From the Archives 71: Ad Council, How High is your E.Q.? (1977)

In 1977, the Department of Commerce and the Advertising Council published a booklet titled "The American Economic System...and Your Part In It," which was distributed for free to anyone who wanted a copy. The booklet is available here. Naturally, the Ad Council also prepared a massive advertising campaign for the economics education program, which the New York Times described here. I found this quotation from the launch party quite amusing:Another supporter of the free enterprise system, Mayo J. Thompson, a former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, was on the program this morning. And he quickly won the hearts of his listeners by attacking in a fine Texas drawl the Eastern lawyers who were on the F.T.C. staff. Speaking of that staff he said, “I think that the dominant attitude is that capitalism is not quite as respectable as it ought to be . . . the suspicion lingers that the whole business of making profits is morally tainted.”Mr. Thompson, now a partner in the law firm of Akin, Gump, Stauss, Hauer & Feld, portrayed the staff as being made up of people overwhelmed by the belief of truth in advertising. The former commissioner, however, believes in the “harmless untruth.”“Common sense tells nonlawyers that, unless a false and deceptive advertisement results in a dollar loss to the consumers, no harm has been done and the whole matter should be dumped in the nearest round file,” he said.Maintaining also that advertising within certain bounds should also be given freedom of speech protection of the First Amendment he said: “if politicians and journalists were held to the F.T.C.'s absolute truth standards, for example, the presses would grind to a halt in a matter of hours and the airways would fall silent in a flash of blue smoke.”For that he received his loudest round of applause.In any case, the Ad Council also published this 7" record titled "How High is Your E.Q.?," with an assortment of PSAs for the booklet. I especially like the "attorney" and "professor" ones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.