In the U.S. between the two World Wars, it would have been a rare advertising professional who did not know and respect the creative talents of "Obie" Winters. He was a prodigious craftsman.
Winters had a reverence for the language and a gift for translating it into captivating imagery. He made "Contented Cows" the hallmark of Carnation Milk and coined the terms "athlete's foot" and " humidor pack" for the cellophane wrap on Camel Cigarettes. He also convinced R.J. Reynolds that "I'd walk a mile for a Camel" would be a great selling line, which indeed it was.
House ads that Winters wrote for Erwin, Wasey, where he spent the majority of his professional career, are still revered as advertising classics. One of these, "Written After Hours" in 1922, was re-run annually for 20 years and appears in Julian Watkins' The One Hundred Greatest Advertisements.
Obie Winters' crowning achievement was the role he played in the founding of a great American corporation. It was an epochal document he wrote, "The Handwriting on the Wall," that persuaded twelve independent food companies to join together, forming General Foods Corporation.
Winters was a trailblazer. He influenced the careers of men who also went on to become titans of the profession, and created a quality of prose that elevated the craft into new standards of excellence. Advertising Age, in his obituary, called him "one of the greatest copywriters in the history advertising."