ABSTRACT
The Ad Council of America was founded as the War Advertising Council in 1942, in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor.1 It is the group that has brought America some of its most powerful slogans, from the World War II “Loose Lips Sink Ships”2 to Smokey the Bear’s “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires,” to “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk.”3 The council is a private, nonprofit agency whose mission remains today as it was articulated in 1942:
To identify a select number of significant public issues and to stimulate action on those issues through communications programs which make a measurable difference in society.4
