Chocolat Klaus

Why it works

A green-clad rider on a scarlet horse, a black void and the brand name: nothing in Leonetto Cappiello's poster depicts chocolate, and that was the point. Working through the Paris printer and advertising agent Vercasson, Cappiello abandoned the detailed, painterly manner of Chéret and Mucha for a single bold, faintly absurd figure meant to catch a passer-by's eye from far away. Within weeks, his catalogue raisonné says, all of Paris knew the brand, and shoppers asked for "the red-horse chocolate" rather than for Klaus by name; Cappiello wrote in 1907 that the results were so conclusive that clients stopped resisting his formula. It is studied as the moment the poster stopped illustrating the product and started selling an association: Poster House credits it with introducing the mascot to advertising and notes that Cappiello is known as the father of modern advertising. Klaus kept the image on its chocolate bars until around 2000.