In 1969, when the feminist movement was still building in America and the female executive was an extremely rare breed, Imperial felt comfortable aiming its advertising almost exclusively at successful businessmen. The sense was that it was the well-off man who made the decision to purchase a luxury automobile, so Imperial ads primarily ran in sober-minded journals like Fortune, The New Yorker, and Time. "Expense is not the only measure of prestige," posited one ad. Another piece, showing a man with his daughter, seemed to want to grab the reader by the lapels of his business suit and make him face the responsibilities of manhood: "A man doesn't buy a luxury car for himself alone," it insisted.
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