THE INTRODUCTION OF HUMOUR
INTO ADVERTISING
ANDRE IEGARD
There is no reason why humour
in advertising should not be con
sidered one day a form of ex
pression equal in interest to any
of the recognised literary or artistic
types. The wit of the young French
artist Grimault approaches that of
the finest humorists.
HAVE YOU EVER RECOGNIZED THE PATHOS THAT LIES
in the bands of men who seek their small destinies in
the streets of the great cities
They pass between their stone walls, unsettled and
futile, without even the nonchalant grace of a caravan of
camels, or the solid majesty of a troop of elephants for
whom it is pleasure enough to trample their native soil.
A herd of animals on the marchwild animals especi
allydoes present a picture of unity of a sort. Its
thoughts turn in the same direction; towards the river
for drinking, the field to be stripped, or to enjoy the
blood of its victims.
The man who walks so solitarily in the town is reduced
to his simplest elementshis body covered with hang
ing garments to which he clings because they do at least
hide from sight his small personal traitsand each man
lives in a circle of illusions which make his own par
ticular world.
The only thread which binds him to his fellows is this
community of illusions whose nature is constantly
changing.
This man forms an evil impression from the leg of a
woman whom he has just passed, which he saw through
a slit in her dress. He hastens to transfigure that leg,
which, by the morrow, appears through a slit in some
other dress. He must destroy the impression, by means
of wordsduty, spiritual love, intellectual passion.
He flies from the too-dazzling day. He engrosses him
self in his work. Pictures unroll before him. Kipik
Sauce, such a tasty condiment; the cow which laughs;
Napoleon and his laxative; the Gueriton shoe; the 227
"smeldur," andreappearing endlessly with the
telegraph posts along the railway lines"Du Bo, Du
Bon, Du Bonnet."
These pictures pass by with the speed of thought,
followed by imperious reminders. It seems to me that
if a man was conscious all the time of his interior
appetites he would experience just such a vertigo as
this.
Therefore man, unhappy animal, needs to be distracted
from his own sensations. Far away there are trees,
clouds, stars. But between them and himself there are
walls. So he looks at the walls.
Stockezfor health! Go!
Two young men, leaning forward in their eagerness,
are running towards their week-end by the shore.
He frowns. He mumbles over the bitter words "Go!"
He knows he will never go. His life is enclosed in a
continuous cycle of 365 days, not one of them very
different from another.
With what a disillusioned eye does he not therefore
contemplate these posters which tempt him away from
his daily job, and which they only serve to make more
distasteful!
He dives into his newspapersupreme refuge of
miserable humanity during the years 1936 and
onwards.
If there is a page illustrated with photographs he goes
straight for it; still more eagerly if that page also
carries some humorous drawings.
It is the beginning of his cure. An attraction of which
publicity men ought to make a profit.
Let them watch, in the Underground, the traveller who
has just bought his "literary" daily paper. After a
hasty glance over all its pages he settles down first to
