“You’ve come a long way, baby.” For some readers, that reference is instantaneously recognized as a proverb of women’s liberation that, odd as it may seem, was the brainchild of Madison Avenue and crafted as the tagline of a then-new cigarette brand marketed to women in 1968.
While smoking may no longer be chic — according to the CDC, in 1970, about 33% of adult women smoked; today, that number has dropped to 11% — the catchphrase developed by Leo Burnett for Virginia Slims still captures the zeitgeist of women ascendency.