My Former Life As Peggy Olson

And the Surprising History of a Pickle Gift Pin

Jun 06, 2023

Heinz Ad, circa 1900. Photo: Getty Images

When I went home to Long Island after college in 1976, I had two goals: get a job in the city and move to Manhattan.

The job was as a secretary at a Madison Avenue ad agency and the apartment was a $400-a-month one-bedroom on East 55th Street that I shared with my college and now lifelong friend, Eileen.

Our place was right down the block from P.J. Clarke’s, which was convenient, since it was a popular watering hole for ad men and women.

Back at the agency, creative teams blew past my desk, carrying storyboards into the Account Exec’s office while I typed outside a closed door.

Smoking was allowed and there was a bar upstairs.

Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson in Mad Men. Photo: Doug Hyun/AMC

My year as a secretary on Madison Avenue happened more than a decade after one of my favorite television characters, Peggy Olson, was portrayed joining the fictional shop Sterling Cooper as a secretary in 1960. So much of that show, Mad Men, resonated with me. In fact, BBDO, the agency where I worked, was often mentioned in the series.

There was still enough of a ‘60’s hangover and lingering smoke from those earlier advertising days to waft in, creating a portal for the ‘70’s.
This was heady stuff for this 22-year-old English major from Islip.

There was also progress happening for women in the workplace — and at the fictional Sterling Cooper.

A talented and smart Junior Account Exec, just a few years older than I was, took me under her wing. Dorothy would routinely check my work before I presented it and help me if I needed it, including changing the correction tape on my IBM Selectric. She’d started as a secretary herself.

And by the 1970’s at Sterling Cooper, Peggy Olson was a Boss.

Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson. Photo: AMC/Mad Men

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It was with amused wistfulness that these memories surfaced for me the other day.

While doing research on the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, I found an account of “A big idea” —an advertising and marketing coup that changed the course of business for a now iconic food brand.

The story reminded me of a quote from David Ogilvy, the man often called the “Father of Advertising”:

Big ideas are usually simple ideas.
— David Ogilvy from Confessions of an Advertising Man, 1963

It’s one of my favorite insights from Ogilvy, not just for business but for living.

Ogilvy, by the way, apprenticed in the kitchens of the famed Hotel Majestic in Paris and credited what he learned about running a successful business from his time working as part of the kitchen brigade for Monsieur Pitard, the executive chef.

But first and foremost, Ogilvy was a brilliant copywriter.

Growing up in Guildford, Ogilvy and his family lived in a house once owned by Lewis Carroll; in fact, it’s the house where Carroll died. If you’ve been reading my posts for a while you know of my freakish devotion to Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, so this bit of information gave me a real kick.

What muses inhabit the air in that house?

A Big Idea at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair

The H.J. Heinz Booth, 1893. Photo: Heinz Historical Center

The big and simple idea I found in my research comes from the the H. J. Heinz booth which was tucked away on the second floor of the huge Agriculture Pavilion at the Fair. People weren’t walking upstairs and the then struggling Heinz company needed foot traffic.

Heinz hired people to give out tags to the fairgoers on the first floor, promising a small gift and some food samples if they made the trip upstairs.

It worked.

The big idea was a tiny pickle gift charm that could be put on a key chain or watch chain. Over one million people went home with them all over the country. They are still sold at the Heinz History Center and, according to the site, became an ‘advertising staple’.

The original Pickle Charm. Photo: Henry Ford Museum

This simple idea changed the course of the fair for Henry J. Heinz and way he thought about getting eyes on his products.

This is the original caption for the photo below, via Getty Images:

An early Heinz wagon reflects the interest of the company’s founder, H. J. Heinz, in advertising.
He originated the slogan “57 Varieties” and maintained a lifelong belief that advertising was a powerful selling tool.
Typical of his innovations is the “Heinz Pickle Pin.”

I can only imagine that the fictional ad man extraordinaire of Mad Men, Don Draper, would have approved of this campaign. Echoing David Ogilvy’s sentiments, Draper’s wisdom holds up:

Make it simple, but significant.
—Don Draper, season 4, episode 6, Mad Men/AMC

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A Pickle Martini

Peggy Olson loved a Brandy Alexander, Don Draper always ordered an Old Fashioned, but Sterling Cooper’s Roger Sterling’s tipple of choice was a Martini.

So in the spirit of the Heinz Pickle Pin, and since I’m seeing Pickle Martinis everywhere online, why not have worlds collide and make a Dirty Pickle Martini?

For my Pickle Martini I used 4 ounces of Grey Goose Vodka and a splash of dill pickle juice.

Put ingredients in cocktail shaker with ice and shake 30 times, around 10-15 seconds, till the shaker starts to get cold and frost.

I put the tiniest splash of dry white vermouth in a Martini glass, swirled it and spilled it out.

Pour contents of shaker into your Martini glass and add a small, skewered dill pickle.

And with that, I raise my glass to all of my Secretary-Sisters from the 1960’s and ‘70’s. Cheers! 🍸

More Big Ideas

Every Monday I truly look forward to receiving the newsletter Noted by Jillian Hess . Jillian shares the notebooks, sketchbooks and diaries of some of the world’s most creative minds. They come alive via her engaging and extensively researched posts. Link Below.