Capuchin.
France doesn’t have a Madison Avenue, but it sure has some enterprising Mad Ave type advertising people. At last year’s Cannes Lions advertising festival, some of them were unwilling to wait until consumers could read and write — or even walk on two feet — to start inducting them into their duties to Consume. So they got to work.
They prepared billboards aimed at selling products to pre-humans, in this case capuchin monkeys. One billboard had a giant shot of a female capuchin’s genitalia, the other of a somewhat less enthusiastic male. (Unfortunately we cannot display either ad in a family blog like this one.)
What they do not report is what commodity they were trying to get the monkeys to desire, but if this impels other advertisers to go after that untapped pre-human audience, we’ll be sure to let you know.
If you don’t know who Fowler Schocken is, take a look inside the covers of that grand old classic The Space Merchants, 
Robert Nowall says:
‘Bout time a new edition of “The Space Merchants” was available—actually I picked up a copy a while ago, but only had time to read—er, re-read—the intro and first chapter.
I must say some of the “contemporary” revisions in that chapter were disconcerting—referencing things that I know did not exist when it was first published, and some of ‘em maybe not even when I first read it—but I haven’t yet had time to fish out my old Ballantine paperback from the files to do a proper comparison.
Even with that, I’d recommend it to all students of the SF field.
August 16, 2012, 9:07 amLars says:
Yes, I’m surprised that it never got a Prometheus Grand Master award. After all, it depicts the triumph of libertarianism.
August 16, 2012, 3:14 pmミケ says:
The problem with advertising to monkeys is that it pays peanuts.
It’s spooky how relevant The Space Merchants continues to be. If that ain’t a timeless classic, I don’t know what is.
August 16, 2012, 3:58 pmGerhard Stoltz says:
Started reading The Space Merchants this summer. A really entertaining novel. It is dreadful in that cheery futuristic manner I know and love from many of your other novels. Thanks for them all!
August 17, 2012, 2:27 pmJay Borcherding says:
It seems to me that capuchin monkey genitals are, depending just slightly on context, appropriate to this blog. As your intent would not have been salacious, I think you could have chanced a possible backlash from the parents of the presumably rare-to-the-point-of-nonexistent fundamentalist tyke who reads this blog.
But I understand that such concerns are second-nature to a man in his 90′s, who spent most of his life without access to the vast troves of porn that are freely and easily available on the web.
August 17, 2012, 8:26 pmPatrick Walden says:
Harry Harrison passed away on Aug. 15th. Did you know him?
August 18, 2012, 7:35 pmPatrick Walden says:
https://www.triumf.info/wiki/pwalden/images/9/98/6635968041_fb9c93a8b3_o.jpg
Found this interesting illustration by Harry Harrison. It is accompanied by an article by your then spouse Judith Merril. It shows you being roasted on a spit while Judith stands by non-nonchalantly. Isaac Asimov is eagerly turning the spit while Philip Klass (William Tenn) is roasting a wiener in the fire. Is there a private joke going on here, or is it Harry Harrison’s flight of imagination?
August 19, 2012, 2:34 pmLamont Cranston says:
Ever seen the Australian program Gruen Transfer?
August 19, 2012, 8:31 pmhttp://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentransfer/
Advertising executives and marketers discussing with open frankness what they’re doing and their intentions and the ways in which they appeal to/manipulate people.
Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey says:
Patrick, that is a wonderful find! Thank you. Not many of us have access to back issues of Marvel Science Fiction.
(Did you know that Wikipedia does not have an article on the Hydra Club?)
August 22, 2012, 1:04 pmDana Gabbard says:
“Did you know that Wikipedia does not have an article on the Hydra Club?)”
I may work to rectify that…
August 29, 2012, 9:25 pm