The Shackleton expedition recruitment ad (re-created here) is often mentioned as the earliest example of creative copywriting generating an overwhelming response. But is it any more than a promotional gimmick?

Re-creating a re-creation

There are no contemporary or later references to any advertisement, even in two exhaustive biographies of Ernest Shackleton by Hugh Robert Mill (1923) or Margery & James Fisher (1959).

The first recorded mention is in a 1948 book, “The 100 greatest advertisements”, edited by an American copywriter Julian Watkins and he only vaguely cites the Times newspaper.

Nobody has ever found an original and many people now think Watkins wrote it himself to increase sales of his book (and demonstrate his craft).

The truth is that Shackleton did receive 5,000 responses, but to a rather prosaic letter in the Times (on Dec 27, 1913) announcing the expedition

“Sir,

It has been an open secret for some time past that I have been desirous of leading another expedition to the South Polar regions.

I am glad now to be able to state that, through the generosity of a friend, an expedition will start next year with the object of crossing the South Polar continent from sea to sea.

Yours faithfully, 
ERNEST H. SHACKLETON.”

It worked, but no D&AD or IPA effectiveness award and certainly no advertising Hall of Fame immortality. So which is the more successful – the ‘ad’ that achieved its sales objective and was instantly forgotten, or the one that probably never even existed but created a powerful brand identity and still captures the imagination 100 years later?