vintage national geographic ads of the day

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Vintage Ad #1,594: Caterpillar Discusses Forests

Anyone following the saga of Caterpillar's decisions to first ask its workers in London, Ontario to take a 50 percent pay cut, then close the plant may find dark humour in the ads we're spotlighting today. Back in the late 1970s, Caterpillar portrayed itself as a good corporate citizen interested in spurring debate on environmental and public infrastructure issues. A long series of ads in National Geographic explored topics ranging from road maintenance to water pollution. The tag line on all of them—"There are no simple solutions. Only intelligent choices"—probably sounds like a sick joke to those who lost their jobs in London.


There are a dozen more ads in this series on my Flickr feed.

Source: National Geographic, June 1977

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