Craig McNamara writes

An oddly intriguing 1960s-era campaign I stumbled across recently.  Let’s handle this part right up front: Obviously, seen through modern eyes, it’s sexist as all get-out – but if you just want to reinforce your disgust at the ads, there are other web sites out there that will indulge you.    Here, I’m more interested in examining these ads as an  ad campaign  – what made them attention-getting, recognizable, and endlessly reproducible, as well as how they channeled the zeitgeist (for better and worse). So who is this Mr. Thomson with the audacity to feature himself as a handsy designer of women’s apparel?    The internet is surprisingly barren when it comes to The Thomson Company , the textile manufacturer behind the ads, the brand, and the exclamation – but digging deep, here’s what I’ve been able to find out and suss out. Though he was the public face (so to speak) of the company, our Mr. Thomson was, in fact, an advertising creation, as fictitious ...

During their 5 decades of performing together on radio and TV programs, Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding have portrayed befuddled newsmen, quirky interview subjects, didactic soap opera characters another media mainstays.  But of all the targets of their deadpan, underplayed style, one the best has been their commercial parodies.  Sure, that sounds like faint praise, what with the glut of commercial parodies all over TV and the internet these days, but Bob & Ray appropriated the language of advertising with an insightfulness that's easy to miss while you're laughing at their off-kilter dialogue. Their commercials for fictitious sponsor Monongahela Metal Foundry -- "Casting Steel Ingots With The Housewife In Mind"  -- make a mockery of advertisers' attempts at consumer relevance.    Their Einbinder Flypaper slogan -- "The Brand You've Gradually Grown To Trust Over The Course Of Three Generations" -- was a typical heritage-hyping appeal and yet resonat...

It’s become a legendary example of how writing with truth and candor can make a powerful appeal. When Ernest Shackleton was seeking crew members for an expedition to the South Pole, he was said to have run this small ad in   The Times   of London:   MEN WANTED for Hazardous Journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success. – Earnest Shackleton.   Talk about painting a bleak picture. But as first recounted by Carl Hopkins Elmore in his 1944 book,  Quit You Like Men  (a biblical phrase exhorting one to be courageous), “so overwhelming was the response to his appeal that it seemed as though all the men of Great Britain were determined to accompany him.”    Wow, great story. Sadly, the ad likely never ran. Despite historians and amateur historians combing through all the publications of the time, no one has ever found the ad’s appearance. ...

What's it like to create advertising for a living? What’s it like to work at an ad agency?  What’s to like – or not like – about certain ad campaigns?  What do I like in how advertising in portrayed in movies and TV?   Find out here, in essays, articles, podcast scripts, and blog posts – nothing too heavy and written with wit and style.  Like the writing on this blog?  It's like that, and more. $9.99 softcover – $4.99 ebook Read excerpts and order  here .

A few months back, I noticed there were lists making the way around the web that purported to be "The Greatest Movie Themelines Ever Written" -- actually, it seems to be more or less the same list everywhere. This list is pretty representative of the thinking. I'm not going to go through the choices movie by movie. But if you do, you'll see that most of the themelines chosen are are, at best, just clever wordplays, and at worst, too-clever-by-half puns. They may bring a smile to your face and they might even give you some idea of the subject matter. But by and large, most of these evoke no real desire to see the movie. And shouldn't that be the real yardstick by which you should judge the "greatest" themeline? It's not surprising that truly great themelines are few and far between. After all, it's not every day that someone comes up with "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water" or "In space, no one can h...

"It was that easy. In an hour and a half, America's most universally despised advertising campaign was created." That's how Benton & Bowles writer John Chervokas described the process of creating Mr. Whipple and the "Please Don't Squeeze the Charmin!" ad campaign in 1964. Mr. Chervokas died not too long ago, leaving as his legacy an ad campaign that was rated by Advertising Age as the 51st best campaign of the last century. By 1978, Mr. Whipple was named the third-best-known American—just behind former President Nixon and Billy Graham. “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin!” became one of most recognizable advertising slogans ever, identified by eight out of 10 people that same year. And yet, far from celebrating Mr. Whipple, the advertising community frequently derided Mr. Chervokas' brainchild as emblematic of the crass, lowest-common denominator pandering for which the industry was often denounced. (And judging by the title of a popular manual o...

I am fascinated by this simple piece of communication from the British government: Today, the message seems almost like a parody of the British "stiff upper lip" -- probably the reason that reproductions of the poster have become so popular since it resurfaced in 2000 -- but there's a surprising sense of urgency and resolve behind that basic sans-serif typeface and its iconic crown image. To put it in true context, you need only to realize that it this poster was created by the Ministry of Information in 1939 at the beginning of World War II with the intent of strengthening the morale of the British public in the event of an invasion by Germany. Try to imagine, if you can, the uncertainty and panic you'd feel when faced with the possibility that your country, your city -- very neighborhood -- could soon be under control of a foreign military. What would you do? Who could you trust? How would you stay safe? These are the kind of life-or-death questions this poster had ...

From 1985, here's fashion designer Kenzo Takada...times three. Confident, relaxed, and, with with the d.i.y. ties and pocket squares, very much in the style of the '80s. And yet... When I look at the Kenzo ad, all it makes me think of is this eccentric fellow (times four) indulging his own brand of individuality three years later: But maybe it's just me. Or is it? Let's try swapping the images and see what we get: See what I mean?