Ads Archive
Selling the Classics
Print advertising, catalogues and television, from the 1920s to the Sign Boy years.
FootJoy sold the Classics on how they were made. The press advertising returns again and again to the same few claims: the number of steps in the making, the calfskin, the number of widths, and the count of professionals wearing them that week. The shoe is usually photographed alone, lit like jewellery, with the trophies left soft in the background.
In print
Print, 1982
Soft-Joys, 1982
Not the Classics but the soft leather line, offering 30 styles of Soft-Joys and a mini-catalogue of 249. The coupon address is Foot-Joy, Brockton, Massachusetts 02403.
Print, 1989
How Most Pros Got To Where They Are Today, 1989
The range at its height, set out in the copy: hand crafted in 162 steps, eight of ten professionals wearing them, and 48 styles across 193 sizes from AAAA to EEEE.
Television, 1987
FootJoy television commercial, 1987
A commercial from 1987, the year the Brockton factory was still turning out hundreds of thousands of pairs.
On television
Television, 1987
FootJoy television commercial, 1987
Watch on YouTubeA commercial from 1987, the year the Brockton factory was still turning out hundreds of thousands of pairs.
Elsewhere
Print, 1920s
Foot-Joy print advertising, 1920s
A run of early Foot-Joy advertisements held in a public archive, from the years when the brand was new and the line was “A shoe that’s different”.
Television, 1999 to 2005
The Sign Boy campaign, 1999 onwards
FootJoy’s best-known advertising, and the last of the Classics era. Arnold Worldwide created a standard-bearer who knew every shoe on tour and pestered the players about them. The comedian Matt Griesser played him, largely improvising, from January 1999 into the mid 2000s.
Catalogue, 1970
The 1970 catalogue
Brockton Footwear Inc.’s full range for 1970, scanned and preserved by David at vcleat.com. Plates from it appear throughout this site.