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

Twitchell, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0609605631 ISBN 13: 9780609605639

Publisher: Crown, 2000

Synopsis

Like it or not, commercial speech -- advertising -- makes up most of what we share as a culture. We live in a time when the vast majority of Americans can recite, almost without thinking about it, the ingredients of a McDonald's Big Mac but would be hard-pressed to do the same with, say, a line or two of Wordsworth's poetry. It's with this in mind that James B. Twitchell, one of the most respected advertising scholars and pundits, and the author of the classic advertising text Adcult USA, has chosen the twenty ads (complete with their artwork) of the twentieth century that have most influenced our culture and marketplace. P. T. Barnum's creation of buzz, Pepsodent and the magic of the preemptive claim, Listerine introducing America to the scourge of halitosis, Nike's "Just Do It," Clairol's "Does She or Doesn't She?," Leo Burnett's invention of the Marlboro Man, Revlon's Charlie Girl, Coke's re-creation of Santa Claus, Absolut and the art world -- these ads are the signposts of a century of consumerism, our modern canon that is understood, accepted, beloved, and hated the world over.

Twitchell has chosen carefully. These are not necessarily the ads and the ad campaigns that have been most effective in selling their products, but rather those that have entered the popular lexicon and had a profound effect on us all, often without our knowing it. The ads and the people behind them developed the art of selling things, and became in the process cultural artifacts. In other words, these ads became events in advertising culture and, by extension, in common culture.

Each ad and its overall campaign are deconstructed; we see firsthand how and why they are created, which needs they address, what boundaries they break. And we meet the geniuses of the business -- Rosser Reeves, Leo Burnett, David Ogilvy, Claude Hopkins -- and learn what made them tick.

Individually, these are fascinating accounts of how specific, brilliant ads were developed and run. Together, these ads tell the history of our century through the lens of consumerism. Twenty Ads That Shook the World will stand as one of the genre's seminal texts, equally useful to the people working in, or studying the art of, advertising, and to those of us who, despite our best intentions, say, "Where's the Beef ?"

About this title

Review

James B. Twitchell's celebration of the greatest 20 hits of the U.S. advertising industry shows how a thoughtful consideration of ads can add up to a fascinating social history. From Lydia Pinkham's patent medicines (said to cure all serious "Female Complaints") to Nike shoes worn by Michael Jordan, Twitchell gives us a quickie history of the ads that hit home and transformed our culture--the ones that "really had the beef," as he puts it. Some of the feats are amazing. The dazzling "Diamonds are forever" campaign managed to take not particularly rare rocks and transform them into sacred amulets practically everyone buys and never sells (which would depress their value). The ads brilliantly used honeymoon scenes by famous artists and swoony copy to woo women, while devoting a corner of each ad to fact-packed boxes reassuring men that diamonds were sound investments priced according to scientific principles. The jujitsu-psychology techniques of the VW Bug and Avis "We Try Harder" get their due, as does the "Does She... or Doesn't She?" ad that convinced women they could color their graying hair with Clairol's new one-step technology. The racy innuendo appealed to people fearing loss of appeal; the presence of young daughters in the pictures neutralized the floozy image dyeing used to have, and the line "Only her hairdresser knows for sure" soothed the salons that were about to lose their business once women figured out they could use Clairol at home.

There are all kinds of cool stories in this breezy book: how Anacin's $8,200 TV spot depicting a hammer in the headache sufferer's head earned $36 million; how Coke remade Santa literally in its own artist's image; how LBJ beat Goldwater partly because of a single 30-second ad featuring a girl resembling the murder victim in Frankenstein plucking and counting daisy petals while an announcer counts down to a nuclear blast that reminded voters of Goldwater's speeches about nuking Vietnam and made them forget the war was LBJ's fault in the first place. --Tim Appelo

From the Back Cover

"Twenty Ads That Shook the World is easily the best book on advertising that I have ever read . . . What distinguishes this work is that it offers the reader an extraordinary amount of information, not only about advertising, but about any sphere that advertising touches (sociology, history, psychology, etc.) and delivers this intelligence with unflagging energy and an abundance of wit."
-- Philip W. Sawyer, director, Starch Advertising Research, Roper Starch Worldwide
"Twenty Ads That Shook the World is a triumph . . . James Twitchell not only recognizes and appreciates the many ways that ads shape our culture, he writes about advertising in ways unmatched by any other author. Unlike the clothes dryers and margarine they sell, ads are not a commodity. Making ads, and writing about ads, means thinking and learning about art, design, sociology, psychology, commerce, pop culture, and a dozen other things. Twitchell ties those disciplines together with the deftest of touches. The last page is its only disappointment -- you simply don't want this book to end."        
-- Rogier van Bakel, editor, Creativity magazine
"This book is a treat . . . [It is] full of surprises and, as the only essential change in the advertising business through the years is the way one manipulates new technology, it is also a rich tapestry of stimulating thinking. "
-- Mary Wells Lawrence, founding partner of Wells, Rich, Greene
"This book is on fire with ideas . . . James Twitchell has ripped the hood off the great American dream machine to show us just how the thing works. Far more than a history of great advertising, this invaluable and highly entertaining guide to the power of simple ideas is brimming with insights for anybody who's ever wanted to buy or sell anything. He reminds us that even ephemera has a past, and that examining it is not only useful, but quite a bit of fun."
-- Steve Hayden, president, Worldwide Brand Services, Ogilvy & Mather

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0609605631
• ISBN 13: 9780609605639
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240