Early Life and Start in Advertising
Born the son of Baptist Preacher in Virginia, he briefly attended The University of Virginia until he was expelled for drunkenly crashing a friend's car during the Prohibition era. Luckily he had just won one hundred dollars as a prize for a state-wide chemistry contest that served as his final exam for first year Chem 101. While other students wrote novel chemical formula as their submission, Reeves, by virtue of not knowing anything about chemistry having spent the semester drinking, dancing and gambling, blithely submitted an essay titled "Better Living Through Chemistry". He would later use this title for DuPont Corporation campaign. The one hundred dollars was enough money to move to Richmond where he was hired at a new bank that was hiring young contest winners. Finding that he was horrible at accounting but verbally gifted, he began writing advertisements. He soon moved to New York City to found Ted Bates & Co with Ted Bates.
Read more about this topic: Rosser Reeves
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