The 100 Greatest Advertisements 1852–1958

Writers and artists do not learn best from textbooks, but by doing and by absorbing through their pores, from the work of others, the particular qualities which appeal to them and stimulate their own potentialities

Persuasion is still the destination of any advertisement, and you can reach it from almost any point on the creative compass if you’ve got an idea worth traveling in.

and into your heart.

has acquired new and sometimes frightening responsibilities . . . we have discovered in the last few years that advertising can literally accomplish miracles . . .”
What Mr. Mortimer referred to was advertising’s power in the realm of ideas . . . “that in advertising there exists one of the most effective means for inspiring and informing the people that the world has ever known . . . ”
Great advertising, like sublime happiness, is a lot of little things. Sometimes these things hang together and sometimes they don’t.
Great advertising is not always the most beautiful. In fact, the reverse is often true.
Great advertising, however, does have one or two things in common: an idea, or concept, that can’t be buried regardless of presentation, and a sincerity, or belief, that reaches right out from the page

But as advertising comes of age, even the diehards of the rockum and sockum school of hard-selling copy, are beginning to agree that there’s much more to it than sending you to “your favorite store.” Charles C. Mortimer, Chairman of the Advertising Council, and vice president of General Foods Corporation, measured advertising soberly and intelligently when he said recently that “advertising