American comedian and actor Bill Cosby was a popular spokesperson for advertising from the 1960sbefore his first starring television roleuntil the early 2000s. He started with White Owl cigars, and later endorsed the Jell-O frosty ice pop treats Pudding Pop, gelatin, Del Monte, Ford Motor Company, Coca-Cola (including New Coke), American Red Cross, Texas Instruments, E. F. Hutton & Co., Kodak, and the 1990 United States Census. , Cosby held the record for being the longest-serving celebrity spokesperson for a product, through his work with Jell-O. In 2011, he won the President's Award for Contributions to Advertising from the Advertising Hall of Fame. Cosby was one of the first black people to appear in the United States as an advertising spokesperson. He was known for his appeal to white consumers in the second half of the 20th century, in an industry seen as slow to accept diversity. In spite of making contradictory soft drink pitches and endorsing a disgraced financial company, he continued to be considered effective and believable. In the 1980s, studies found Cosby the "most familiar" and "most persuasive" spokesperson, to the point where Cosby attributed his wealth to these contracts, as opposed to his television series. Personality Anthony Tortorici, director of public relations at Coca-Cola, told Black Enterprise magazine in 1981 that the "three most believable personalities are God, Walter Cronkite, and Bill Cosby." At the peak of his advertising career in the mid-1980s, Cosby had a Q Score of 70, meaning that 70 percent of those responding to a survey of 1,000 United States residents thought highly of him, thus deeming him the most familiar and persuasive endorser. In 2003, industry publication Advertising Age said that "during [Cosby's] 14-year reign over the ad industry's public approval index [he had only been surpassed by] the Pope. In 2012, the separate Celebrity DBI index listed Cosby as second most-trusted celebrity on a list of celebrities people pay attention to on television, behind Morgan Freeman. Professionally, Coca-Cola advertising director John Bergin considered Cosby the company's "greatest weapon", stating that "magic happens when the camera starts." Bergin also noted, however, that he found Cosby to be "inconceivably arrogant", and mentioned "blow-ups" on the set. Cosby biographer Linda Etkin said that Cosby "comes across as a father figure, a teacher, and a friend" in his advertisements. William Turner, in 1982 the marketing manager for Texas Instruments' consumer products group, said that