Great Moments In Copywriting: Rubicam & Squibb

Derrick DayeMarch 6, 20091 min

In 1921, Squibb had never advertised to the public, but wanted to advertise certain “household” drug products which are on most bathroom shelves.

Squibb did a large business with the medical profession and felt that the profession would scrutinize very critically any advertising to the public that it might do. So the problem given to Raymond Rubicam, then a writer at N. W. Ayer & Son, was to produce a series of advertisements which would sell Squibb to the public and not offend the publicity sensitive medical profession. He wrote this of the assignment:

My efforts to produce something effective are still painful in my mind. I became obsessed with the problem day and night and covered dozens of yellow sheets with headlines, both in the office and at home. One night at two in the morning I seemed as far away from a solution as ever and I started for bed. As I gathered up my yellow sheets I took one more look through the mass of headline I had written. Suddenly two separate word combinations popped out at me from two different headlines. One was The Priceless Ingredient and the other Honor and Integrity. Instantly, the two came together in my mind and I knew I had the headline and the slant that solved the problem: The Priceless Ingredient of Every Product is the Honor and Integrity of its Maker. – Raymond Rubicam, Advertising Pioneer, 1959

The phrase, The Priceless Ingredient of Every Product is the Honor and Integrity of its Maker, became a permanent part of Squibb advertising and appears on everything bearing the Squibb name.

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One comment

  • Robin Taylor Roth

    March 6, 2009 at 4:11 pm

    It is wonderful to see that someone remembers the good, old advertising.

    Squibb also had an excellent logo, that actually meant something: the base was Research, the capstone was Integrity, the pillars included Purity (but I can’t remember the others).

    … Robin

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