“If PT Barnum deserves his reputation as the greatest showman, it is not because he did things that have never been done before, but that he did them with greater energy and on a much greater scale than anyone else …

[Barnum wrote] ‘If my puffing was more persistent, my advertising more audacious, my posters more glaring, my pictures more exaggerated, my flags more patriotic, and my transparencies more brilliant, than under the management of my neighbours, it is not because I had less scruple than they, but rather more energy, far more ingenuity, and a better foundation for such promises’.”

Paul Feldwick, advertising legend