Honors from the Art Directors Club positioned Hockaday Associates as a leader in creative advertising during the 1950s and early 1960s, with the awards celebrating conceptual ingenuity in campaigns like the Dunbar series and the Jantzen Smile Girl
Dunbar
The agency’s breakthrough successes was its 1953 campaign for Dunbar Furniture, which departed from conventional staged interiors. Bell placed pieces in surreal, outdoor environments evoking desire and modernity. A signature image featured an eight-foot sofa hauled to a green hill in New Milford, Connecticut, isolated against the landscape with the evocative copy “The long green hill of our desire,” sparking an industry trend toward location photography.[3] In subsequent ads Bell depicted Dunbar chairs in whimsical scenarios, such as perched in trees, amid unfinished skyscrapers, or arranged for a game of musical chairs, appearing in publications like The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, House Beautiful, and House & Garden. This approach not only boosted sales but influenced art directors to embrace outdoor shoots, even in urban parks like Central Park. In 1956, Hockaday edited and produced The Dunbar Book of Contemporary Furniture, a comprehensive catalog of Edward Wormley designs in William Bell photos that evolved into a key reference for decorators and architects.[9]
Just Wear a Smile
Bobbi remembers her dad thinking that this was one of his toughest assignments… not because he travelled the world, not because of the product… but because the smile girls were chosen on the basis of a photograph of a smile… and he had no idea of the bodies that came along with it. He, nevertheless, had to produce photos of attractively filled Jantzen swimsuits.