Often cited as the pioneer of TV advertising, he insisted that an advertisement or commercial should show off the value of a product, not the cleverness of a copywriter.
Though my own writing voice tends toward the ironical, cleverness was not the right note for the title of a book about the life and afterlife of a country girl who, though far from corn-pone, was more Branson than Brooklyn.
Even in law school, perhaps the place more than any other where sheer cleverness is prized and love of argument for its own sake is fundamental to the culture, he was not much interested in academic jousting.