The back cover of the April 20 New Yorker showed a young boy with his mother surprising Dad with a carton of Chesterfield’s, which offered “all the benefits of smoking pleasure.” It was “taste not money” that counted for Marlboro’s, which were merely a penny or two more and came with a choice of plain ends, ivory tips or red beauty tips. At this time Marlboro’s was a ladies cigarette; the later transition to the Marlboro cowboy was a textbook case of successful rebranding. Ronson advertised its lighters, flints and lighter fluids.
An ad for Green Giant canned peas seemed to be out of place, more at home in a woman’s magazine than in the pages of the sophisticated New Yorker. Coca-Cola also ran a full page ad showing a family taking a break from spring housecleaning for “the pause that refreshes”; the ad notes that coke = coca cola. The ad for Yuban played on snob appeal, stating that because of limited supplies “not everyone can get Yuban,” which was available only at “finer stores.” The copy also tells readers that Yuban "once the private blend of America's largest coffee merchant....was made available to a select inner circle of true coffee lovers." Humorist and publisher Bennett Cerf and illustrator Norman Rockwell were among the celebrities listed as part of this inner circle but today “more and more discerning hostesses consider Yuban a major part of protocol in entertaining discriminating guests." Nescafe went for a lush illustration of an Oriental court by Arthur Szyk, a noted illustrator of the time and Polish refugee known for his anti-Nazi cartoons and illustrations of Jewish and Oriental themes.
New Yorker readers appear to have been a strong market for chocolate and candy including Maillards Fine Chocolates, available at all the better stores, Coffee-etts from Miss Saylor’s Chocolates of Alameda which would be available soon at your dealer and Allen’s Toffee. Louis Sherry offered chocolates, ice cream, preserves, bon-bons, tea and coffee at its Fifth Avenue shop in the Savoy Plaza at 59th Street. Pierre’s Rum Dainties were obtainable by mail order from Miami. You could also order aged cheese by mail from Swiss Colony in Wisconsin and pineapples fresh from Hawaii at the hefty price of $6.95 (about $75 in today’s money) for four from Trader Bob in Portland, Ore.