, in so doing, turn luxuries into necessities,

it

was our desire

still

wants into needs.

ourselves to think that machine production caused materialism.

accurate to acknowledge that

for applying

more

We

fool

How much more

for distinctive things that led to the

explosion of machine production. In a sense, the politics of the twentieth century has

how to

distribute efficiently the surplus goods of a

that the workers of the

what the Marxists machine power;

Machine-made Economists

call

it

produces

Little

wonder

it

stuff

was

that

we were

not

made

materialistic

by

was machine power that was made by our materialism. is

problematic for one simple reason:

it

is

all

so similar.

such objects fungible because thev are interchangeable, homoge-

neous. Advertisers

what

machine production.

to figure out

world wanted to unite. They would get to those surpluses. But

didn't appreciate

rather,

been an attempt

call

will

them parity

items. If

my machine

be interchangeable with yours.

If a

works

just like yours, then

producer

is

not careful,

he'll

have to eat his surplus. So not only does he make similar things, but he also has to

make

his

products seem different.

What we of instilling at

really crave

meaning

into

is

not just material, but material with meaning.

machine-made goods

the heart of commercialism.

It is

is

called commercialism. Advertising

the part that adds the

10

The process

meaning and,

is

in so doing,

INTRODUCTION

attempts to

make one

identical object

Rosser Reeves used to ing to one of them,

He would

illustrate this.

say,

"My

job

is

more valuable than

make you

to

another.

The

great

adman

hold up two quarters and then, point-

think that this quarter

is

more

v

aluable

than that one."

Commercialism involves two processes: commodification, or the stripping object of

all

other values except

value for sale to

its

someone

insertion of the object into a network of exchanges onlv

else;

of

an

and marketing, the

some of which

involve money.

Until the 1850s, commercialization was pretty well limited to commodification, since

large-volume market networks scarcely existed throughout the creation of the

first

European

colonial empires,

much

of Europe. But with

and even more with the creation

of mass industrial production, cheap transportation, and communications, the marketing of commodities took on a relentless

Marketing and

been doing

it

its

If

you

called proselytizing. Religions tend to

the next. Commercialism, gible objects of the here

them Ethic

to

more

like

it,

make

it

this

called saving souls;

you

don't,

it

is

world meaningful by creating value

in

is

specifically advertising,

if

does precisely that to the fun-

and now.

commercialize

—

to turn things into

— has been particularly Western. As and

own.

subset, advertising, should not be nasty words. Religions have

for generations.

The pressure

life of its

Max Weber

the Spirit of Capitalism (1905).

much

commodities and then market first

argued

of the Protestant

in

The Protestant

Reformation was

geared toward denying the holiness of many things that the church had endow ed with meanings. ing this

From

movement

the inviolable priesthood to the sacrificial holy w

systematically unloaded meaning.

offloaded meaning and apply

You can

still

it

to

ater, this seculariz-

Soon the marketplace would capture

machine-made

things.

see the religions roots of commercialism in advertising. Buy this

object and you'll be saved. Yon deserve a break today. You, you're the one.

11

We

are the

INTRODUCTION

company

good hands.

in

you recognize some of the twenty ads that

If

they are part of what or

You are

that cares about you.

art.

They

we

They

share.

are the world

We

care. Trust in us.

— and you

follow-

will

—

Buy now. because

it is

are the world wrought not by religion or science

wrought by

advertising.

They

are

pushed our way by a

cul-

ture "on the take."

We a

all

world

in

know

the world populated by Madge, Mr. Whipple, and Colonel Sanders:

w hich

which

raisins

green

man

and dogs sing into microphones about

cats

dance and household bugs

in a scarf,

at face value; in

w hat

to put into

that

all

all at

the

to

"silly

be a Pepper,

vour Bic, take

it all

optimism, and

lots

And

try harder," or "Quality

feel "really clean"; in

which various

99 44/ioo percent pure, what has 57

is

same time;

can master.

which "Because I'm worth

our cereal bowls and into our gas tanks;

of a cigarette being a

encouraged

in

you can be," "We

which we can

math but know what

and

a

to teach the

is

"You deserve a

Job 1" are taken

tigers are telling us

which we can

varieties,

t

do simple

and the importance

and

powerful.

lots

do

all

are

nut"

know the same double entendres;

flick

to sing,

va. It

is

a

and

to

world of feigned

of small problems and difficult

More people

we

become an "uncola

w orld

w hich we

little dab'll

lots

in

it,"

millimeter" longer than others; a world in which

a world in

off,

it is

which Mrs. Olsen, a giant

their guts; in

cookie elves, and a white knight on horseback riding through our

backyard with a lance can be trusted; break today," "Be

spill

their dinner choices: in

sincerity

7 ,

moments

eternal that

report crying over a greeting card

we

com-

pany's advertising than over any other regularly televised event.

As much

as this

wafer-thin world has

world has been pushed

come between

too materialistic, but because

we

at us,

it

We

would

we

us and mass-produced things not because

are not materialistic enough.

and knew what thev meant, there would be no need rising.

has been pulled in bv us. This

just gather, use, toss out, or

12

to

If

we craved

are

objects

add meaning; through adver-

hoard indiscriminately. But we

don't.

INTRODUCTION

First,

we

don't

we need

and, third, is

clear

that

is

may

crave

know what to

know how

most things

in

and

not be objects at

"does," one thing

by branding

is

we

to gather; second,

certain:

all

to value objects that

of

have

were referred

stores

of received

wisdom

indeed

is

this

lies in

practical use.

little

fact,

What

what we

but their meaning. For whatever else advertising to material,

by adding meaning to objects,

performs a role historically associated with

Salvation awaits not in the next world but in the next aisle.

ment

what we have gathered;

themselves do not mean enough. In

by adding value

things, advertising

like to trade

to as "cathedrals of

No wonder

consumption." Like

understanding these strange

bits

it

religion.

early depart-

or not, the canon

of commercial speech, for

the stuff that has shaken the world.

My contention

in this

book

will

seem counterintuitive

our times against commercialism, but here

it is:

I

at first,

given the clamor of

believe that, paradoxically,

we have

not grown weaker but stronger by accepting these self-evidently ridiculous myths that sacramentalize mass-produced interchangeable objects.

We have not wasted away,

but

have proved more powerful, have not devolved and been rebarbarized, but seem

have marginally improved the physical condition

consumption (note the connection

namely tuberculosis) and the

of this

of

being on

this planet.

word with the AIDS

vast wasteland of

lives

people

than most of the people most of the time

all

over the world are clamoring for what

As awful as

it

it,

and

of our told

to use

it

how you

own American

what

to

of

them

we

say the freedom to

want. Although

we

to

pay

(or

13

discomfort

wonder

in

that

the world are asked what

buy what you want, when you w ant

don't usually admit

it.

less

have, including our advertising.

Revolution. Recall the Boston Tea Party.

buy and how much

of Victorian life,

in all of history. Little

may seem, when young people around

freedom means, most

Dreaded

media babble notwithstanding, com-

mercialism has lessened pain. Most of us have more pleasure and

our

to

it,

this

We

was

at

the heart

did not like to be

As de Tocqueville observed almost two

INTRODUCTION

centuries ago, advertising rial gratification."

worked well

Now the

rest of the

in

America

world

is

as

it

appealed to our "love of mate-

having a go

at

it.

Historian Daniel Boorstin has said that Europeans used to go to market to get

what they want, whereas Americans go developed world,

we

are

all

to

market

to discover

what they want. In the

Americans now, and the market comes

to

all

consumers,

via advertising.

While we edge that

in

all

admit that the pen

our century the pen

mightier than the sword,

is

more

is

likely in the

hard to acknowl-

it is

hands of some copywriter

extolling the virtues of a nicotine delivery system to children than

wielded by some

passionate revolutionary exhorting the freedom of expression for the oppressed and

downtrodden.

But hard getting

as

it

may be

and spending,

mercialism

it

indeed, as

is

rounds objects, being

to

defend

this often

vulgar and sometimes amoral culture of

does not hurt to try to understand

adman George

it.

In

many

respects,

Lois fatuously boasted, "poison gas."

pumped and drawn

com-

It sur-

everywhere, into the farthest reaches of

space and into the smallest divisions of time. In a less toxic analogy, commercialism

smoke

like

in a

wind tunnel of machine-made

By no means am sets standards.

I

we

often said that

it is

smoke the

ful;

devoid of otherworldly concerns,

jingle not the cigarette.

well overindulge and spoil the

There

it

a past

always

is

never turned

off.

we consume

the advertising not

is

lives for

no doubt that such a system

is

today and celebrates the body

wasteIt

may

young with impossible promises and few demands.

certainly encourages recklessness, living is

fan

drink the commercial not the beer, drive the nameplate not the

car,

ture

The

sanguine about a culture in which advertising gauges value and

On Madison Avenue

the product, that

things.

is

new and improved,

and with a perpetually rosy

beyond

one's means, gambling.

It

Consumer cul-

always bigger and better, always loud, always without future. Again, like religion,

14

which

in

many ways

it

has

INTRODUCTION

displaced,

it

afflicts

the comfortable and comforts the afflicted.

It is

a one-dimensional

world, a micron-thin world, a world low on significance and high on shine.

But you might also

you need

realize that while

understand our part

to

Fukuyama contended

in

you don't have history.

its

to like

it,

or even buy into

Almost a decade ago, Francis

"The End of History?" essay (and

in his controversial

it,

later

book) that "the ineluctable spread of consumerist Western culture" presages "not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that

(Fukuyama 1989,

is,

the end point of mankind's ideological evolution"

3-4).

Such predictions are not new. "The End

of History" (as

we know

it)

and the "end

point of mankind's ideological evolution" have been predicted before by philosophers.

Hegel claimed

it

had already happened

in

1806 when Napoleon embodied the ideals

of the French Revolution, and

Marx

munism. What

modern claim

legitimizes this

ter or for worse,

culture.

And

Let's also

said the

end was coming soon with world comis

American commercial culture

that is

it is

demonstrably

well on

its

way

to

true.

For bet-

becoming world

these twenty ads are important milestones along the way.

admit

that,

Ads "R" Us. The idea rance of history and

much

as

we

love to

blame

human

sheltered, our needs are

and the culture

it

it

has not led us astray.

that advertising creates artificial desires rests

and have always been

to codify

on a wistful igno-

nature, on the hazy, romantic feeling that there existed

some halcyon era of noble savages with purely

some other system

advertising,

and

carries with

it

satisfy

—

will

natural needs.

Once we

are fed and

cultural, not natural. Until there

is

those needs and yearnings, commercialism—

continue not

15

just to thrive

but to triumph.

BARNUM

P. T.

Prince of

IF

Humbug

AMERICAN literature,

Mark with

Ernest

as

Hemingway

said, starts

with

Twain's Huckleberry Finn, then American advertising starts P.

T.

Barnum s

masterful deceptions.

Barnum knew how

to

turn Dr. Samuel Johnson's famous definition of advertising "promise, large promise" attention. William

—

words and images that

into

Lyon Phelps,

If

when he

called

Barnum

capture

a Yale professor of English in the

1930s and host of a vastly popular radio show, saying

still

knew what he was

"the Shakespeare of advertising."

you watch enough late-night commercials on

television,

lis-

ten to enough ads on your car radio, open enough junk mail, and

peruse your share of ads in newspapers and magazines, then you realize that the spirit of

"Don't miss collector's

P.

T.

Barnum

item

at

is

it!

hear,

an unbelievably low special discount price," or last

and

Absolutely!

You

closeout sale! All

final liquidation

items must go! We're closing our doors forever!

This

you

"Limited edition

this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,"

"Going out of business,

that!

When

lives on.

Even longer than

can't afford to miss

it!"

you are

hearing Barnum. Just as

found

we

in his

attribute lines to Shakespeare that are

works,

so, too,

Barnum

shadow authorship.

If

the author in

but not in

spirit,

he

didn't write fact,

nowhere

to

be

has achieved the accolade of it,

he should have. Barnum

is

of such great marketing quips as

There's a sucker born every minute.

You can fool most of the people most of the time.

Never overestimate the taste of the American public.

LOOK FOR

WAIT FOR

IT!

IT!

•SEE rt!!-^fj In

its

Overwhelming Preponderant over any other Show Extitrore

in

•

PTBARNUM'S OWN A ON IV JO

I_"V

s s c o

o C g g

GREATEST SHOW

EARTH

OlST

Without

Rival.

a

Rerofcn.zmg

I and Regarding No

No Equal

opuo-utiOu. ftbK'h receives

GRAND OVATION

A From

the Press hdU PuM-t « h-T( saliv

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appear* ami

B0WIH6

THE E"

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expai.tuct

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A PERFECT VAST tN ITS

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pronounced

SUCCESS & .o-g

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ac-

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EXHIBITION!

PHOI'oHTloNS! UK. .VXD I'l HK IX TON'K! KXAl.TKli IN ITS AIM! \'Ai;iKJ> IN A IiACTldN? •••i,M I. OF [NSTlilTTTOX! TiiH ACMK..I UKI'INKI) Kr.K(i.\N« And BKST IX rillXCiS! I

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This Unapproachable Model

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of

Supreme Excellence

exhibit AX

TUESDAY, AUGUST Witho".: Dimia^tioa or C'iri*i.m«nt

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Department

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LARGELY INCREASED ATTRACTIONS! L

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3RAJJD FEATURES 8« REMLMSF.fc W u>7 orhei

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MY DAY *VD DATE

Th«.-t u b\'

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ind do nol tonloaud

BAFXT'M SHOW

*••\

billion a year

to alter natural

is

use

Body odor came from Lifebuoy

ing constructive discontent. athlete's foot

common

almost every

about

in the

skin,

it, it is

under-

dealt with

house that always

has a door and almost always has a lock.

The bathroom

development

tectural

probably the most revolutionary archi-

itself is

in the twentieth century, as

much

a creation

of the need for privacy as for the advertised need to deal with the private

self. It is

consume products television screen

behind closed doors, that we go

there,

problems created

to cure

to ritually

for the public

on the

and on the magazine page. While the Victorian

we used to meet others) has shrunk out of sight, the modem bathroom (where we minister to the ailing self) has grown

parlor (where

steadily larger.

The

stoiy of

how

came

this

to pass starts with Listerine.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Joseph Lister developed a surgical antiseptic.

It

was quite potent, however, and could only

be used with great care

lest

damage the surrounding

it

American named Jordan Wheat Lambert synthesized erful version

and journeyed

use the already famous

and said

yes.

to

name

England

product w hile also making

it

sterilizing

cleaning operation. So

was

flattered

which liquefied the

scientific.

Lambert's Listerine was used not

procedures as

pow-

he could

"ine" suffix

sound

a less

An

to asked Lister if

for the product. Lister

Lambert added the

tissue.

just for

such minor surgical

gauze bandages, but also for any kind of

it

soon became a floor cleaner, an

after-

— LISTERINE

shave, a nasal douche, a cure for gonorrhea, even a scalp treat-

ment

for dandruff

Inevitablv killing oral

it

and baldness.

was discov ered that Listerine was

germs. So in 1895

it

w as marketed

became one of the

fession,

and

ucts to

be sold over the counter.

in

1914

it

first

at

to the dental pro-

prescription prod-

American

carries the

(It still

good

also

Dental Association's seal of approval.) But no hint

use as a

of

mouth deodorant. That's because there

was no such thing

sure, people with various diseases,

unpleasant mouth odor, but sive.

a

bad breath. To be and so on, had

teeth,

was not considered

socially offen-

Recall that until the 1920s, most Americans bathed only once

w eek (on Saturday night

hair

it

bad

as

in anticipation of

was rarely washed. Soap,

still

the Sabbath), and that

made

of animal

fats,

often

smelled worse than body odor! Gerard, one of Jordan Lambert's sons, w ent about acquiring

such a smell preference, not for himself, but for the

rest of us.

Lambert

In the earlv 1900s Jordan and his wife died, leaving

Pharmacal

to their four sons.

curial tastes.

University,

For instance,

Gerard proved

young man of mer-

after having spent a

he decided he didn't

to Princeton.

a

There he majored

few days

like the buildings.

in the

good

life,

He

transferred

gaining a small

measure of campus fame by being chauffeured between a trip of a

hundred

yards.

One

at Yale

classes

thing led to another and he was

soon married, father of three children, and $700,000

in

debt

(thanks to an investment in Arkansas real estate near the current

Whitewater development).

Time ton

in

to get a job,

St.

and no better place than

Louis. His relatives

at

the family

were hardly pleased

f

ac-

to see the

return of the profligate, but they were soon mollified. Gerard

proved ing.

He

to

be a business genius, the Arkansas deal notwithstand-

saved millions

in taxes

by adding the alcohol

to Listerine

64

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

it

was then about 25 percent hooch

instead of at the factory.

He

1

cut out the

bonded

the

at

middleman

distillery

for such sim-

ple supplies as corks, and he had the perspicacity actually to talk

with the people w ho wrote the product advertising.

summoned

In fact, he

the two cop\writers. Milton Fuessle

and Gordon Seagroye. from Chicago doing

to talk about

— which was not much. Although the

known

haven

as a

breath as a

for germs,

no one had

what they were

mouth was

really

certainly

concentrated on

symptom of disease. As the three men were

discussing

the possibility of breath as an "advertising hook." Lambert called

company

for the

When

he

chemist:

came

room.

into our

asked him

I

bad breath. He excused himself

for

with a big

stood

book

looking

of

newspaper

over

for a

Listerine

was good

moment and came back He sat

clippings.

in

a chair

and

I

He thumbed through the

shoulder.

his

if

immense book. "Here

it

Lancet that

is,

in

Gerard.

says

It

cases of halitosis.

sis?" "Oh," he said, "that

[The chemist] never

is

from the British

this clipping

in

." .

I

interrupted,

"What

is

halito-

the medical term for bad breath."

knew what had

old fellow out of the room. "There."

I

hit

him.

said, "is

I

bustled the poor

something

to

hang

our hat on" [Lambert 1956, 97-98].

\-

it

turned out.

lie liuirj;

bert huns; the entire

more than

on

halitosis.

Lam-

He poured money into American mouth. Lambert made a

company on

putting halitosis into every

his hat

it.

pledge to increase his advertising each month by the same percentage as the increase of his only

when

For

as

sales.

He

claimed he would stop

this

sales leveled off.

long as he

owned

the

company they

nev er did.

From

1922 to 1929 earnings rose from $115,000 to more than $8 million.

By the time

of the

stock-market crash. Listerine was one of

— LISTERINE

the largest buyers of magazine and newspaper space, spending

more than $5 In

all

million

— almost the exact amount of yearly prof

that time the product

and formula had not

price, package,

s

its.

changed a whit.

Once he found effective as

out that the halitosis claim was four times as

Lambert focused with

others,

all

were relinquished. The germ-free mouth be-

All other claims

longed to Listerine

just as the

Odorono, the perfumed skin oils,

not animal

and clean" foot It

fats),

to

Louis for

The agency was and

from Chicago

to Palmolive

(made from vegetable

Mennen talcum powder. to

"own" the mouth. In

New

York and

called

Lambert

league change his Fuessle),

deodorized underarm belonged to

the shaved face to Gillette, and the "fresh

was no simple process

left St.

pit-bull persistence.

name

Lambert

up shop with Milton Fuessle.

set

&

Feasley.

(thinking Feasley

Gerard made

his col-

sounded better than

he brought Gordon Seagrove

after Fuessle died, to finish the job.

fact,

For

six

years he never changed the

campaign, only the renditions.

Lambert made

it

a point never even to retouch any of the pho-

tographic images that

made up

the halitosis campaign. Although

he would do minor experiments, go

as

life.

Who

really a pathetic one. Like

We

was

to marrv."

the

wedding garments

"If

you want the truth

were young adults

to a child," his usual targets

parenting stages of

with

in

the pre-

can forget Edna, "whose case was

even woman, her primary ambition 7

see her kneeling before her bureau, clutching

announces the price of

that

would never be worn. The headline

halitosis:

"Often a Bridesmaid but Never

a Bride."

The

setting of the standard Listerine ad

matrimony.

One

or the other young eligible

is

is

just at the

yourself,

I

be happy with him it

[halitosis] ruins

in

spite of

of

having to deal with

the problem that "even your best friend won't

"Could

age

tell

you" about:

that?", "Don't

(ool

romance," or the simple "Halitosis

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

above: Often a Bridesmaid but Never a Bride opposite: Halitosis

and Could in

I

Be Happy With Him

the 1920s.

in Spite of That?:

The hard

sell

Makes You Unpopular

and

halitosis find a

home

LBSTERINE

makes you unpopular." The copy the 1930s

—

is

style

— called "whisper copy"

in

always the same, a mimic of True Story advice to

the lovelorn.

Lambert knew All his advertising

receipts.

town

in

his

niche because he was a stickler for testing.

was carefully screened using coupons or store

He would

send boxcar loads

of Listerine off to

some

midstate Iowa and upstate Maine, run a saturation series

of test ads, carefully correlate the results, and then launch nationwide.

He would try anything. During the

that halitosis

was a reason

Depression he suggested

for firing workers.

During Prohibition

he thought that alcohol content should be stressed. The company developed what he called "saw-toothed" campaigns

in

would drench, and then quickly remove, advertising bert determined

how

long short-term

which pitches would work

best.

w hich they until

memory would

Lam-

last,

and

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

Lambert hated salesmen; they

He

ing.

never employed more than

man he had

the only

just got in the six,

way

and was fond

ol advertis-

saying that

ol

ever fired was a sales manager.

W orse

still,

salespeople were always tinkering with the retailer s price and dis-

play of product. Gerard's aim was to get the end-user into the

pharmacy, demand the brand name, and then stomp out

if

not

satisfied.

hard to assess Gerard Lambert's genius

It is

easy,

but

it

looks so

was a combination of staking a claim on a body

knowing how tool,

fairlv. It

to use constructive discontent

part, of

(shame) as a selling

of realizing the power of research, and then of hammering

home. Although Lambert

who made

millions

from

is

almost always disparaged as "the

halitosis," his later life

shows

it

it

man

was not

luck alone.

Lambert's real contribution

may somedav be acknowledged.

CEO

of Gillette (while waiting for his

Although he did

a stint as

divorce to go through), where he introduced the famous Blue Blades, wrote

some middling murder

mysteries, and innovated

with tax-free funding for low-cost public housing, his real talent

was II

in realizing

the

power of opinion

he developed techniques

to help

surveys.

During World War

understand the psychological

resistance to various military campaigns. After the his expertise (usually neglected) to help

Willkie,

and

From

later

his

war he offered

Tom Dewey, Wendell

Dwight David Eisenhower.

home

base in Princeton, he befriended George

Gallup, funded polling experiments through

numerous academic

and governmental agencies, and provided seed money Institute for International Social Research. his time,

Gerard understood the power

tioning. In the stock

of

A man

for the

well ahead of

consumer-based posi-

market he never fought the tape,

in

market-

ing he never fought the consumer, and in polling he never

second-guessed opinions.

LISTERINE

When

he succeeded almost too

that

ine

vou look hack on Gerard's Listerine advertising, you sec well. In retrospect,

perhaps Lister-

w as too well positioned. By creating the mouth

as a

cauldron

of antisocial germs that could be tamed only by strong medicine,

Lambert

left

open the

possibility that

& Gambles

staked out. In the 1960s, Procter

Scope positioned

itself

mouthwash

terrific

that

Scope did

just that.

as the feels-good, tastes-great, smells-

—

in

the

"medicine breath." Although

the times

spirit of

Meanwhile Warner-Lambert was

new

competing claims could be

the\"

— "had

it

all."

with Lambert's legacy

left

l

have tried to battle back with a

generation of Cool Mint Listerine (blue) and Freshburst Lis-

terine (green), the tough-guy claims of the amber-bottle parent

remain.

germs

The

heritage

that cause

deep

1

of "tastes bad, but its

bad breath," and "the anything

in

unprecedented 99 percent

of

day"

is

as

as

Original Listerine. That's

taste

American all

good

for you," "kills

people hate twice a

culture. Amazingly, an

mouthwash

now the problem:

If

by convincing consumers that mouthwash must

users have tried Listerine excelled taste

bad

to work-

He

tried to

good, what can a good-tasting Listerine do

Gerard ran into the same conundrum introduce Listerine toothpaste that his

Warner-Lambert has

—

in

a sensible

the 1930s.

enough flanker brand

not been able to give up. But,

still

customers could not accept bad

taste as a prerequisite for

clean teeth. So far no one has figured out a

customer on the horns least for a while.

of this

dilemma. But

Gerard Lambert was able

horns of a dilemma and then

sell

alas,

way as for

to

to position the

bad breath,

at

manufacture the

the horn-removal equipment.

THE QUEENSBORO

CORPORATION Advertising on the First Electronic Medium

on Monday, August microphone noon.

at

WEAF

He would

in

1922,

New

M. H. Blackwell stood before

York

City. It

was 5:15

speak for filteen minutes and

What he

fifty dollars.

L8,

said

was

to

it

in the after-

would

be the "mayday"

a

cost

him

distress call of

high culture.

Here

is

how he was

introduced:

This afternoon the radio audience

to

is

be addressed by Mr.

Blackwell of the Queensboro Corporation

who

will

words concerning Nathaniel Hawthorne and the fostering the helpful

fined

home

men:

Mr. Blackwell.

life

community

spirit

and the

since Nathaniel

Hawthorne had

the Queensboro Corporation had

ment "Hawthorne Court" slow-moving

I

desirability of

healthful,

uncon-

and

gentle-

that were Hawthorne's ideals. Ladies

Alter reminding the audience that

it

was

say a few

just fifty-eight years

died, Mr. Blackwell noted that

named

its

most recent develop-

in the writer's honor.

Then came

pitch:

wish to thank those within sound of

ing opportunity afforded

me

my

voice for the broadcast-

to urge this vast radio

audience to

seek the recreation and the daily comfort of the home removed from the congested part of the

city,

right at the

boundaries of

God's great outdoors, and within a few miles by subway from the business section of Manhattan. This sort of residential environ-

the

THE QUEENSBORO CORPORATION

ment

strongly influenced Hawthorne, America's greatest writer of

fiction.

He analyzed

charming keenness the social

with

spirit of

those who had thus happily selected their homes, and he painted

homes

the people inhabiting those

One

cannot help but notice that Mr. Blackwell,

had a perceptive sense Nathaniel Hawthorne. ica's

I

greatest writer of

urban angst, had

of

fiction"

of Seven Gables, or any

in

home

little

(what of Twain, James, Foe,

read The Scarlet Letter, The House

a high level of nervous anxiety

Hawthorne's miasmic world are loonies and crackpots.

between the good

made

and the natural

life

the romantic connection

life,

and he had

pipe" between suburban space and family happiness.

Let

about

American suburbanites? The only happy

life of

But, no matter, Blackwell had

upped the

sense of

the short stories and think that

of

Hawthorne had anything but the happy

who may have

daresay he'd never road a word of "Amer-

And how one could

Melville?).

people

with good-natured relish.

"laid the

Now

ante:

me

enjoin

upon you as you value your health and your hopes

and your home happiness, get away from the brick,

solid

masses

where the meager opening admitting a slant of sunlight

mockingly called a

light

shaft,

of is

and where children grow up

starved for a run over a patch of grass and the sight of a tree.

Apartments ures.

in

congested parts of the

The word "neighbor"

is

city

have proved

fail-

an expression of peculiar irony-a

daily joke.

Thousands want

to

remove

know and they situation

of dwellers

in

to healthier

can't

seem

the congested district apartments

and happier sections but they don't

to get into the belief that their living

and home environment can be improved. Many

balk at buying a house

in

of

them

the country or the suburbs and be-

coming a commuter. They have

visions of toiling

down

in

a cellar

he

—

.

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

with a sullen furnace, or shoveling snow, or of blistering

palms

pushing a clanking lawn mower. They can't seem to overcome the pessimistic inertia that keeps pounding into their brains that

crowded, unhealthy, unhappy

their

living

conditions cannot be

improved....

Those who balk

at building a

need not remain deprived

built

house or buying one already

of the blessings of the

home

home surrounded

within the ideal residential environment, or the

by social advantages and the community benefits where neigh-

means more than

bor

Let

me

home near

a word of eight letters.

.

.

close by urging that you hurry to the apartment

the green fields and the neighborly atmosphere right

on the subway without the expense and trouble of a commuter,

where health and community happiness beckon-the community

and the

life

[in

environment that Hawthorne advocated

friendly

Archer 1928, 397-98].

Three weeks

Queensboro Corporation had

later the

sold

all its

property in Hawthorne Court in Jackson Heights in present-day

Queens.

No one had predicted

In fact, the one thing that had

this.

predicted about radio was that

medium. sity

It

of the

assured

all

was going

that

if

be an educational medium

— the univer-

Commerce Herbert Hoover had was "inconceivable that we should allow so great

it

a possibility for service

and

would not become an advertising

Secretary of

air.

that

to

it

been

...

to

be drowned

in advertising chatter"

important messages ever "became the meat

wich of two patent medicine advertisements,

it

in a

sand-

would destroy

broadcasting." Besides, at the

same time Mr. Blackwell was speaking, Cyrus

Curtis was selling 2 million weekly copies of his Saturday Evening

Post and pocketing

some $28

million in advertising revenues

astounding figures for those times. Curtis had claimed that once

THE QUEENSBORO CORPORATION

he got a circulation of 400,000, he could afford zine

away

anyone who would pay postage.

to

magazine grew so plump on advertising that

it

to give the

He was

The

right.

was bought, newly

published but undistributed, as scrap paper. By 1929, the Post weighed in at two pounds.

maga-

December

7,

272 pages contained

Its

twenty-one hours of reading matter, showcased 214 national

and took

advertisers,

Nothing would tures, as

in

rival

such magazines, with their glossy pic-

an advertising medium, certainly not a

only of sound. So

it

would be up

had been thought and rational,

ad revenue of $1,512,000.

the government and

its

to radio to transmit the best that

Radio would be verbal,

said.

even ponderous.

them or

intellectual,

would open the floodgates between

It

people, between the universities and

their students. In fact, almost half of the

were granted

radio stations

medium made up

first

to universities,

licenses for early

whether they wanted

not.

Sound

familiar? Just a

few years ago the Internet was going

to

be a conduit carrying a never-ending supply of knowledge from the centers of power and learning out to the most distant monitor.

The World Wide Web was most

definitely not going to

be

filled

with blinking banners and "click on me! click on me!" icons. This

new medium was going lize.

There

is

no need

to improve, to

for

me

lift,

to recite the

to

make

better, to civi-

most popular

Web

sites

and who sponsors them. Mr. Blackwell's fifteen minutes of no fame generated $27,000 the Queensboro Corporation, and in so doing pretty

in sales for

well sealed the fate of radio, television, and

Web. While

it

now

the World

Wide

become

colo-

took about twenty years for radio to

nized by commercial interests, television never had a chance.

Web went

in

months.

Radio was the

do with

it.

The

}ust as

the Web," and

first

electronic

medium. No one knew what

to

today our kids spend countless hours "surfing

just as

those

ol

us over

fifty

years old concentrated

73

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

on the unblinking Indian

in the center of the video test pattern,

our grandparents dedicated their quality time to turning the trying to hear something

—anything! —of even minimal

What they heard before Mr. gious, educational, sports,

dial

interest.

Blackwell was a mishmash of

and government programming,

reli-

jum-

all

bled up on the same frequencies.

What

they heard in the decades after Mr. Blackwell was a

highly organized broadcast day supported by commercial interests,

each trying to reach the widest possible audience.

The

history of radio

outbreak of World

War

instructive.

is I,

Radio started because,

had wireless operators been on

duty),

been avoided

and the army needed

to direct troops in the trenches (using

barbed wire

many separate

that too

the

the navy needed to communicate with

ships at sea (the Titanic tragedv in 1912 might have

The problem was

at

a

way

as antennae).

many

patents were in too

corporate hands. Rather than nickel-and-dime the patents loose, the Justice Department essentiallv stripped industry and repackaged

"Radio Group"

The war on

its

—

them

them from

private

inside a consortium called the

Radio Corporation of America.

later the

over, national interest

no longer

a concern,

RCA went

merry way. Patent holders realized there was more money to

be made by staving together than for patents back.

in

breaking apart.

Nobodv asked

However, Westinghouse, one of the dispossessed

patent holders, had

made

a pile of radio stuff

— tubes, amplifiers,

— that needed unload. So November 1920, Westinghouse started KDKA — "Build and they Pittsburgh on the Field of Dreams principle transmitters, crystal receivers,

and the

like

to

it

in

in

it

will

come."

R

worked. Once transmitters were

built,

the surplus

receiving apparatus could be unloaded.

You could even make was

a radio receiver at

a spool of wire, a crystal, an aerial,

duced by Westinghouse. Patience and

home.

All

vou needed

and earphones

—

all

a cylindrical oatmeal

pro-

box

THE QUEEN SBORO CORPORATION

were supplied by the hobbyist. By July 1922, four hundred

"vol-

unteer" stations had sprung up.

People didn't seem to care what was on,

When

receiving something.

as long as thev

were

stereophonic sound was introduced

in

the 1950s, the most popular records were not oi music, but of the

ordinary sounds of locomotives and cars passing from speaker to speaker. People on the East Coast used to marvel at television pictures of waves breaking in California, just as

stood in awe in front of the junior,

now glued

to the

first

printed letters. Bleary-eyed

computer screen,

only the most recent electronic.

radio was that everyone was broadcasting

on the same wavelength. together, the signals

is

made

evolutionary development of ancient awe

The problem with

monks undoubtedly

When

were placed too close

transmitters

became mixed and

Bv 1927 there

garbled.

were so many broadcasters

that they petitioned

them

By 1934 Congress updated the law

sort out the airwaves.

Congress to help In-

passing a full-Hedged Communications Act, which established the

Federal Communications Commission.

Ever eager

New York

to help out,

AT&T

subsidiary already had a

suggested a solution. Their

hub

station,

WEAF

(for

Wind,

Earth, Air, Fire) in Manhattan, and they would link stations

together using their alread\ -in-place phone

would hear

They envisioned

clearly.

tying

Soon everyone

lines.

some

thirty-eight sta-

tions together in a system they called "toll broadcasting."

word

"toll"

was the

tip-off.

phone company suggested ests

and they called

this

Someone was going that time could

live

from

1

be sold

The

to private inter-

subsidy "ether advertising."

Broadcasters had tried broadcasting

to have to pay.

The

all

kinds ol innovative things, even

a football

stadium and a dance

floor, to

gather an audience, so "ether advertising" didn't seem so revolutionary.

Why

not

ucts, especially if

let

companies buy time

such

talk

was done

in

to talk

good

about their prod-

taste?

It

wasn't really

76

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

no mention of where the products were, no samples

advertising:

offered,

no store

and never, p.m.)

—

during the "family hour" (from 7:00 to 11:00

ever,

just a

few words about what

sound

listeners got clear

Ma

Why

phone company. So

In return,

come all

But she

attractive.

out for the cheese.

should they pay the

"ether advertising" were

offer.

"free."

couldn't get the mice to bite.

you

that

it is

knew she had something

Bell

wouldn't

no comparisons, no price information,

locations,

toll?

Ad

just

agencies

The monies from

going to the long-lines division of the

AT&T did

the only sensible thing.

The com-

pany offered the same 15-percent commission that the agencies got for buying print space just for sending business their way.

The agencies

got the

(soon called a rebate) even

word of copy! Not

didn't prepare a

AT&T

money

they

on

it,

They even provided the

for free.

Whereas Westinghouse thought sell

to put too fine a point

essentially bribed the agencies.

announcer

if

radio sets,

AT&T knew that

that

the big

you used broadcasting

money was

to

delivering listeners to advertisers. Agencies soon

be made fell

to in

in line.

William Rankin, an adman, bought one hundred minutes of time to discuss Mineralava moisturizing soap, just to see if radio real.

The product

flew off the shelves.

simply because they had heard about

is

it

on the is

where the phenomenon

make the connection between

for

Consumers bought the soap

knows why the phrase "As Seen on TV" chase, but here

was

radio.

No one today

a motivation to purstarts.

Somehow we

a product being advertised

and

a

product being worthy as one and the same. Soon Rankin enlisted his other clients, like

Goodrich and

Gillette, to

have a go

at

broad-

casting their message. Others followed.

The most what

listeners

pressing problem for advertisers was to find out

wanted

to hear.

under-enrolled, to say the

The

least.

By

Universities of the Air

were

the late 1920s, agencies had

found out what gathered an audience. The public wanted music,

THE QUEENSBORO CORPORATION

all right,

but not classical music. They wanted to hear a

of music you could dance

to,

swing and sway

new kind

This popular

to.

music, which centered around well-known "hits," elbowed aside classical music,

which was too long and undanceable. The audi-

ence for "long-hair" music

just sat there.

But the audience for

popular music wanted to be active. Not only was

music exciting to the young (who were starting consumers), but advertisers could attach their the players

this short-hair

to

be the prime

clients'

names

to

— something you couldn't do with the New York Sym-

phony and the Metropolitan Opera. So there was the Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra, the Cliquot

Club Eskimos, the Gold Dust Twins, the Ipana Troubadours, the

A&P

Gypsies, and the

Kodak Chorus.

or "indirect selling" didn't do there."

It

didn't sell

Alas, this "gratitude factor"

more than put your name "out

your product. What

it

was

really selling

was

popular music.

And

popular music was creating an uproar. Rather

on the Internet expected of

today, boogie tunes

this

were

clearly not

medium. So what about those

like

smut

what was

universities?

Weren't they supposed to make sure the airwaves would be

full

of

"the best that had been thought and said"? Weren't they supposed to

keep the greedy fingers of advertisers out of the pie and these

carnal sounds off the airwaves?

While there were more than ninety educational

stations (out

of a total 732) in 1927, by the mid-1980s there were only a handful.

What happened? The

university stations

had sold their

new breed of executives who saw that the big money would come from advertisers. These executives, like

licenses to a in

radio

William Paley, the urbane impresario of CBS, had been merging individual stations into networks

"webs"

—called

"nets"

or,

better yet,

—emanating from Manhattan. ABC, NBC, and CBS were

the results of this consolidation. In

one of the few attempts

to recapture cultural control

from

77

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

commercial exploitation, the National Educational Association the early 1930s lobbied Senators Robert

Henry Hatfield of West would forever be available to

Wagner of New York and

Virginia to reshuffle the stations and

them

restore a quarter of

advertising-free,

Madison Avenue, and

it

These

to university hands.

stations

making "sweetness and

The lobbying power of the

all.

in

NEA

met the

light"

clout of

was no contest. The Wagner-Hatfield

bill

died aborning, defeated by an almost two-to-one margin.

One

of the reasons the

emergence of

a

new

bill

cultural

foundered so quickly w

as the

phenomenon, the country-wide

hit

show. Never before had an entertainment been developed that an entire nation

homes had

— by

at least

V Audi)

Amos

AT&T

at

1937 more than three-quarters of American

one radio

NBC

—could experience

had shown what

noted that phone

calls

at

a hit

the

same

time.

show could

do.

dropped 50 percent during the

broadcast, and water departments found that pressure decreased just after the show.

But these were not the important registers

of concern. Hits

could make millions of dollars in advertising revenue. In sodent, the sole sponsor of

Amos

V Andy,

saw

its

fact,

Pep-

fortunes soar

with the show's popularity. Although not yet called a "blockbuster" (that II),

would come with the high-explosive bombs

of

World War

the effect of a hit was already acknowledged as concussive.

Nothing would stand

What

in its way.

show

the hit

really

aiiwaves. Section 304 of the tion of public or

blew up was the myth of the

"public"

Communications Act makes no men-

government ownership. Onlv

regulator)"

power

sited with the

government, not ownership. "Public aiiwaves"

catchy phrase,

all

right,

be regulated bv the

but

feds,

it's

a myth.

The

is

is

a

airwaves were going to

but thev were going to be ruled by the

highest bidder, and the highest bidder was going to be related to

Mr. Blackwell.

THE QUEENSBORO CORPORATION

So, in a generation, radio zines, a

became

medium supported by

like

newspapers and maga-

advertising. In fact, unlike print,

radio was soon totally supported by commercial interests. Its "free"

When

all right, if

television

moving

pictures.

you don't value your time and

appeared

The

in the late 1940s, all that

Internet and

Web TV

greater audience control. But Mr. Blackwell

attention.

was added was

increased speed and is still

there,

behind

the winking pixels, picking up the tab and banking on renting your attention for just another

"word from our sponsor."

—

THE KID

UPPER 4

IN

The Birth of Advocacy Advertising

most of the TIME,

advertising does just what

it

claims to do.

It

draws attention (ad-vert: to turn toward) to a product. But

sometimes advertising

tries to

draw your attention away from

the product.

Advertising starts in earnest in the nineteenth century as pro-

ducers

start to pile

up large surpluses

that they cannot profitably

Like the sorcerer's apprentice, machines don't

sell.

enough

is

know when

enough, so advertising becomes the sorcerer's agent

try-

ing to distribute the mess the apprentice has produced. "Here, look at this

one-of-a-kind product," the

fact that

adman

says, trying to

thousands of these things are pouring out of the factory.

Innovations in advertising usually happen

most out of deals

control.

when beads

onized,

new

So the

of flop sweat start to appear.

first

the Civil

— becomes not

on, the

first

creativity

is

rule of victory

is,

When

do the

simple: After war. is

that the

winner

the side that can produce the most war material. To the victor

go the

spoils.

The problem

is

that often the spoils are

worthless. Ironically, the winner The Kid in Upper 4

machine-made

by Nelson Metcalf

soon made to the

Jr.:

and

just prized but a necessity.

question in advertising histoiy

War

surpluses are

New media are col-

selling techniques are tried out,

most unruly surpluses occur? The answer

is

when

Salesmen always make the most interesting

whatever that may be

From

hide the

is

now

pretty

stuck holding the bag of

blankets, boots, ball bearings, bazookas

A call is

men on Madison Avenue.

"Exvertisement"

for the

New Haven

Railroad, 1942.

The most the Civil

War

creative times in advertising culture in the

North with the

rise

were

just after

of magazine culture, and

£

The ft* *f v-^ cJ

Men

Two

^

cve

i«

upper

"

a-

,;Ac

°° C

c vcry a in

triP-

nary

avva* c

*

bc ,hcir "fj, the war-

• •

•

bigness.

'".he

W

Tonȣ .

lot

Tbc .oian" nt k J 5 e.

(W

named

Spot

The

Too eye,H bis

Kid-

"

'

it

V

" s too

„»v

ft

N

I)

CONNECTICUT

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

then immediately after both the World first

W ars with

the explosion of

radio, then tele\ision.

Converselv. the most boring times in advertising are usually

No

times of dearth.

When

tising.

surplus equals no reward for creative adver-

the war machine

draining production from the

is

civilian sector, advertising agents start

reminiscing about the good

old days and creating ads like "There's a Ford in Your Future."

Advertisers &et anxious during two events: economic depressions

and wartime. In economic hard times the

expense to get cut

is

advertising

—

if

advertising reallv

And during wartime, governments begin

as advertised.

tion the function of advertising for frivolous items

about

business

because vou d think that

ironic,

businesses would increase advertising,

first

worked

to ques-

and wonder

deduetibilitv as a necessarv expense.

its

As the war

Europe raged. President Tinman mentioned the

in

unmentionable: advertising costs should be deleted

as

a de-

ductible business expense, or at least reduced, because there was

no need

to advertise.

Mention

to an

Xo

surplus equals no need to advertise.

adman what would happen

if

tax laws treated

advertising as extraneous, and vou will see pure panic.

Same

for

businessmen. Given a choice between paying taxes and using those monies to buv advertising, albeit worthless advertising, most executives

make

the

would choose the

companv

feel

latter.

good about

At least such advertising can itself.

As a consequence, the agencies offered to turn their attention to the war ef fort tising

if

Truman would

how

thrill

of enlistment, and. most interesting in terms

they w ould later behave, the encouragement of

enter the workforce. All pro bono, as the the

The War Adver-

Council encouraged die purchasing of war bonds, the donat-

ing of blood, the of

turn his elsewhere.

War

Council, the

Ad

Council, likes to

modem sav.

women

to

reincarnation of

almost truthfullv.

At the same time, to protect their billings, the agencies

encouraged their

clients,

plump with cash

that they did not

want

THE KID

UPPER 4

IN

taxed as "excess profits," to continue to buy media space and at least

with high-minded, altruistic advertising. Needless to

the agencies

Most was a

war advertising did not go

of the

war

NBC

ported the

say,

material.

Most

Orchestra. U.S.

of

it

paper

into print, since

went

GM

into radio.

Rubber backed broadcasts

sup-

of the

York Philharmonic, and Allis-Chalmers underwrote the

Boston Symphony. Therefore the war advertising we see advertising on plish

it

collected their 15 percent for this contribution.

still

crucial

New

lill

two

its

best behavior, treading

goals: protect the

products

lightly. It

had

in print

is

accom-

to

company and support

of the

the war effort.

That implicit contradiction

makes is

ad for the

this

of

being naughty/being nice

New Haven

ing,

And

the clients lousy product.

the door for a whole

new genre

It is

call

ing,"

ball.

The

which does give them

big chemical company, see

industry calls

a nice tone.

how

if

they

righteously suggest

own

opened

it

this

the First

knowing "when

.

.

.

or worse.

you to

try to get

them

"issue advertis-

Look over here,

poor family

napalm. The cigarette companies truck the the country as

doing

of advertising, advocacy advertis-

them "exvertisements" because they

take your eye off the

drawing attention

in so

placed by companies that have misbehaved I

w hat

The ad

Railroad so interesting.

not selling anything, just the opposite.

away from

is

Bill ol

is

says the

cooking with Rights around

Amendment; beer brewers

to say

the time they are telling von that this

is

when" w hile the

rest of

"the beer to have w hen

you are having more than one"; liquor companies advocate equivalent taxation for hard liquor, beer,

The Ad

and wine. The

Is

memorable campaigns

a Terrible Thing to Waste," "This

the Crash

Dummies,

the

Weeping

Is

Ad

as

"A

Your Brain on Di ngs,"

(oxer pollution] Indian,

the Bear, and Rosie the Riveter. Detractors are loud out that the

goes on.

Council, a confederation of agencies, has even institu-

tionalized the genre, producing such

Mind

list

ol

Smokey pointing

Council has neglected such problems as birth and

83

84

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

gun

control, automotive safety, corporate pollution,

and alcohol addiction, preferring more

Most advocacy Railroad

is

client-friendly topics.

bloodless, but this ad for the

is

different. First, of course,

more Norman Rockwell and

jot

and nicotine

is

New Haven

would go over the

it

One edge. Ed

the guileless artwork.

Georgi, the famous illustrator, has just the right composition.

The

two bottom bunkers (appropriately facing away from each other)

young cub looks heavenward,

are clearly in dreamland, while our free of aly

is

all

shadows, yet the light

a key to unlocking the

The

text

who wrote

was

road, the advertising

knew

Metcalf's boss

behind him.

power of the

when he

manager

sent a

change our point go,

we

asking us to

of view, to

make

Nelson Metcalf

jr..

to the rail-

was "something wrong."

The copy panel needed

perpendicular to the boys and hence is

anom-

think this

dummy version

said there

the problem.

small matter, as the ad

I

text.

originally set horizontally, but

says that

it,

is

tilted to the reader.

move

to

This

is

be no

aside for these boys, to

allowances. Right from the get-

do.

we get to the text, a word about the client's problem. The New Haven Railroad always had lousy service, in part beBefore

cause

it

had two opposing

says, the railroad

Rhode

As the small print

tasks.

the bottom

served the industrial states of Massachusetts,

and Connecticut, but

Island,

at

its

chief job was as dailv

schlepper of commuters into Manhattan. So, of course,

bad rep among

New

Now, with the war Metcalf,

Englanders

on, that service

who was

suits.

not getting a seat in the dining patient,

make

it

had a

as a shuttle service.

was going from bad

fresh from college,

ment: Quiet the complaining

more

who used

it

to worse.

was given the

assign-

Damp down the whining about

car.

Make

the waiting passengers

the outraged less eager to berate manage-

ment. Write an exvertisement. His small Colton agency in Boston had tried stressing "Right of

W ay

for Fighting Might," in

which they argued

that expediting

THE KID

freight

trumped shunting passengers. They

tried

UPPER 4

IN

"Thunder Along

the Line," in which they switched the argument to foreground the

long hours and hard work of railroad men. But nothing worked.

He vowed he would write an ad that "would make even/body who read it feel ashamed to complain Metcalf was undeterred.

about train service" (Metcalf 1991, 24; emphasis

The minute you read

the text you see why.

in original).

Here we have the

invocation of shame, that most painful of social controls, directed

toward whoever had the temerity even

to think nasty thoughts, let

alone say something, about the crappy service.

Under mawkish Note how the

sentimentality

slightly patronizing

immediately becomes a "man"

my

poetic jargon on

Then

verse.) "It is

notice

the kid in

something Ulysses

is

part,

but

how he

Upper

4."

is

is

pure exvertising genius.

word

"kid" in the headline

in the first stanza. this

ad

really written in blank

is

made mythic

Then

as ancient as the

(Forgive the

a few lines later with

the invocation of the catalog,

Homeric

epic.

Here's what our

leaving behind: hamburgers, hot rod, soda pop, Fido,

girlfriend, dad,

mom,

in

ascending order of magnitude.

By the time he readies "mom,"

the

lump reaches

Metcalf says that the agency secretary put the "lump"

and

it

gets to the kids throat just as

The

it

his throat.

in the copy,

gets to ours.

bardic voice then quickly finishes off this stanza by letting

the kid cry while not losing any dignity. "It doesn't matter. Kid," intrudes the all-knowing narrator. is

really

happening

is

"Nobody

that we, too, are

But what

will see...."

overpowered w ith

feelings.

Synch ronicity. This kid, our kid,

my kid,

is

leaving us.

We

arc saying good-bye

to him, in a sense our only begotten son, so that others

prayed for

his arrival

You may begin

max be saved.

to see

what

is

redeemer, for he, and he alone,

and freedom"

who have

going on here. This kid is

going to bring "now

to the fallen world, the

world

tired

is

cast as the

hope peace

and bleeding.

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

and

lie will bleed for them, will give

them peace.

in so

doing he

Now you can understand

why, although the light

behind

is

head

his

in

the illustration, this lad looks just like the

famous version

Supreme Court took

Sallman. Until the

down,

image was hung

this

American was

in

school. Sallman

it

in almost even-

Head of

s

most every Christian church,

in

Christ

presen-

on bulletin boards and calen-

tation Bibles, dars.

Warner

of Christ painted In

Millions of wallet-size reproductions

were made

carried this image with of this

Our doughboys

for servicemen.

ad knew

it

them and the readers

— although

perhaps not

consciously. If there

stanza.

The

any doubt what

is

text

is

lifted

is

being invoked, read the

from countless

recitative

between minister and congregation. Invocation and hortation and response. ers

about

rail

service

The

last

readings

refrain, ex-

readers of this ad and the complain-

would have one thing ©

common: thev

in

j

belonged to a Christian culture that each Sunday practiced a litany that

calf

had the same rhythms. Before going

had prepped

He knew

at St. Paul's.

If

you have to stand enroute-/r

If

there

is

no berth

for

you-/r

is

so he

You can hear the ancient echoes also suffered that

amongst us

is

we might be

more than some

this stuff

may have

so that he

is

kid,

of

is

may

insertion in the

initially

New

run

in

by

Met-

heart.

a seat.

sleep.

He who

man who now moving

is

our "most honored guest,"

and no gratitude on our part can ever match

The ad was

Han ai d,

an earlier voung

saved.

he

to

his sacrifice.

November 1942

as a single trial

York Herald Tribune. Needless to

say,

it

l

THE KID

thi

UPPER 4

IN

New Jiisj/m-Gock''

%spira-J$imp

I]'/,

I!

'',>,»

SUNDAY SCHOOL

5 »V« TjH

never stopped running. Elmer Davis, head Information, ordered that

it

be run

in

"Ml

HICH

W 95

»C»0SS

4

..~(M

.....

War

of the Office of

newspapers around the

.-^

Head of

and sponsored to

make

it.

and service companies picked

The Pennsylvania

it

up

Railroad asked for permission

three hundred posters of it for their stations.

The

text

was

read on radio stations, pinned to countless bulletin boards, and enclosed

in letters.

New Haven

More

est,

short,

at

the

Railroad office.

The "Kid" appeared movie

than eight thousand letters arrived

and

in Life,

as a song.

Newsweek, Time,

More important

however, the ad was used to raise

money

in

an

MGM

for the national interlor the

Red

Cross, to

War Bonds, and by the U.S. Army to build morale among servicemen. After all, this ad made sacrifice into religious ritual.

sell

U.S.

It

work

also

showed

off surplus;

it

advertisers that a

can tamp

had run so smoothly.

down

good ad can do more than

complaints. If only the railroad

Christ as

popular culture icon in

country. Railroad companies

iNi

r»CM

w

1

INTERMEDIATE TEACHER!

87

the 1940s.

DE BEERS A Good Campaign

THE PIVOTAL INSIGHT tising dollars are

in advertising

being wasted,

I

Forever

Is

know

"I

is

that half

my adver-

out which half."

just can't figure

This truism, coined in the late nineteenth century,

is

attributed

to,

among others, Lord Leverhume of Lever Brothers and John Wanamaker of the famous Philadelphia department store. It describes the central axiom of sponsored speech: veiy gets through to the consumer.

You

little

of

it

hear the sentiment

still

expressed today, with the percent of waste raised. This

is

what makes the N. W. Ayer campaign

for

De

Beers

Consolidated Mines Limited so remarkable. For half a century this

campaign, selling polished transparent rocks as instruments of

romantic love, was probably the least wasteful advertising ever created. Eveiy dollar spent

was worth

it.

While advertising cannot create demand, reformat desire, and

when

this

can intercept and

it

happens, watch out!

New

markets

open up overnight. While we usually think of De Beers' dominance

as the result of controlling supply,

in

cartel

— which now contributes only the most successful

Finding rocks

is

the

Rocky Coast of

achievement has

them on your

fingers

15 percent of supply

monopoly on

easy Selling rocks

years two markets have Honeymoon on

real

manipulating demand. Thanks to Ayer, the South African

been

become

its

earth.

is

tough. In the

last fiftv

for stones.

You wear

are in love, and you put

them over

been opened up

when you

— has

the body of a loved one after death.

The

latter

category was mas-

Maine, painted by Nicolia Cikovsky for

De Beers, 1948.

tered by the Rock of Ages Corporation, which captured the

umentality argument and franchised

it

mon-

under the barely disguised

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

aura of religion ("Hock of Ages cleft for me." the Church built on

concept

rock, the

same time

of rock as

life

almost the

common man. diamonds

testimonials for the

were being positioned

at

memorials were being turned from head-

that granite

stone markers to

covenant with God). But

unthing love

as the signifiers of

for his life

partner.

Was

responded

that ter

happenstance that the same war-ravaged generation

it

Thompson

w as

to these stones

Agency's imaging

Rock of Gibraltar

also

of

comforted by the

Prudential Insurance as the

world perceived

In a

mon-

as susceptible to

there w as great comfort in aligning oneself with rocks.

strosities,

Although the wealthy

of

both sexes had been accustomed to

displaxing these colorless crystals, they

commodity

in

became an investment

the late nineteenth centurv. You would buv raw dia-

monds and put them away the

Wal-

J.

for safekeeping. After the Depression,

diamond trade crashed; too many of them came out of

keeping

all at

fragmented diamond industry that

clear to the

were seen

once, and speculators glutted the market.

as tradable

and not

as

market would alw ays be subject This

is

because

seems

quality that

to

diamonds

buy and hold, the

such wild gyrations.

make them

so valuable

is

precisely what

must ultimately render them worthless. Not only do they ever,

grind

became

paradox unique to these stones: the very

of a

to

to

something

as long as

It

last for-

but diamonds have almost no practical use. All you can do

them up and put them on

drill bits.

Unlike gold or

monds

just sit

supply and

demand were

would diminish bv

diamond All

held

there and sparkle.

that has

through

at bav.

so

much

dia-

ever the Draconian laws of

applied, every

preceded

diamond dug out

of the

the value of everv still-existing

it.

history, the law

First thev

If

is

silver,

carbon allotropes aren't malleable or electrically conductive:

earth

safe-

s

of supply and

demand have been

were pushed aside by what were called

DE BEERS

sumptuary

meats

laws. Certain kinds of

(like

the king's deer), bev-

erages (such as exotic teas and coffee), styles of fashionable particular fabrics, rare spices to live,

and the

like,

and sweeteners,

were simply placed

styles

livery,

of wigs, places

off limits to

commoners.

Ditto diamonds. These laws against consuming what was called "luxury" used to be administered by the ecclesiastical courts. This

was because luxury was defined

as living

above one's

form of insubordination against the concept of "copia" that God's

world

is

already

full

Though the proffered and greed

— luxury

— the idea

and complete.

sins

behind such laws were gluttony

were by definition sumptuous

objects

truth the prohibitions

station, a

were

social.

—

Sumptuary laws wore part

in of

an elaborate symbolic system designed to keep class demarcations in place.

We now

use excise taxes on cigarettes, expensive

automobiles, yachts, liquor, and gasoline, and our purpose to separate groups, but to

make consuming

not

is

certain materials a

burden.

Diamonds had been such

a protected luxury. In fact, until the

fifteenth century, only the elites

Diamonds appeared on a kind of blinking

Then,

mond

in

were allowed

to display

heads and on top of their scepters

royal

reminder of who wielded the big

1447,

ring to his girlfriend,

Man

of Burgundy, placing

hand, apparently

left

in

as

stick.

Archduke Maximilian of Austria gave

the third finger of her

them.

a dia-

on

it

lienor of the

ancient Egyptian belief that the vena amoris (vein of love) ran straight

from the heart to the

of that finger. As a distant

tip

harbinger of what was to come, the rock w as becoming something

more than

amorous

politieal signage;

royal

mond

was becoming a symbol

of

intention.

The diamond market was by

it

and

ecclesiastical

dealer famously put

inching away from one maintained

power it,

to

one maintained,

as

one

dia-

"by the male erection."' Hut the para-

91

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

dox of worthlessness remained: the only value of diamonds can be attributed.

If

made

they have to be

War

After World

monds were on

diamonds are not

best friend."

girl's

I,

no one was doing the

attribution. Dia-

Young swains were promising

out.

undying devotion by giving automobiles, oceanic

and fur

opals, topaz,

exotic

Other

coats.

and

W orse

their

watches,

rocks, such as rubies, sapphires, turquoise,

more

colorful,

erotic than diamonds.

new fields of diamonds were being discovnow known as Zaire, Ghana, Namibia, and espe-

vast

still,

Botswana. Even bigger

fields

Argyle mines of Australia, bigger ones

would be found still

in the

in Siberian Russia.

much

of the

were facing every producer's worst

night-

Diamonds were anything but v

travel,

and onyx were more romantic, more

ered in the lands cially in

what

a king's best friend, then

"a

way

their

is

rare,

and hence

lost

alue they might have had.

Diamond

suppliers

mare: increasing supply, decreasing demand. Three things had to

happen:

First,

thought of like

and most important, diamonds had

as a

gold or

to stop being

commodity. Thev should be bought, but not

silver,

sold,

because that would invoke the iron laws of the

market. In economic terms, they had to be

made

unfungible. Sec-

ond, the diamond had to be tied to some more regular use than sticking in a crown, a scepter, or

be made

ritualistic,

even

in a ring.

totemic, metaphoric.

Diamonds had

They had

to

to

be made so

meaningful that they could be bought to be given. In other words, the after-market, the secondhand market as destroved.

Buy

accomplish the

buy, buy, but never first

it

were, had to be

sell, sell, sell.

And,

third, to

two, the producers had to promise not to

deviate from either the controlled supply or the controlled

ing of their product.

down

Thev had

a single channel in only

as the buy-hole.

to

one

form a

mean-

cartel to funnel the rocks

direction:

toward what

is

known

DE BEERS

The amazing transformation ber

1938, a

6,

when

full

year before the

New

a partner of a

&

N. W. Aver

diamonds began on Septem-

of

advertisement appeared,

first

York bank phoned

a viee-president of

Son, Inc., to arrange a meeting between the

ageney and representatives of Ernest Oppenheimer. This subsequent meetings, had

meeting,

like

arranged.

Oppenheimers

was

all

De

firm,

be carefully

to

Beers Consolidated Mines,

more than 90 percent

a cartel, already controlling

first

of the

market. American laws forbid monopolies from having offices on U.S.

Hence, almost

soil.

Africa or in London, and

all it

future meetings occurred in South

was there that budgets were

set

and

campaigns arranged. N. W. Ayer was the obvious agency to do the it

the granddaddy of American agencies,

shoe" of staffed

all

by the scions

of

well-heeled

also the

wanted, and

it

WASPs. The

out, they

desk drawers and forgotten. These

women

was

Not only was most "white

the major firms. Oxer the years, Ayer had

when paychecks were handed

class

it

job.

become

story goes that

were often dumped

men knew what

was not more

upper-middle-

golf clubs.

Better yet, Ayer would keep things quiet, respectful, out limelight. In fact, the

agency w as named N. W. Ayer

though N. W. never participated

Wayland

Ayer, thought the

title

into

in the agency.

&

of

the

Son even

His son, Francis

sounded more established, more

genteel.

No doubt ucts.

travel

about

it,

the agency was good with difficult prod-

Thev had introduced not

just

the Foul

but also the Ford Tri-Motor plane and

sold the National Biscuit

Model T and car

air travel;

they had

Company's products by emphasizing the

In-Er-Seal packaging, not the foodstuff; they had launched cigarettes

and coined

"I'd

walk a mile for

a

Camel

Camel"; they posi-

tioned coffee as a drink worthy of a "break," and, perhaps most importantly, the agency had created the masterful

AT&T

cam-

93

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

paigns that protected the phone monopoly long after market conditions

had w arranted new competition.

Aver would have

be discreet for another reason than the

to

government suspicion of monopolies. Most of these diamonds were coming from South

Africa.

Everyone knew how Cecil

Rhodes had run the Kimberlev Mine. that the "diggers"

It

was

common knowledge

were treated abominably. You

a reader of the National

Geographic

to

didn't have to

know how

was done, with humans scraping the ground

like

be

"dry" mining

dogs after bones.

And you didn't have to be a reader of The New York Times to know how- closelv this apartheid svstem was coupled with our own racial past. (Needless to sav Ayer also kept its distance vears later when De Beers "lent" our erstwhile enemv. the Soviet Union, more than SI billion in order to make sure thev funneled

diamonds

their

into the cartel's euphemistic Central Selling

Organization.

Before the

ad.

first

Ayer conducted one of the most thorough

market studies ever done. Here's what thev gleaned from carefully interviewing 2,073 married lege

women, 2,042 married men. 480

men. and 502 college women. The

first

col-

postwar generation

did not associate diamonds with ritualized engagement to be married,

let

alone with romantic love. Another problem was that

young men were confused about how much

diamond had direct sale

to

be

to satisfy "her concerns."

between

De

to pav,

And

and how- big

finally,

since

a

no

Beers and the end-user could occur (the

monopolv problem), the advertising must be done

for the entire

category not for the proprietary version.

Category advertising cuits, shoes, cigarettes,

Ritz. Nike,

it

almost never done. You don't

sell bis-

automobiles, or computer chips. You

sell

Marlboro. Chevrolet, or an Intel 586. If everybody's

biscuits are in the

same,

is

same

barrel,

and

if

probably doesn't reward vou to

But diamonds are

thev look prettv tell

much

people to buv

different, thanks to the cartel.

the

biscuits.

DE BEERS

The only that

its

research showed that

would

ing system before they that

Harrv Winston or

wood

stars.

De Beers was that Ayer insisted men needed to know the exact pric-

sticking point with

bite.

Tiffany's

Drenching a

starlet

generating value by association a

girl's

Yon often hear how savvy

would lend

their stones to Holly-

with brilliant baubles was a

—

way of

"Diamonds

for both parties,

best friend," cooed Marilyn Monroe.

refrain continues, "Marilyn

was

it

To the

are

cartel the

diamonds' best friend."

is

Unfortunately, what the merchants lent with one hand was

may

taken with the other, for while the mechanic's sweetheart

have thought,

wish

"I

thought, "Marilyn

way too expensive

a practical system

down and

had what Marilyn

men would be

Because ica,

is

I

get

them

had

to

me

for

doing almost

has," the

mechanic

to afford."

the buying in

all

Amer-

be concocted that would calm them

safely through the buy-hole.

Hence

the

scientific-sounding voodoo about carat weight, color, cutting, clar-

of the stones, and prices that invariably appeared in the bottom

ity

margin of the early

body copy of the

Women looked at the picture and read the Men were shown the small print over in the

ads.

ad.

corner of the page. Prices

were only vaguely mentioned. Since De Beers couldn't

control what the jeweler charged, they did not want to be con-

fined by advertised prices. Ayer told control the wholesale prices, small-time,

to worn': rigidly

remove the after-market, and the

downtown jeweler would

even encouraged

them not

fall

into line. In fact,

local jewelers not to advertise

because they

would only cheapen the process by having competitive

De

Ayer

sales.

Let

Beers advertise for you. In so doing, the cartel essentially sold

direct to the consumer. In a

still

moved and

much

for a

more clever adaptation, the

prices

were

later re-

stated in terms ol wages. "Is two months' salary too

diamond engagement

rhetorical question!

ring?" asks

one

ad. Talk

about a

95

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

The

next aspect of the Aver ads was the illustration and eopv.

French

artists, for starters.

If

von are going to borrow value

for

your product, begin with the best. Aver went with Maillol and

The

Derain, then later used Picasso. Matisse, and Edzard.

below the painting makes sure you know title,

and

date,

almost from the

a-r-t;

is

it

has a

viewed signature. Four-color was used

easily

not just to give the limited-edition art-book

start,

but also to

illusion,

that this

citation

make

sure that the

little

stones in the lower

margins would stand out big against a tinted background. This

is

the same reason, incidentally, that diamonds are often

displayed in store windows under

give the illusion of greater substance.

current "Shadows" lost

TV

umbrellas: the shadows

little

And

campaign (from

}.

this explains as well the

Walter Thompson: Ayer

the account) in which the stones magically appear on the fin-

gers of dark silhouettes. In the

background we hear the surging

"Shadows Theme" performed by the London Sym-

strings of the

phony Orchestra. So many people think that the

that the

Diamond Promotion Seniee now

music

sells a

is

classical

tape for twelve

dollars.

A generation ago the high-culture schmaltz w as borrowed not from ersatz poetry.

classical art

The guys would

and music, but from ladies-magazine

look

at

the stones, they might glance at the

artwork, but thev would pass by the purple prose that

women

would

treacle.

Here

read. This text

is

not really prose or poetry;

it's

are samples:

How true

fair

.

.

.

has been each precious moment of

their silent

meeting at the

their plans

come

altar steps, their first waltz at

the gay reception, and now, these wondrous days together

world that

sured

in

seems

the

their very

lovely, lighted

own. Each

memory

in

turn

is

in

a

trea-

depths of her engagement diamond, to

be an endless source of happy inspiration.

DE BEERS

Or:

Each memory her

turn

in

is

treasured

engagement diamond,

costly or of

many

carats, but

lovely, lighted

depths of

be an endless source of happy

to

such a radiant

inspiration. For

the

in

role,

her

diamond need not be

must be chosen

it

with care.

Or:

There

is

only tomorrow for young couples newly engaged. Heed-

lessly they

spend the present,

flinging the

days

like

along time's changing shore. And each, as

becomes

Where service to it

come up

#S, published

unseen,

with this? In Educational Services

by The Saturday Evening Post

young copywriters, the process

related to the L948

tion

falls

it

a yesterday.

did they

Case History

golden coins

—19

campaign.

is

unfolded,

First the

Board decided that the general idea

as a

at least as

Creative/Produc-

for

this

campaign

would be either springtime scenes from around the world or famous honeymoon

spots.

They gave the general

idea to the

copywriter w ho was supposed to spin the cotton candy.

A

writer explains:

In

working

poetic

this out

I

found that

and emotional mood.

I

It

was turning out copy just

seemed impossible

develop the springtime theme without getting poetic.

eymoon copy I

it

was easier

with a

to get lighter, gayer

and

In

to

the hon-

brighter copy.

talked this over with Plans and Art people and they agreed, so

we decided among ourselves be the better one and

to

that the

recommend

theme [Educational Services 1948,

9].

honeymoon theme would that over the springtime

copy-

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

writing out the

Iii

longhand

honeymoon

copy, she

would compose four

she went along, trying to link

drafts, free-associating as

the rock in with the ring in with the romantic mood. "This was

something

honeymoon and

the

(

Ibid.

the problem was

how

to

engagement and thus have occasion

of the ).

my theme was

working a crossword puzzle because

like

Once she

got the text,

went over

it

work

to

in the subject

mention the ring"

to artwork

where a

suit-

able image was sketched, to be later commissioned.

mention

I

this

process because

was from the exhaustion

it

writing such carbonated prose that the most compressed

of

diamond

headline was formed. In April of 1947. Frances Gererv was

of a

laboring mightily to get the puzzle of purple prose into the proper

crossword boxes. She was exhausted from a

new line

that

would bring together

qualities of the

As Gerety remembers

ever.

"Dog line.

diamond and have

tired.

"

I

put

He must

it

come up

to

my head down and

with

the intrinsic and romantic

not

make any sense whatso-

Ayers promotional

for

it

all

tmng

said. "Please

literature.

God, send

have because she wrote. "A Diamond

Is

me

a

Forever."

Next morning she had brought forth "something good." And indeed she had. Geretv's phrase precisely catches the synecdoche. This tiny

diamond

forever,

is

your huge love

think you could pull

demand

turns to

them

apart

mush before

is

forever,

The

how

can you even

iron law of supply

these four words.

More

and

incredibly

the line works as powerfully in the twenty-nine languages into

which films

it

Even the makers of James Bond

has been translated.

know

that while the British

Empire mav crumble. Diamonds

Arc Forever.

W hat

is

amazing, of course,

diamond may

last forever,

is

but vou

that

so patently untrue.

it's

will die

The

and so goes vour undy-

ing love. Mortality cannot be revoked, even with great advertising.

So that diamond and the love

it

signifies

must stay

in

your family

.

DE BEERS

testament to your immortal love. Someone must care for

A

it.

stone becomes an heirloom. If

you read the copy

of other ads in this series,

see the case subtly being

NEVER

even think of

made

selling

for

"keeping

your jewel:

it

you

in

will often

the family."

how unromantic, how

sacrilegious.

And how wonderful

for

De

Beers!

They had made the pur-

chase of their product essentially a one-decision mystical blue-chip stock, the only question it,

when you

not

sold

it.

act.

Like the truly

was when you bought

They had mopped up the

aftermarket.

So when the male buys the diamond he memorializes undying

love.

silly criteria,

He

throws away Consumer Reports and

he follows

meddling mind

his heart (or

to sleep.

well, at least as long as a

he enters the central it

just before

hood,

Remember, diamond.

rite of

He

buys

ter of his

He

buys

before parent-

buys something

which he may not be able to

him

.

in this next

to

chap-

life.

Nothing Is

just

He

.

rock just before

this

he becomes seriously sexual,

and which has no possible value

afford,

mond

this act of love will last

passage in Western culture.

totally worthless as a material,

their

all

other glands), and puts his

before big-time responsibilities.

just

this

else in advertising history has coin pared with "A Dia-

Forever" and the engagement

ring. But, as befits a para-

dox so central to human existence, one can see that no culture can withstand ding

it.

rituals

In japan, for instance,

which had no elaborate wed-

other than the ancient Shinto

from a wooden bowl and,

in fact,

rite

of drinking rice wine

even prohibited the importation

of diamonds until 1959, the engagement ring

percent of brides

— about the same

as in the

is

now worn by 80

United

States.

Having learned the power of translating time worked testament of love,

male

is

De

into a

Beers upped the ante While the American

told he should

budget two months'

salary, his

Japanese

99

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

100

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told to devote three or lour months' earnings to the

counterpart

is

purchase of

his

undxing love svmbol.

Although "nothing grass," the cartel

is

will

bring hack the hour of splendor in the

eagerly trying to ritualize anniversaries. So.

along with the tennis bracelet and ear studs, w hich eat up other-

DE BEERS

wise worthless supply from Australia and Siberia,

"10th

Diamond Anniversary Band" and

Diamond

the

the "25th Anniversary

Necklace." Price? Simple, according to the ads.

much do you

"How

love her after ten [or twenty-five] years of mar-

riage?" Naturally,

it's

ten or twenty-five times as

ten or twenty-five times as

ment

we now have

deep

as the

much. So you dig

two-month-wages engage-

ring.

Now,

just for

the fun of

it,

take those "brand-new

gem

stones"

(already millions of years old) back to the store ten seconds after

you have bought them, and see what they're worth. to get 18

percent of what von

sible isn't the point,

from the

Home

is it? If

just paid.

only

it

You'll

be lucky

But doing something sen-

were, w e d be buying zirconium

Shopping Network.

101

COKE AND CHRISTMAS The Claus That Refreshes

TO MOVE YOUR PRODUCT it

out of the store, you

need

first

to

move

into the consumer's imagination. For, as social scientists have

shown,

it is

Very often

hard to

this colonizing

some calendar jumps out

an enemy

tight

—

event.

like the

The

is

who

has outposts in your mind.

done by positioning your object near

big hand strikes twelve and your object

clockwork cuckoo. You don't have to break

through, you're already there.

The

brass ring in advertising

without detection.

Some

is,

of course, to carry this off

products have gotten themselves so deep

inside the clock that they

seem

have been there forever. Take

to

the rhythms of passing through a day, for instance. Breakfast was a creation of the cereal start the day),

companies (we used

to eat dinner scraps to

the coffee break used to be at four in the afternoon

until the coffee roasters

ing, the cocktail

hour

moved

is

it

away from tea time

to the

morn-

an invention ot the liquor industry, the

Ploughman's Lunch was introduced to the English

in the 1960s,

not in the sixteenth century, and so forth.

As with a day, so with the

year.

Events

like

Super Bowl Sun-

day, the Oscars, Secretaries' Day, Spring Break,

interests.

Day have been taken over by commercial Anthropologists call the phenomenon by which one

system

laid

and even Saint

by

is

Patrick's

down over another

syncretism. Advertisers call

it

nirvana.

Coke's Santa

Haddon Sundblom

for the Things

Cinco de Mayo,

Observe Halloween. Halloween started

Go

Better with Coke

campaign, 1964.

festival, this

one having

to

as just

another pagan

do with the harvest and the coming of

cold weather. Bonfires were

lit

and chants sung

for safe passage

COKE AND CHRISTMAS

mas"), an elflike creature runs about on Christmas

He

presents.

is tiny,

small

When what

to

enough

little

knew

I

in

a

sleigh,

Thomas

cartoonist

and

moment

eight tiny rein-deer;

must he

it

the chimney.

eyes should appear,

and

old driver so lively

Nick was plumped up into a

St.

come down

my wondering

But a miniature

With a

to

Eve delivering

quick,

Nick.

St.

by the

full-sized Santa

editorial

Nast. In 1869 he collected his images from

Haiyer's Weekly and published them in a book called Santa Clans

we have Moore to thank for the reindeer (and reindeer names), we have Nast to thank for fatten-

and His Works. all

their great

ing

II

up Santa and sending him

By the end

He was

in

to the

North Pole.

of the nineteenth century, Santa

newspapers,

magazines, as a toy

in

was everywhere.

doll,

on calendars,

in

children's books, and, thanks to the great chromolithographer

Owing

Louis Prang, on Christmas cards.

"chromo," he Santa

is

appears

still

he needs a big

needs a

belt, a

needs a beard-trim

The not

in a

multicolored suit sketched by Nast.

not ready for prime time yet. He's too severe, too judg-

He

mental.

first

to the innovation of the

jolly

old

come from

little

little

letting out there,

red coat, he needs those buccaneer boots, he

— most of

St.

tuck here, a

all,

he needs

to get

warm and

fuzzy.

Nick that we know from countless images did

folklore,

nor did he originate

in

the imaginations of

He came from the yearly advertisements of the Coca-Cola Company. He wears the corporate colors the famous Moore and

Nast.

—

red and white

—

for a reason:

of the North Pole.

Hollywood

talent

And

its

soft

is

working out

of Atlanta, not

out

while his polar bears max conic from a

agency (CAA),

In the 1920s die selling

he

his

marketing comes from MBAs.

Coca-Cola Company was having

drink during the winter.

cold-weather beverage. "Thirst Knows

They wanted

No

to

difficulty

make

Season' was their

it

a

ini-

106

TWENTY ADS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

tial

winter campaign. At

personage

like

first

how

they decided to show

a winter

Santa could enjoy a soft drink in December. They

showed Santa chug-a-lugging with the young soda jerk with the Coke

(the addled

bottle cap jauntily stuck

They

head). But then they got lucky.

Boy

Sprite

on

his

started showing Santa relax-

ing from his travails by drinking a Coke, then

showed how the

kids

might leave a Coke (not milk) for Santa, and then implied that the gifts

coming

in

from Santa were

in

exchange for the Coke. Paydirt.

Perfect positioning! Santa's presents might not be in exchange for a Coke, but they

were "worth"

a Coke. Coke's Santa

aside other Santas. Coke's Santa

From

was

blom had spent much of the year preparing the D'Arcy Agency in friend,

Lou

Sundblom went

died,

Haddon H. Sundcuddly Santas for

his

Louis. First he painted a salesman

St.

Prentis from

"own" Christmas.

starting to

the late 1930s until the mid-1950s,

was elbowing

Muskegon, Michigan, and

to the mirror

Lou

after

and painted himself. Haddon

was a big man and a big drinker. Mrs. Claus was based on Mrs.

Sundblom.

Sundblom would do two or three Santas The Saturday Evening

azines, especially billboards,

and maybe another

ings almost always

Coke, sharing

his

for

Post,

mass-market mag-

and then one

for point-of-sale items.

showed Santa

Coke with the

The

for

paint-

giving presents and receiving

kids

surrounded by

toys, playing

with the toys and drinking the Coke, or reading a letter from a kid while drinking the

Coke

left like

the glass of milk.

They Knew What I Wanted,"

read,

Now

"It's

My Gift

The headlines

for Thirst,"

the Gift for Thirst," or "Travel Refreshed." He's a

"And

little

mis-

chievous, not above lifting a turkey leg from the fridge and sitting

down

a spell in Dad's

soft drink"

comfy chair with the soon-to-be

of the season.

Sundblom was quick

to

glom on

to

any passing motif. After

Disney made Bambi, a fawn was worked into the after

"traditional

Gene Autry sang "Here Comes Santa

illustration,

and

Claus," a reindeer soon

COKE AND CHRISTMAS

made

his

way

happy scene. After

into the

all,

the provenance of

Rudolph the Red-Xosed Reindeer was pure commercialism. Rudolph was created by Robert

gomery Ward, and

L.

May, a copywriter for Mont-

proved so popular that 2.3 million

his story

copies of the musical score of "Rudolph" were sent out with the

Ward

catalog in 1939.

So complete was the colonization of Christmas that Coke's Santa had elbowed aside

all

of the 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street

He

the recent film The Santa Clause. cards, he

tion

Army

he

just as

is

is

the department-store Santa, and

lie is

has celebrated

it

ot this

one of Coke's agencies. W. ner, Blitzen,

& Co.),

Coke

Classic,

to mall

is

is

come

is

site, is

on one

Decem-

owns. In

fact,

Co. (no relation to Don-

December

now on the corporation's Christmas

part of an art

show

that

is

trucked around

to the Louvre!), has

licensed to the Franklin Mint lor a collector is

on special Christmas tree decorations,

star of a special television alive

&

each holiday season (even

plate selling for $29.95,

and

Doner

it

hired almost exclusively for the

Sundblom's Santa

own Web

his

is

B.

Darwinian

success each

its

ber by putting Sundblom's creation on everything

from mall

even the Salva-

Santa!

struggle of images, and

cans of

the Santa of

the Santa on Hallmark

Coca-Cola has been the happy beneficiary

hi jinks.

is

the Santa

the Santa riding the Norelco shaver each Christmas

is

season, he

He was

comers by the 1940s.

commercial

in

which he seems

to

of the advertising panels of a delivery truck.

The Sundblom Santa

lifts

drink bottle

his soft

in a

holiday toast

and winks. As the horror films promise

Keep watching the

skies.

.

.

.

he'll

be coming around again.

Every Christinas,

poor Pepsi. Thev must dread Christmas.

he'll

be baaaack.

Pits

107

THE VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE William Bernbach and the Fourth Wall

ONE OF the most PROVOCATIVE ways tising

to

by considering individual ads

is

approach

modem

adver-

in the context of

what

Harold Bloom has called "the anxiety of influence." Adapting the Freudian idea of Oedipal

conflict,

poet must struggle for his

own

Bloom argued

that any major

voice with a great predecessor

whose strength both shapes and threatens

to

overcome the poetic

"son." So Milton wrestled with Spenser, Keats with Shakespeare,

and Wallace Stevens with Keats,

Shelley,

and Wordsworth. The

poetic canon in English can thus be presented as an interfamilial struggle, with the successful "sons" breaking loose

and becoming "fathers" past them.

And

so

What makes

it

this

to the next generation,

from the father

which must push

goes.

mode

of interpretation rewarding

is

that

it

can be applied to any creative family. So moviemakers like

Quentin Tarantino are aware they are rewriting films of Hitchcock; architects are forever recasting the shapes; painters are

retouching canvases; musicians are ers.

The

struggle

is

humming

not just to be different;

the tunes of othit

is

to

be more

powerful.

What makes

advertising interesting in this regard

creative presence sign his

is

usually

again.

is

(the copywriter does not

out there for

all

to see.

for),

Again and again

As Howard Gossage, the iconoclastic paterfamilias of

San Francisco advertising Think Small, 1962.

that the

name, nor do we usually know what agency he works

but his selling technique

and

anonymous

is

"The object

of

in

the 1960s, once said sardonically.

your advertising should not be to communicate

ft

IH1 VOLMWMIN

Of iwiaic*. >N