Bell Telephone's late 1970s "Reach Out and Touch Someone" ad campaign rapidly achieved cliche status, so it can be easy to overlook how peculiar these commercials were: At their most basic level, they advertise the idea that talking to people is a thing worth doing, as if being social hadn't ever been possible before, and we needed to learn how to do it, and why.
Busy signals
Busy signals
Busy signals
Bell Telephone's late 1970s "Reach Out and Touch Someone" ad campaign rapidly achieved cliche status, so it can be easy to overlook how peculiar these commercials were: At their most basic level, they advertise the idea that talking to people is a thing worth doing, as if being social hadn't ever been possible before, and we needed to learn how to do it, and why.