We’re leading off with a story that was and still is one of the stories that inspired us to become who we are. It’s about a little boutique ad agency/think tank from the early 60’s set up in a hotel in New York City called Jack Tinker & Associates. These were not typical agency people, they were creative thinkers, if not outcasts.

Alka Seltzer came to this tiny shop with the goal of increasing sales. In those days (this is the very early 60s) Alka Seltzer was sold in a long glass tube with about 10 doses in pill form. People would take out a tablet, drop it in a glass of water, watch it fizz and drink it for relief.

A typical ad agency would have suggested more advertising to increase sales. Not Tinker. They repackaged the product into two tablet doses and created a new campaign: Plop plop, fizz fizz. Sales, as one might suspect, doubled.