Leo Burnett opened an advertising agency on Aug. 5, 1935, and placed a bowl of apples on the receptionist's desk as a gesture of hospitality. The apples countered a reporter's jab that advertising was goofy during the Great Depression and would lead to peddling apples. The International Apple Shippers Association had been wholesaling surplus apples to jobless men selling them for 5 cents. Burnett's gesture became a trademark of the agency; offices had given away 679,386 apples by 1994. New Deal advisers, including Rexford Guy Tugwell, criticized advertising as wasteful and manipulative and sought bureaucratic oversight. Burnett favored internal reform and adopted plain-spoken language, guided by the tip, "Don't try to sell manure spreaders with a Harvard accent."
When Leo Burnett opened an advertising agency in a small office at 360 N. Michigan Ave. on Aug. 5, 1935, he put a bowl of apples on the receptionist's desk. He was thumbing his nose at a reporter who said it was goofy to go into advertising during the Great Depression and Burnett would soon be peddling apples on the street.
One of them, Rexford Guy Tugwell, was a Columbia University economist who deplored "the waste and extravagance of advertising." He and other members of FDR's brain trust were trying to put a safety net under the hard-pressed working class. They faulted advertising agencies for increasing the demand for pricier products while seducing consumers with false or misleading claims.
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