120 Fun Facts About Marketing

Nike's 'Just Do It' was reportedly inspired by the last words of whom?

Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore said 'Let's do it' before his 1977 execution; Dan Wieden of Wieden+Kennedy adapted it into 'Just Do It' in 1988.

How much was Carolyn Davidson paid in 1971 for designing the Nike Swoosh?

$35 was the fee for about 17 hours of work billed at $2 an hour; in 1983 Phil Knight gave the Portland State design student a diamond Swoosh ring and 500 shares of Nike stock.

Nike's Swoosh is widely said to echo what?

The wings of a Greek goddess is the usual reading, since Nike is the winged goddess of victory; designer Carolyn Davidson's actual brief was simply a stripe that suggested movement.

'Got Milk?' was created in 1993 for which client?

California's dairy board, the California Milk Processor Board, hired Goodby Silverstein & Partners in 1993; the campaign's premise was the misery of running out of milk.

Who directed the first 'Got Milk?' commercial, in which a history buff can't say 'Aaron Burr' through peanut butter?

Michael Bay, then a commercials director, shot the 1993 'Aaron Burr' spot two years before his feature debut Bad Boys; the national milk-moustache ads later licensed the slogan.

Apple's famous '1984' commercial, which launched the Macintosh, was directed by whom?

Ridley Scott, fresh from Blade Runner, directed the spot; Apple's board hated it, and it aired nationally only once, in the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII.

Why did Apple's '1984' ad first air in Idaho on December 31, 1983?

For awards: the ad ran on KMVT in Twin Falls at the last break before midnight so it would qualify for the coming awards season, weeks before the Super Bowl airing that made it famous.

Advertising Age named which line the best advertising slogan of the 20th century?

A Diamond Is Forever was coined in the late 1940s by copywriter Frances Gerety of N. W. Ayer for De Beers, and it helped make the diamond ring the expected symbol of an engagement.

Which cigarette brand was sold as a mild smoke for women before a 1950s campaign remade it as rugged?

Marlboro was pitched to women as 'Mild as May'; Leo Burnett's cowboys reversed that because filter cigarettes were seen as feminine, and sales rose 300% in two years.

Clara Peller demanded 'Where's the beef?' in a 1984 ad for which fast-food chain?

Wendy's dropped Clara Peller in 1985 after she told a Prego sauce ad 'I found it'; Walter Mondale had borrowed her line to mock rival Gary Hart in the 1984 Democratic primaries.

Why is Bibendum, the Michelin Man, the colour he is?

Early tyres were pale, not black: carbon black was not added to rubber until around 1912, so the figure the Michelin brothers imagined from a stack of tyres in 1894 was white.

The Michelin Man's first poster, in 1898, carried the Latin line 'Nunc est bibendum', meaning what?

Now is the time to drink: he raises a goblet of nails and broken glass to show that Michelin tyres 'drink up' obstacles, and in those days he also smoked a cigar.

What are E. Jerome McCarthy's 4 Ps, set out in 1960?

Product, price, place, promotion are the 4 Ps of McCarthy's 1960 textbook Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach, which sorted the long ingredient checklists marketers then used under four headings.

Which 'father of modern marketing' wrote the 1967 textbook Marketing Management?

Philip Kotler wrote Marketing Management in 1967; in 1971 he and Gerald Zaltman coined the term 'social marketing' for using the same tools to change behaviour for the public good.

Which company aired the first official TV commercial, a ticking clock face shown before a 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers game?

Bulova paid no more than $9 for the spot on New York's WNBT, which ran on July 1, 1941, the first day commercial advertising was allowed on American television.

Which company's 'You Will' campaign bought the 1994 HotWired banner widely called the web's first banner ad?

AT&T's banner asked whether you had ever clicked your mouse right here, and promised 'You will'; HotWired launched with banners from several sponsors, but this is the one remembered as the first.

What was the click-through rate on the 1994 HotWired banner ad widely called the web's first?

About 44% of the people who saw the banner clicked it during its first four months online; today's display ads draw clicks from a small fraction of one percent of viewers.

Under what name did Coca-Cola's original formula return in July 1985, 79 days after New Coke replaced it?

Coca-Cola Classic went on sale after calls to the company's hotline reached 1,500 a day; accused of staging the whole affair, president Donald Keough said, 'We are not that dumb, and we are not that smart.'

What prompted Coca-Cola to reformulate its drink as New Coke?

Taste tests favouring sweeter Pepsi drove the change: the Pepsi Challenge, begun in 1975, had been beating Coke in blind sip tests at shopping malls for a decade.

How did Pepsi mark New Coke's launch in April 1985?

Gave staff the day off: Pepsi executive Roger Enrico declared a company holiday and ran newspaper ads proclaiming victory in the cola wars.

Haddon Sundblom is best known for painting which figure in Coca-Cola advertisements from 1931?

Santa Claus: Sundblom's jolly Santa first appeared in Coca-Cola ads in 1931, but he did not invent the red suit, which artists had been painting for decades before.

What is hidden in the negative space of the FedEx logo?

An arrow between the E and x was built in by designer Lindon Leader in 1994: he blended two typefaces, Univers and Futura, until the gap between the letters formed it naturally.

How much did a 30-second commercial cost at the first Super Bowl in 1967?

About $40,000: reports run from $37,500 to $42,500 for the 1967 game, which CBS and NBC both televised; by 2023 a 30-second slot cost about $7 million.

Which brand's 'Puppy Love' ad topped USA Today's Ad Meter at the 2014 Super Bowl?

Budweiser and its Clydesdales won with 'Puppy Love', in which the horses run out to bring back an adopted puppy and their owner decides to keep it; it was the brand's second straight Ad Meter win.

Which agency made Volkswagen's 1959 'Think Small', Advertising Age's campaign of the century?

Doyle Dane Bernbach's art director Helmut Krone and copywriter Julian Koenig set a small Beetle against a bare background; Krone designed the 'Lemon' ad at the same time.

Tony the Tiger debuted in 1952 as the mascot for which cereal?

Frosted Flakes' Tony was voiced for five decades by Thurl Ravenscroft, who also sang 'You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch' but went uncredited, so many assumed Boris Karloff had sung it.

Which rival mascot lost out to Tony the Tiger on cereal boxes in the early 1950s?

Katy the Kangaroo shared the first boxes with Tony in 1952 but was dropped within the year, as were Elmo the Elephant and Newt the Gnu.

The GEICO Gecko speaks with which accent?

Cockney: English actor Jake Wood, known at home for EastEnders, gives the Gecko his London accent; earlier ads had used other voices, including Frasier star Kelsey Grammer.

What does the marketing acronym AIDA stand for?

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action is usually credited to adman E. St. Elmo Lewis, whose early version is said to have had three steps, with 'get action' added later.

Google Ads launched in October 2000 under what name?

AdWords launched in October 2000 with about 350 advertisers; pay-per-click pricing only arrived with AdWords Select in 2002, and a 2018 rename made it Google Ads.

Isaiah Mustafa's 2010 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like' campaign was for which brand?

Old Spice and its agency Wieden+Kennedy followed up with a three-day shoot of personalised video replies to fans; in mid-July 2010 the series held eight of YouTube's eleven most popular videos.

Which brand's 'Campaign for Real Beauty' launched in 2004 with billboards of everyday women?

Dove's billboards let passers-by vote between a kind and an unkind label for each woman pictured; its 2006 film 'Evolution' went on to win two Grand Prix at Cannes.

Coca-Cola's 'Share a Coke' campaign, with first names on bottles, began in which country in 2011?

Australia was first, in 2011, with 150 of the country's most popular first names replacing the logo on bottles; the idea has since run in more than 80 countries.

Which marketing term, borrowed from warfare, did Jay Conrad Levinson's 1984 book put on the map?

Guerrilla marketing gave Levinson's 1984 book its title: cheap, surprising stunts for firms without big budgets, though in 2007 one campaign's LED cartoon signs set off a bomb scare in Boston.

Under the 2003 US CAN-SPAM Act, what must every marketing email give its recipients?

A way to unsubscribe is required, yet firms may email people who never signed up; the name stands for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing.

Which EU law, enforceable since May 2018, can fine a company up to 4% of annual turnover?

GDPR's top tier is 4% of worldwide turnover or 20 million euros, whichever is greater; under it Meta was fined 1.2 billion euros for sending Europeans' data to the United States.

Which 'Father of Advertising' wrote Confessions of an Advertising Man in 1963?

David Ogilvy wrote the Rolls-Royce line 'At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock' and put an eyepatch on the Hathaway shirt man.

The 'Father of Advertising' warned that the consumer 'is not a moron, she is' who?

'Your wife' completes the maxim: its author disliked loud, patronising ads and insisted that customers be treated as intelligent.

At the start of Mad Men, which advertising agency employs Don Draper as creative director?

Sterling Cooper is the fictional Madison Avenue firm of the early seasons; the finale closes on Draper smiling at a retreat, then cuts to Coca-Cola's real 1971 'Hilltop' ad.

Which candy's sales surged after appearing in E.T., a product placement Mars had turned down?

Reese's Pieces got the role after Mars said no for M&M's; Hershey paid nothing for the placement but agreed to spend $1 million advertising the film.

Whose 1896 films showed Sunlight soap, perhaps cinema's first paid product placement?

The Lumière brothers' films are thought to have been made at the request of a Lever Brothers representative; Lever's Swiss agent, François-Henri Lavanchy-Clarke, saw moving pictures as one more way to sell the soap.

Who first played Ronald McDonald in 1963 local TV ads in Washington, DC?

Willard Scott, later the Today show weatherman, had played Bozo the Clown on WRC-TV; McDonald's scaled back the character's appearances after the 2016 'creepy clown' sightings.

Which fictional homemaker was invented by a flour company in 1921 to sign replies to customers' baking questions?

Betty Crocker took her surname from a retired company director and her signature from a staff contest; in 1945 Fortune ranked her America's second most popular woman, behind Eleanor Roosevelt.

The word 'slogan' comes from a Gaelic term meaning what?

Army cry: Gaelic sluagh-ghairm joins sluagh, an army or host, to gairm, a shout; it meant the battle cry of a Scottish clan long before advertisers borrowed the word.

Coca-Cola's 1971 'Hilltop' ad was filmed on a hill outside which city?

Rome: the crew moved there after three days of rain washed out a shoot on the cliffs of Dover, and hired its chorus of young people from the city's embassies and schools.

Apple's 'Think different' slogan (1997-2002) came from which agency's Los Angeles office?

TBWA\Chiat\Day's Lee Clow led the campaign; Jobs insisted on 'different' as a noun, like 'think victory', and the 'Crazy Ones' spot, narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, won the 1998 Emmy for best commercial.

A product deliberately sold below cost to lure shoppers in is called what?

A loss leader is priced below cost because shoppers who come in for it tend to fill the rest of the basket at full price; grocers often use staples such as milk, eggs and bananas.

One theory says prices like $9.99 began as a control on what?

Cashiers pocketing round sums is the supposed worry: an odd price means opening the register to give change, which records the sale; shoppers also tend to read $9.99 as well under $10.

The '7 Ps' of services marketing add which three to McCarthy's original four?

People, process, physical evidence: Booms and Bitner proposed the extension in 1981, arguing that services differ so much from physical products that they need tools of their own.

Neil Borden is credited with popularising which foundational two-word term from the late 1940s?

Marketing mix: Borden said a colleague's image of the marketer as a 'mixer of ingredients' inspired the term, which he used from the late 1940s; McCarthy later boiled the mix down to four Ps.

The first spam email, a 1978 pitch for Digital Equipment computers sent to about 400 users, went out over which network?

ARPANET was reserved for official US government business, so Gary Thuerk's May 1978 sales pitch drew a formal notice calling it a flagrant violation of the network's rules.

Who first proposed the hashtag as a way of grouping posts on Twitter, in 2007?

Chris Messina's August 23, 2007 tweet asked how people felt about using the pound sign for groups, 'as in #barcamp'; Twitter only made hashtags clickable in 2009.

In April 2007 Google agreed to buy which online display-advertising company for $3.1 billion in cash?

DoubleClick, the display-ad server, was announced in April 2007 and closed in March 2008 after US and EU antitrust reviews; it made Google a force in display as well as search ads.

Google Analytics grew out of which firm, bought in 2005, whose initial survives in 'utm' link tags?

Urchin Software gave the tags their name, Urchin Tracking Module; when Google launched Analytics in November 2005, demand was so heavy that new sign-ups were suspended a week later.

Hotmail, a pioneer of free web-based email, chose which symbolic date for its 1996 commercial launch?

July 4 was chosen to signal freedom from email tied to an internet provider; the plug for itself that Hotmail added to every outgoing message became a textbook case of viral marketing.

The 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge raised money for which disease?

ALS: the challenge brought the ALS Association $115 million, and the money helped fund research that linked a new gene, NEK1, to the disease.

Google's original ranking algorithm is named partly after which person?

Larry Page gives PageRank its name, a pun on 'web page'; Stanford, which owned the patent, took 1.8 million Google shares for the licence and had sold them for $336 million by 2005.

Which animals stand behind Jawed Karim in the first YouTube video, uploaded in April 2005?

Elephants: in the 19-second 'Me at the zoo', shot at the San Diego Zoo, Karim admires their 'really, really, really long' trunks; 18 months later Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion.

Which kind of marketing did Seth Godin's 1999 book of the same name champion?

Permission marketing is the title of Godin's 1999 book, which set messages people have agreed to receive against the 'interruption marketing' of TV spots and pop-ups.

Google's Panda and Penguin updates cracked down on abuses of which marketing practice?

Search engine optimization was the target: Panda (2011) demoted sites with low-quality content and Penguin (2012) punished schemes that inflate a site's inbound links.

Facebook bought Instagram in April 2012 for roughly how much in cash and stock?

About $1bn in cash and stock bought a company that had launched its app only 18 months earlier, in October 2010, and had just 13 employees.

In online advertising, the 'M' in a CPM rate prices ads per what?

Thousand impressions: the M is the Latin mille, so CPM is the price an advertiser pays for every 1,000 times an ad is shown, whether or not anyone clicks.

Which financial-software company bought Mailchimp for about $12 billion in November 2021?

Intuit, maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks, closed the deal on November 1, 2021; Mailchimp's founders had started it in Atlanta in 2001 and never taken outside investment.

Which British product's 1859 line 'Worth a guinea a box' is often called the first advertising slogan?

Beecham's Pills, a laxative, carried the line in a St Helens newspaper in August 1859; it helped Thomas Beecham turn his remedy into a business known around the world.

Which soap did Thomas J. Barratt, a 'father of modern advertising', promote with Millais's painting 'Bubbles'?

Pears: Barratt, who had married into the Pears family, paid £2,200 for the painting and turned it into an advertisement by adding a bar of the soap to the foreground.

A 1931 Procter & Gamble memo by Neil McElroy is credited with founding what discipline?

Brand management: McElroy's memo proposed 'brand men' to take responsibility for each P&G product, such as Camay soap; he later became P&G president and US Secretary of Defense.

Which battery brand's bunny mascot predates Energizer's but can't be used in the United States?

Duracell's bunny dates from 1973, years before Energizer's, but a 1992 deal split the rabbit rights: Energizer has the bunny in the United States, Duracell in Europe.

During the 2013 Super Bowl blackout, which brand tweeted 'You can still dunk in the dark'?

Oreo was ready: its agency had a team standing by through the game, with the brand's executives in the room to approve ideas on the spot.

In Robert Lauterborn's buyer-focused '4 Cs' of 1990, which C covers where a product is sold?

Convenience to buy stands in for distribution in Lauterborn's 1990 Advertising Age article, which told marketers to start from the buyer; the other Cs are consumer, cost and communication.

At which business school did the author of Marketing Management teach from 1962?

Kellogg at Northwestern is where the 'father of modern marketing' spent his career from 1962, holding the S.C. Johnson chair; he earned a Chicago master's in economics without finishing a bachelor's degree.

Which brewery's managing director created a book of records in the 1950s to settle pub arguments?

Guinness handed out the first 1,000 copies free to pubs as a giveaway. They proved so popular that a retail edition was commissioned.

Which ice cream brand's name was invented in the Bronx to sound Danish, though it means nothing?

Häagen-Dazs was coined by Reuben Mattus, a Polish-American ice cream maker. Danish has neither the letter ä nor the letter pair zs.

Which Christmas character was created in 1939 for a Montgomery Ward department store giveaway?

Rudolph was created by Robert May because Montgomery Ward wanted to stop buying in the booklets it gave away each Christmas. It handed out 2.4 million copies in the first year.

Which drama genre takes its name from the manufacturers that sponsored early American radio serials?

Soap opera began as a label for radio dramas paid for by soap manufacturers. It followed 'horse opera', an older put-down for low-budget Westerns.

Which fast-food chain's 1996 April Fools' ads claimed it had bought a famous Philadelphia landmark?

Taco Bell said it had bought the Liberty Bell to help cut the national debt. The $300,000 stunt earned an estimated $25 million of free publicity.

Which mouthwash brand's 1920s ads turned 'halitosis', an obscure medical term, into a common worry?

Listerine started out as a surgical antiseptic and was also sold as a floor cleaner. Pitching it against bad breath finally made it a runaway success.

Which everyday word was a trademark of the Otis company until a 1950 ruling declared it generic?

Escalator was trademarked in 1900 by inventor Charles Seeberger. Otis lost the mark partly because its own adverts used the word as generically as 'elevator'.

Which energy drink brand sponsored Felix Baumgartner's 2012 skydive from the edge of space?

Red Bull streamed the jump live to more than 8 million YouTube viewers at once. Baumgartner became the first person to break the sound barrier without engine power.

Which battery brand's drum-beating pink rabbit began as a parody of a rival's advertising bunny?

Energizer launched its bunny on US television once Duracell's trademark on a drumming rabbit had reportedly lapsed. Duracell's own bunny had been drumming in ads since 1973.

Which US state's tourism campaign uses a heart logo that Milton Glaser first sketched in a taxi?

New York paid nothing for the logo: Glaser drew it in red crayon on scrap paper and worked pro bono. He expected the campaign to last a couple of months.

Which clothing chain dropped a new Helvetica logo in 2010 after less than a week of public outcry?

Gap went straight back to its familiar blue box design. The executive who oversaw the change resigned a few months later.

Which cartoon animal fronts the longest-running public service ad campaign in United States history?

Smokey Bear got the job because Disney had lent Bambi to the fire-prevention drive for only a year. His 'Only you can prevent forest fires' line followed in 1947.

Which chocolate bar, launched as Rowntree's Chocolate Crisp, later urged snackers to 'have a break'?

KitKat got the line in 1957 from Donald Gilles of the agency JWT London. Earlier adverts had sold the bar as 'the perfect companion to a cup of tea'.

James Vicary's 1957 subliminal ad hoax claimed hidden cinema messages boosted sales of which snack?

Popcorn sales supposedly leapt by more than half when 'Eat Popcorn' flashed up for a fraction of a second. Vicary later admitted the study was a gimmick to save his failing business.

Which food company's founder chose '57 varieties' as a slogan when it sold more than 60 products?

Heinz adopted the slogan in 1896, and nobody is sure why that number was picked. A '57' is moulded into the glass of its ketchup bottles.

Which baking brand's giggling mascot, introduced in 1965, is officially named Poppin' Fresh?

Pillsbury got its Doughboy from Rudy Perz, a Leo Burnett copywriter who dreamed him up in his own kitchen. Decades of ads ended with a finger poking the mascot's belly.

Which cosmetics brand's slogan 'Because I'm worth it' was written by the copywriter Ilon Specht?

L'Oréal first used the line to sell its Preference hair colour. It became 'Because you're worth it' in the mid-2000s.

Which snack brand's monocled mascot grew out of a schoolboy's entry to a 1916 drawing contest?

Planters paid the family of young Antonio Gentile five dollars for his winning sketch of a peanut person. The top hat and monocle were added afterwards.

Which camera company promised customers in 1888, 'You press the button, we do the rest'?

Kodak founder George Eastman coined the line himself. He also made up the brand name, wanting a word that was short, easy to say and unlike any other.

Which Ford car brand, launched in 1957 after heavy hype, became a byword for commercial failure?

Edsel was named after Henry Ford's son, and the company lost over $250 million on it. Critics said its tall grille looked like a horse collar.

Which nephew of Sigmund Freud, a public relations pioneer, branded cigarettes 'Torches of Freedom'?

Edward Bernays paid women to smoke as they walked in a 1929 Easter Sunday parade. He also helped persuade Americans that bacon and eggs was the true national breakfast.

In the 'USP', an advertising principle coined by adman Rosser Reeves, what does the S stand for?

Selling sits in the middle of the unique selling proposition, the one reason to buy a product over its rivals. Reeves drilled the idea home in repetitive ads for Anacin headache tablets.

Which concept did Al Ries and Jack Trout champion in a book subtitled 'The Battle for Your Mind'?

Positioning, they argued, means finding an empty slot in the mind of a consumer swamped by ads. The pair first floated the idea in trade-press articles in 1969 and 1972.

Which 1960 Harvard Business Review essay by Theodore Levitt asked firms what business they were in?

Marketing Myopia warned firms against the short-sighted belief that they sat in a growth industry. Oil companies took the hint and recast themselves as energy businesses.

In Everett Rogers's diffusion of innovations model, which group of buyers follows the innovators?

Early adopters have the highest degree of opinion leadership of any group, so their approval sways the cautious majority. Rogers set out the five categories in a 1962 book.

The Phoebus cartel, a byword for planned obsolescence, capped which product's life at 1,000 hours?

Light bulbs had been lasting up to 2,500 hours before the cartel acted. Members whose bulbs burned for longer than the new limit were fined.

A SWOT analysis sets strengths, weaknesses and opportunities against which factor beginning with T?

Threats are things in the outside world that could cause trouble, such as a new rival. Strengths and weaknesses are usually treated as internal, the other two factors as external.

Which Manhattan avenue has been shorthand for the American advertising industry since the 1920s?

Madison Avenue filled with agencies during the industry's 1920s boom. The nickname outlived the address, because many agencies had left the street by the late 20th century.

Which Canadian media theorist coined the phrases 'the medium is the message' and 'global village'?

Marshall McLuhan argued that a medium itself, not the content it carries, deserves the attention. The famous line comes from his 1964 book Understanding Media.

Which Philadelphia store pioneer is credited with saying half his advertising money was wasted?

John Wanamaker supposedly added that the trouble was not knowing which half. He is also credited with popularising the price tag and the money-back guarantee.

Which Portland ad agency made its first commercials for Nike in 1982 and later coined 'Just Do It'?

Wieden+Kennedy opened on April Fools' Day 1982 with Nike as a client. Its first ads were three Nike commercials shown during a marathon broadcast that October.

Which agency designed the Conservative poster 'Labour Isn't Working', showing a snaking dole queue?

Saatchi & Saatchi faked the long queue by photographing the same 20 Young Conservative volunteers again and again. Lord Thorneycroft, the party's chairman, claimed the poster won the election.

Which US president's 'Daisy' ad of 1964 cut from a girl counting petals to a nuclear blast?

Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign paid to air the spot only once, during a Monday-night film. It is often credited with helping his landslide win over Barry Goldwater.

Which beer brand's ads starred Jonathan Goldsmith as 'The Most Interesting Man in the World'?

Dos Equis ended every commercial with his sign-off, 'Stay thirsty, my friends'. The ads began in the United States in 2006 and became a popular internet meme.

In Cadbury's 2007 chocolate advert, which animal drums along to Phil Collins's 'In the Air Tonight'?

A gorilla, in truth an actor in a suit of knotted yak hair, sits at the drum kit throughout. The suit's face alone held 27 remote-controlled motors.

Which Australian city's rail operator released the viral 2012 safety video 'Dumb Ways to Die'?

Melbourne's Metro Trains wanted to reach an audience that tunes out safety messages. The cartoon sing-along went on to draw hundreds of millions of views on YouTube.

Which vacuum cleaner brand's 1992 British offer of free flights to America backfired at huge cost?

Hoover promised two round-trip tickets worth about £600 to anyone who spent £100. It had counted on the small print putting most customers off.

Which painkiller's 1982 recall after a poisoning scare is taught as a model of crisis management?

Tylenol's maker halted its advertising and recalled an estimated 31 million bottles nationwide. Tamper-resistant packaging for medicines followed.

Which kitchenware brand did saleswoman Brownie Wise make a household name through home parties?

Tupperware sold so well at her parties that, at Wise's suggestion, it was taken out of shops altogether. Founder Earl Tupper fired her in 1958.

Which cereal aired the first singing radio commercial, a jingle broadcast in Minneapolis in 1926?

Wheaties later became 'The Breakfast of Champions', a line an adman first scribbled for a signboard at a Minneapolis ballpark. The jingle asked, 'Have you tried Wheaties?'

Which chip maker's 1991 ad campaign made computer buyers care about a component they never see?

Intel Inside made the Pentium processor a household name by the end of the 1990s. Ingredient branding was so new that NutraSweet was one of the few to have tried it.

Which car rental firm turned being second to Hertz into the 1962 slogan 'We Try Harder'?

Avis adopted the motto under chief executive Robert Townsend, who transformed the company. It had become America's second-largest car rental firm by 1953.

Which vodka brand's ads, launched in 1981, paired the outline of its bottle with two-word headlines?

Absolut headlines such as 'Absolut Perfection' made the bottle itself the star. Andy Warhol painted it for a mid-1980s ad, the first of many collaborations with artists.

Which label's 1980 jeans ads had a 15-year-old Brooke Shields ask what came between her and them?

Calvin Klein had Richard Avedon photograph and direct the campaign, and some TV stations banned the spots. Her answer, 'Nothing!', is often misquoted.

Which orange juice brand scrapped its 2009 carton redesign after sales fell 20% in two months?

Tropicana had swapped its familiar orange skewered by a drinking straw for a plain glass of juice. Shoppers reacted so badly that the old design came straight back.

Which charge-card company is credited with coining the term 'cause-related marketing' in 1983?

American Express had tested the idea at a San Francisco arts festival, giving two cents to good causes each time a card was used locally. Card use rose significantly.

Which ad group grew out of a maker of wire shopping baskets that Martin Sorrell bought into in 1985?

WPP keeps the initials of Wire and Plastic Products, its original name. Sorrell wanted a listed company through which to build a worldwide marketing services business.

What did WEAF's 1922 broadcast, widely considered the first paid radio commercial, advertise?

Apartments in Jackson Heights, Queens, were the pitch, paid for by the Queensboro Corporation. The station's owner called the practice of renting out airtime 'toll broadcasting'.

Which shaving cream brand was famous for rhyming verses spread across rows of small roadside signs?

Burma-Shave signs lined American highways from the 1920s until the firm was sold to Philip Morris in 1963. The verses often mocked Grandpa's old-fashioned shaving brush.

Which British retail boss nearly sank his firm in 1991 by calling its products 'total crap'?

Gerald Ratner's remark wiped around £500 million off the value of his group. 'Doing a Ratner' became British shorthand for rubbishing your own products.