Word: adman
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...agencies along Manhattan's Madison Avenue, the true test of a huckster's sincerity is the way he speaks the language. But it is not the English language as most people know it: it is the adman's jargon, which changes as fast as a sponsor's mind when the Hooperating slumps. An adman who wants to keep "with it" must change his vocabulary almost every week. Otherwise, he simply will not be considered an "acute citizen"; he just won't be "attuned." Last week the acute citizen had some sharp new phrases...
...office, once known as the "shop," is now the "foundry," "store" or "delicatessen." An adman attends "brainstorm sessions" instead of meetings; there, ideas are "pressure cooked," "housebroken," or merely "kicked around." And if no single idea is "bought"-that is, if nobody "gets any nourishment from it"-chances are a bunch of ideas will be "Burbanked," i.e., combined into a hybrid. At such high-level "spitballing sessions" it may be advisable to "pitch up a few mashie shots to see how close we are to the green." Then, having made sure that the scheme has sufficient "protein...
...successful adman nowadays must "get into the field"-even if it is only on a "one-man survey"-to "check the trade" and get an "on-the-ground approach" to the "big picture." That means, of course, both "sales-wise" and "production-wise." Then, having gotten a "fillin" (which is known in advertising circles as letting an outside dope in on the inside dope), he will be all set to "finalize his thinking" and "explode the market...
Nothing makes U.S. admen wince more than the huckster label which Adman-Novelist Frederic Wakeman hung on them like an albatross six years ago. Even Tide, an advertising trade paper, has often used the term. But in a recent editorial, Tide said it was doing its best to strike the offending word from its copy, sermonized that admen should help banish the term by not acting like hucksters...
Manhattan Adman Shepherd Mead is a 38-year-old vice president of Benton & Bowles, and a devoted follower of Britain's Stephen Potter, founder and master of Gamesmanship (how to win at games "without actually cheating") and Lifemanship. Mead's ploy is successmanship. In his new book, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Simon & Schuster; $2.50), he sets down a valuable list of plonks and gambits for the aspiring junior executive ("any male in an office who sits down...