New Adman
Bruce Barton's advertising career started quite accidentally. One of Collier's clients, the Harvard Classics "Dr. Elliot's Five-Foot Shelf of Books," had traditionally been sold on double page spreads. At the last minute, the pressroom man told Barton that he had an extra quarter page left to fill. Barton tore a page out of one of the classics, and asked his readers , "This is Marie Antoinette riding to her death. Have you ever read her tragic story?" Barton had created a unique benefit for his readers -- cultural enrichment in less than fifteen minutes a day -- and this simple idea sold over 400,000 sets of the classics (Fox, 1984).
Barton quote:
Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things...I am tempted to think there are no little things."
(http://www.bemorecreative.com/one/526.htm)
He continued to work as a magazine editor, but would write copy on the side. He partnered with a young Norman Rockwell on a campaign for Edison Mazda light bulbs. (What an Art Director to work with!)
His ad work also extended into his civic interests during World War I. During that time, Barton wrote one of his most famous slogans for the Salvation Army:
"A man may be down, but he is never out."
Also, during his fundraising efforts he met two of his future business partners, Roy Durstine and Alex Osborn (the D & O of BBDO.) Barton "complained that the literary world had made him famous, but that fame had not been putting money in the bank" (Ad Age, 1991, p.S-40). So in 1918, Durstine and Osborn asked Barton to join them in forming an ad agency in NYC which opened January 2, 1919 (Fox, 1984.)
INTRO EARLY LIFE NEW ADMAN BDO BBDO JESUS POLITICS BIBLIOGRAPHY