Do You Recognize These 1960s Advertisements?

Copywriter David Ogilvy came up with the idea that Dove’s beauty bar “creams” the skin based on one ingredient in the soap’s formula, stearic acid used in cold cream. The first ad for the bar used variations on “cream” five times and words such as “darling,” which were tested by psychologists for high emotional response. The ads propelled Dove to become the number-one cleansing brand in the world.

During advertising’s Creative Revolution of the 1950s and ‘60s, copywriting giants Bill Bernbach and David Ogilvy championed the “soft sell.” This approach prioritized subtle, humorous, high concept, and emotionally appealing strategies to sell products, instead of the in-your-face and product-centered “hard sell.” Bernbach’s “Think Small” campaign for Volkswagen is considered a turning point from hard to soft sell.

In 1954, David Ogilvy and photographer Ewin Elliot created a popular marketing campaign for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, in order to boost tourism. The ads showed off the island’s tropical landscape and tourist sites. In 2005, Puerto Rico revived the campaign with Elliot but focused on the island’s culture instead of its beaches, to distinguish it from other tropical destinations.

The Man from Schweppes was a snobby British man who wore tweed and flaunted a Van Dyke beard while drinking Schweppes tonic water. Played by Commander Whitehead (Schweppes board member and company ambassador Edward Whitehead), the character was meant to convey the personality of Schweppes’ drinks with an air of “Schweppervescence.”

In the 1960s, ads for Ohrbach’s department stores featured a tabby cat wearing a fancy woman’s hat and smoking a cigarette. The ad’s creator Bill Berbnach wanted the image to convey a personality and character for the store. The ads were so popular that Ohrbach’s received fan mail for the cat every week.

Clairol’s catchy tagline “Does she… or doesn’t she?” was created by copywriter Shirley Polykoff of the Foote, Cone & Belding ad agency in 1956. In the early 1950s, only 7% of women dyed their hair, but the practice became much more common after the tagline went viral. Polykoff became the first female executive vice president at the agency and was named Advertising Woman of the Year in 1967.

Originally known as “Dr. G. Raffe” of Children’s Bargain Town, the giraffe mascot was reworked when owner Charles Lazarus changed the store’s name to Toys ‘R Us. According to the company, an early store associate suggested the name “Geoffrey.” The famous mascot first appeared on TV in a 1973 commercial and remains a well-known figure despite the long-running chain closing its last store in 2018.

In 1964, DDB created an ad for Lyndon B. Johnson during the presidential race against Barry Goldwater. The ad featured a girl counting petals as she plucked them from a daisy. Her words were overlaid with a mission-control countdown that ended in a nuclear blast. The ad was an attack on Goldwater, who voted against a nuclear test ban. It kicked off a trend of emotionally charged political attack ads.

DDB, Ogilvy & Mather, and Young & Rubicam were all located on Madison Avenue in New York City during the 1960s. These three legendary agencies turned advertising into an artistic craft and created some of the most memorable slogans and ad campaigns of the era. Sterling Cooper was the fictional ad agency in AMC's hit series “Mad Men.”

Volkswagen’s “Think Small” campaign for the VW Beetle is considered one of the best advertising schemes of the 20th century. Creators Helmut Krone and Julian Koenig used a minimalist visual to reflect the design of the car itself. This ad kicked off the “Creative Revolution” of advertising, which used branding to associate products with a certain lifestyle.

In the 1960s, people were drinking 7-Up as a mixer or tonic to ease an upset stomach. The brand's executives wanted to enter the larger soda market, alongside Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Ad agency J. Walter Thompson came up with the idea to tap into the counterculture by framing 7-Up in opposition to other sodas, and the “Uncola” catchphrase was born.

With the headline “How to get your money back at Sears,” Ogilvy helped cement the chain as a trustworthy brand. Though he’s known as the “Father of Advertising,” Ogilvy came from humble beginnings. He worked as a chef in France and sold stoves door-to-door in Britain before starting his own company in 1948 at age 37. By the end of the ‘50s, Ogilvy & Mather was one of the top agencies in the world.

Lucky – no relation to the mascot of the Boston Celtics – was the idea of product developer John Halahan. He first appeared on a Lucky Charms cereal box in 1964 and has been a staple of the brand’s ads and box design ever since, save for a period in 1975 when he was replaced by a sneaker-wearing wizard named Waldo. Waldo lasted less than a year before Lucky was brought back.

Like many classic food characters, the Pillsbury Doughboy was created by a forward-thinking ad agency. According to legend, the copywriter Rudy Perz came up with the idea while testing Pillsbury dough at home in his own kitchen. Today, the Poppin’ Fresh mascot — known for his ticklishness — ranks among the most recognizable characters in the world: At one point, he was receiving around 200 fan letters a week.

Ronald McDonald’s look has come a long way since his debut, portrayed by actor and future "Today Show" mainstay Willard Scott in a series of early TV commercials. He wore a cup on his nose, fast food tray on his head, and the signature red-and-white-striped tunic. Ronald is still one of the most popular corporate mascots in history and the namesake of an international nonprofit dedicated to children.

The tiger was a staple of the Esso gas company’s advertising, which promised to “put a tiger in your tank.” Esso changed its name to Exxon in the U.S. in 1972, and as the business expanded Exxon continued to use the big cat to market food and convenience store items. Some gas stations even decorated pumps in tiger stripes.

In 1965, an animated commercial featured children marching along while singing the words, “Oh, I’d love to be an Oscar Mayer wiener… ’cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener, everyone would be in love with me.” Eight years later, Oscar Mayer transitioned from hot dogs to bologna with the hit jingle, “My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R.”

By the end of the 1960s, Coke had been advertised under a number of taglines. In 1948, “Where there’s Coke, there’s hospitality” stressed that the soda was fit for gatherings, while 1957’s “Sign of Good Taste” helped cement it as a style marker. To return to its roots, the soft drink was marketed as “the real thing” in 1969, a precursor to the famous “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” campaign of 1971.

The genesis of this phrase is a classic example of how a new setting can inspire creativity. In 1967, Maurice Drake and his colleagues at the London ad agency Young & Rubicam were struggling with slogan ideas for new client Heinz. The team decided to visit a local pub, where inspiration struck over sandwiches and beer as Drake was scribbling on a notepad.

The Slinky was invented in 1943, when engineer Richard Thompson James knocked over a box of spare parts and saw a spring appear to “walk” down stairs. James created the first 400 Slinky toys by hand, but the popularity soon exploded, earning him and his family a fortune. In 1962, his wife Betty James took over the company and commissioned a new TV jingle that cemented the product in the minds of children for decades.

In the post-war era, many Americans were still skeptical of the German car brand – including the reliability of its vehicles. But thanks to a series of classic ads by Madison Avenue agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, and the popularity of the Beetle among the anti-war counterculture, the brand experienced a resurgence in the 1960s. By the mid-1970s, it was one of the world’s best-selling cars.