Convincing homemakers to swap butter and lard for a new fat created in a factory would be quite a task, so the new form of food needed a new marketing strategy. Never before had Procter & Gamble -- or any company for that matter -- put so much marketing support or advertising dollars behind a product. They hired the J. Walter Thompson Agency, America's first fullservice advertising agency staffed by real artists and professional writers. Samples of Crisco were mailed to grocers, restaurants, nutritionists, and home economists.
Procter & Gamble's claims about Crisco touching the lives of every American proved eerily prescient. The substance (like many of its imitators) was 50 percent trans fat, and it wasn't until the 1990s that its health risks were understood.
Drew Ramsey, MD & Tyler Graham - How Vegetable Oils Replaced Animal Fats in the American Diet