The famous Hollywood sign was originally a real estate ad.
Gender color of pink
for boys and blue for girls was an early 1900s department
store way to advertise clothing colors. Customers did not like
the choice, so the store changed to blue for boys and pink for
girls.
Sweetest Day
tradition was started by a panel of candy company owners in
the early 1920s as a way to boost sales of candy. Contrary to
the notion that many people still think it was started by
greeting card companies.
Deodorants were not
used until Edna Murphey came along. She had an
antiperspirant/deodorant product that her father had used in
surgery, to keep his hands from sweating. She got the help of
an ad agency and started a marketing campaign to convince
people that being sweaty and smelly was absolutely the height
of social embarrassment. It worked.
Lobster was once
considered a poor person’s food. There was an overabundance of
it. Indentured servants complained about getting so much
lobster that rules were established limiting it to only three
meals per week.
As canneries on the
coasts became bigger and figured out how to send lobster
throughout the country. They began to market it as an exotic
delicacy. Before long, demand skyrocketed and the price did
also.