The Man in the Hathaway Shirt
C.F. Hathaway1951
The Man in the Hathaway Shirt is a 1951 print campaign for C.F. Hathaway, created by Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, New York.
Why it works
A 50-cent drugstore eyepatch that built an agency empire. On the way to a 1951 photo shoot for a small Maine shirtmaker with a $30,000 budget, David Ogilvy bought some eyepatches and asked the photographer to shoot a few frames "to humour me." The patch gave an ordinary shirt ad what Ogilvy called "story appeal" — who is this man, and what happened to his eye? The first insertion in The New Yorker cost $3,176; within a week every Hathaway shirt in New York had sold. The campaign ran for decades, eventually dropping the brand name entirely because the eyepatch alone identified it. Ranked No. 22 on Ad Age's campaigns of the century, it is studied as the founding demonstration of intrigue as a selling device — and the ad that made Ogilvy famous.
Techniques
- Storytelling A simple eyepatch gives an ordinary shirt ad story appeal, making readers wonder who the man is and what happened to his eye.
- Mascots and characters The same patched man recurs for decades until the eyepatch alone identifies the brand without its name.
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