the Shattuck: a better ad than any agency
These guys are always 25–30 and look 45–60 and are a better ad for sobriety at any cost than any ad agency could come up with.
Context
Landing twenty pages after 087's epic of actual ad agencies, the line quietly relocates persuasion from copy to bodies. Sincerity's advertisement for sobriety isn't a campaign — it's the wrecked men Gately recognizes from his using days, "a better ad… than any ad agency could come up with." No slogan, no V&V cynicism-perfected: just the single-entendre fact of the ruin, which argues more honestly than anything the professionals could manufacture. (Cross-ref 087.)