Back then, it was an important aspect of ads that they were self-contained, pleasing stories. They sold products by becoming a cultural reference. Also, the rat

Back then, it was an important aspect of ads that they were self-contained, pleasing stories. They sold products by becoming a cultural reference. Also, the rather abstract, but still charming scene (the girl walking by the chairs, and wandering on) not only adds to the development of the story, but also adds a style and production value, which not only separates the spot from what came before and what came after, but which – at the best of times – becomes also associated with the product. It's probably the essential pivot of the spot, establishing style, pace, and mood, and by this claim. Showing the copier running for a minute in real-time couldn't have achieved any of this, and it wouldn't have conveyed a great message either, when there were already wet process offset copiers running 50, maybe even 150 copies a minute. Also mind that these wet processes were much more complex, requiring specialist jobs, organisation, etc., something that the story, namely, "a little girl does it on her own in a minute", brings home.