The Instrument of the Immortals

Why it works

Steinway found advertising distasteful and did little of it, until a young N.W. Ayer copywriter, Raymond Rubicam, was handed the account. His research turned up the brand's real story: nearly every great pianist and composer since Wagner had played a Steinway. Rubicam distilled that into one phrase, "The Instrument of the Immortals," over an ad showing a Liszt-like figure at the keyboard. Steinway balked at the slogan but agreed to run the ad once; sales rose immediately, and the line became the theme of a campaign that ran for years in national magazines, later illustrated with paintings commissioned for the Steinway Collection. It is studied as a founding example of prestige positioning: selling a piano on the company it keeps rather than on its mechanics. Campaign credits it with a 70 percent rise in sales and calls it one of the most effective ads ever written. It made Rubicam's name; he co-founded Young & Rubicam in 1923. Ad Age ranked the campaign No. 71 of the century.