Stern Warning, created by Samuel Franco, was the first advertising campaign for The Howard Stern Show. The purpose of this campaign was to transform the image of Howard Stern, in the eyes of advertisers, from a crass shock jock to a crass shock jock that can deliver effective messages and provide priceless endorsements for some of America’s leading brands.

The ad depicts a female face with one half covered by a leather S&M mask and the other half swathed in a mud pack and cucumber eye-wrap. The reason behind featuring a female in the advertisement was to highlight Howard’s known affinity for talking about women on his show and to embrace the fact that close to 60% of Howard’s listeners are women.

The campaign was a resounding success and increased ad sales by over $15 million within two years.

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