A number of famous novelists spent time in ad jobs—among them, F. Scott Fitzgerald (who worked at Barron Collier in New York, where he wrote the line, "We keep you clean in Muscatine"), Joseph Heller (once a copywriter for Merrill Anderson in New York) and Salman Rushdie (who logged seven years at Ogilvy London, after failing an interview test at J. Walter Thompson that supposedly included making up a jingle about seatbelts).
Those three authors are the subject of these amusing ads—showing client feedback on their famous novels—to promote a British fiction contest for advertising writers. "Write for yourself. Not for a client," say the ads.
Entries are closed for the 2015 Winston Fletcher Fiction Prize, unfortunately, but it is an annual thing. (You have to work in advertising, marketing or a related business to enter.) Check out the full ads below. Click the images to enlarge.
