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OT: Familiar with this very old advertising dictum?

MAD MEN brings to mind an old advertiser's dictum I remember hearing long ago:

"No truly great ad campaign has existed which does not feature at least one of three images: a comely young woman, preferably thinly-clad; an adorable baby or toddler; or a genial, animated animal mascot."

Apparently this rule was true for admen in 1850 and is no less so today.

Do you reckon it's true? Disagree?

Posted by rasputin1963
April 15, 2009 6:55pm

Comments

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By rozsie on April 17, 2009 9:13 PM

Did you mean l950 rather than 1850? I'm old but not old enough to remember 1850. lol

If you mean 1950, then, I agree. Most of the ads in the 50s and 60s were hand drawn, not photographs and there were some very talented artists at work during those years. I'm thinking of Petty and Vargas as examples of the pretty girl type ads. Those might be compared to today's Victoria Secret ads. Breck shampoo also featured artistically painted beautiful women. Those ads were like portraits. Maybe you could compare that to today's cosmetic ads.

There were popular dog food ads for Pard which I seem to remember featured cute puppies as well as older dogs. Today we have the Geiko Gecko - a real charmer.

Gerber baby food always had/has a sweet baby in it's ads.

I guess the only real difference between yesterday's ads and today's ads is the medium used. i.e. hand drawn vs. photos. Oh, and some of the products that are advertised today would not have been mentioned in "polite society" back then: feminine hygiene, ED, flatulence, PMS, birth control, etc.

We really haven't come a long way, baby, have we? ;)