As the flipside to my posting of Orson Welles' insult-spewing copywriter-loathing, it turns out Hemingway didn't share his contempt for marketing.
Just read an interesting review of a new book with Hemingway notes, letters and other 'sidecar material'; I remember seeing Hemingway in a few ads, but always just thought it was of the "Bill Murray shooting commercials in Lost in Translation"-variety. Never realized that he actually wrote the copy for most of those ads, blurps etc.
Though the review has a slightly different focus, it does offer a few nice examples of how "brilliant writer" trumps "decent writer/excellent strategy department". Like these Ballantine-lines:
"You have to work hard to deserve to drink it. When something has been taken out of you by strenuous exercise, Ballantine puts it back in."
Or my favourite, an otherwise utterly mundane job of advertising a specific balancing act in the Ringling Bros circus:
"In your dreams you watch Unus standing on one finger and you think, 'Look at such a fine, intelligent and excellent man making his living standing on one finger when most of us can't even stand on our feet.'"
That? cannot be topped.
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