The Penalty of Leadership
Cadillac1915
The Penalty of Leadership is a 1915 full-page magazine advertisement (The Saturday Evening Post) for Cadillac.
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The line
The Penalty of Leadership
Why it works
A car advertisement that never mentions the car. In 1915 Cadillac had just put the first V-8 into a production automobile, and its copywriter Theodore MacManus answered the doubters not with specifications but with an essay. Set as an all-text page in The Saturday Evening Post of 2 January 1915, with no picture of the product, it argues that whoever leads in any field, from painting to music to industry, is attacked precisely because they lead, and closes: "That which deserves to live — lives." It ran once. Cadillac then spent some thirty years answering requests for reprints, and a framed copy hung in Elvis Presley's office at Graceland. It is studied as an early masterpiece of image advertising: positioning a brand as the standard others envy instead of listing its features. Hemmings counts it among the most prominent car ads of its decade and a forerunner of the emotive automobile copy of the 1920s.
Techniques
- Ethos An essay arguing that leaders are always attacked casts the brand as the standard others envy, without describing the car.
- Glittering generalities Lofty ideas about leadership and what deserves to live replace any specifics, persuading through noble sentiment alone.
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