 “The executive branch of government was active as well.Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all sent consumer messages to Congress.The position of special assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs, the Office of Consumer Affairs, the Consumer Advisory Council and the Committee on Consumer Interests were all established in that period.” Noted Zanot, “the sheer amount of consumer protection activity at the federal level during the 1960s and 1970s far surpassed that of any other period in U.S. history.” Leaders within the advertising industry were urging the development of a self-regulatory mechanism that could help calm what Zanot described as “a gathering storm of consumerism.”

In his monograph, Zanot reported that Howard Bell, then-president of the AAF American Advertising Federation and current chairman of the NARB, “became a catalyst in the development of new self-regulatory measures.”
Zanot also excerpted a speech delivered in September 1970 by the late Victor Elting, Jr., then-chairman of the AAF, at a meeting of the Chicago Advertising Club.