Craig McNamara writes

Yes, yes, I know, print advertising is dead, especially newspaper advertising – but ads still use space in other mediums, so apply these observations as you will.   Make the height of the ad part of the concept Look how this 1966 Mobil ad really sells the comparison of car collision at 80 mph with the impact of a car dropped from a ten-story building. You could have used a rooftop shot of the car going over; you could have shown a tighter shot of a car falling past a row of windows; you could have shown the crushed car at the base of the building; but Len Sirowitz of Doyle Dane Bernbach used the height of the newspaper space to show the full size of building, inviting us the imagine the long fall of the automobile and what happens when it hits the ground. And making a static photo feel as dramatic as the same demonstration in the accompanying TV commercial .    (The layout is even more brilliant when you consider that the ad was likely encountered by people reading the ne...

Before founding the agency that carried her name,  Mary Wells (later Wells Lawrence) was part of Jack Tinker & Partners , where she was first recognized for bringing a theatricality to advertising, a more cinematic and story-driven approach to her commercials.    Given the fledgling Braniff account, Ms. Wells re-introduced the carrier to the world by breaking out of the dull monochrome world that air travel was circa 1965. She splashed color outside and inside the planes and outfitted the "hostesses" (sorry, the "flight attendant" name was still years away) in stylish Emilio Pucci designs.   It was "The end of the plain plane," as the campaign put it, and it kept Braniff in the news for months on end.     This commercial may not be the showiest example of a Mary Wells Lawrence production, but the announcement it made was strong enough to make up for the commercial's deficiencies (though the droll "cha cha cha" is a nice touch).   Realizi...

Smiling and dapper business traveler, check. Sleek and luxurious symbol of the modern world of travel, check. So what's missing? Oh, right, this: No doubt he's just considering her "speed, splendor and spectacular performance."

Back in the glamorous heyday of airline travel, airlines often tried to sell you tickets based the idea of exotic travel as a way of resuscitating your relationships, and more frequently, by subtly (and no so subtly ) dangling the fantasy of a romantic liaison with one of their young and shapely (but with a girl-next-door appeal, naturally) fight attendants. This 1963 ad from Germany's Lufthansa Airlines cleverly manages to do both: Are they husband and wife, or passenger and stewardess? Don't look to the ad copy to give you any clues: Happens often in Bavaria. You'll notice it in the most surprising places...in the most surprising ways. Something in Germany's air, no doubt, has a wonderfully stimulating effect on the feelings and spirits of visitors. Make of it what (and who) you will. But given the airline-branded bag the woman's carrying, the coy ingenue-like turning in of her feet as she's (presumably) being kissed, and the business attire of the man, an...