1886–1962 · American reporter, author & advertising executive — co-founder of BBDO
Roy S. Durstine was one of the founders of the advertising agency that became Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, and a prolific writer about the trade. By 1939 he had left to run his own shop, Roy S. Durstine, Inc. — the byline under which the 1945 article appeared. That piece is the earliest known appearance of this saying’s kernel, but he was quoting a client, not himself, and he pointedly did not give the man’s name.