The Cat Made Me Buy It!
Alice L. Muncaster and Ellen Yanow
Crown
Nonfiction, Art
Themes: Felines
****+
Description
Cats have always held a place in the public consciousness, associated with attributes good (cleanliness, stealth, cute kittenhood) and ill (witchcraft, deception, bad luck.) Naturally, advertizers have long sought to harness these ideas in their art, building some truly imaginative and memorable campaigns around cats. This collection covers popular feline-based advertisements from the late 1800's to the early part of the twentieth century. Full-color photographs are annotated with explanatory captions that list the company, details of the campaign, and the fate of the product advertised over the years. Aside from ads, cat-themed games and sheet music are pictured.
Review
I find this sort of thing interesting for some reason. I think it's the imagination that went into some of the old ad campaigns, back when you couldn't fall back on cheap tricks (sex, language, rude behavior, or off-the-shelf FX gimmicks) if you wanted your ad to stick in consumers' minds. The rating is based on other cat-collectible books I have; this one is one of the best, insofar as information and production value.